Jordan Peterson on antisemitism as a canary in the coalmine

I'm also more sensitive to any signs of antisemitic catastrophe from studying the Holocaust for the length of time that I did.  I've always regarded Jews as the canary in the coalmine and I think the reason that the Jews are the canary in the coalmine is because they're a successful minority.  If a culture can tolerate a successful minority, it's pretty damn robust and it's not very resentful.  And as soon as a culture starts to get resentful, the Jews make an easy target...

~ Jordan Peterson, interview with Piers Morgan, Piers Morgan Uncensored, 4:20 mark, November 3, 2023

CJPME on British policy on Jewish immigration to Palestine from 1919 to 1948

What was the British policy on Jewish immigration? 

British policy regarding Jewish immigration into Palestine evolved during the mandate period, as did the Jewish European response to it. 

A policy favouring it from 1919 to 1930: The British were in favour of the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine.  The first Zionists, under the Ottoman Empire, had been able to establish themselves in the country under the protection of foreign consulates, notably British ones.  Nonetheless, in the wake of the increase in immigration during the 20th century’s first decades, Arab Palestinians began pressuring Great Britain, which found itself in the political crossfire.  From the 1930s on, the British authority began providing fewer immigration certificates than there was a demand for.  But the real change in policy took place in 1939. 

Restrictions and criminalisation of Jewish immigration to Palestine from 1939 on: In an attempt to mollify the Arab Palestinian population, Great Britain emitted in 1939 a “white paper” restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine to 75,000 people over five years and limiting the purchase of land by Jews.  The creation of an independent Arab state within 10 years was also intended.  However, the policy did not really slow Jewish immigration, because it opened the door to illegal immigration at a moment when the persecution of Jews in Europe was only intensifying. Until WWII began, and even after, tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine.  Despite the interception of some ships by the British, many immigrants were able to establish themselves in Palestine. 

The immigrants also found out how to establish themselves in Palestine thanks to gaps in the British system of regulation.  For example, given that students were not obliged to have an immigration certificate to study in Palestine, many people enrolled at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem then remained in the country. Some young women entered the country declaring fictitious marriages to Palestinians.  Still others arrived as tourists and never left.  In the end, between 1939 and 1948, 118,228 Jews reached Palestine, despite the British restrictions. 

After the war, Great Britain jailed thousands of the illegal immigrants in detention camps in Cyprus.  This attempt to staunch immigration failed, and Britain was reproached for it in the post-Holocaust context.

~ Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, "Jewish Immigration to Historical Palestine," CJPME Factsheet 181, November, 2013

CJPME on the increase in Jewish immigration to Palestine after World War I

Why did Jewish immigration increase again after WWI?

Stronger immigration: The third and fourth aliyot brought 35,000 Jews from the Soviet Union, Poland and the Baltic countries between 1919 and 1923, and 82,000 Jews from the Balkans and the Near Orient between 1924 and 1931, respectively.  By the end of 1931, 174,600 Jews were living in Palestine, 17 percent of the population.  During this period, 15 percent of the transoceanic Jewish migration was to Palestine.  There were many reasons for this surge in migration.

The Balfour Declaration: At the end of WWI, the Ottoman Empire was dismantled and Palestine came under the British mandate.  Great Britain was in favour of establishing a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.  In a letter written in 1917, Lord Balfour expressed this agreement, with the proviso that “… nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine ...”.  The Balfour Declaration gave a legal basis for Jewish immigration, thus encouraging it. 

The rise of anti-Semitism and Nazism: The increase in anti-Semitism in Europe led many Jews again to leave their countries.  At the same time, the US Immigration Act of 1924 would greatly slow immigration from Europe by setting strict quotas per country.  Diverse limitations on immigration were also implemented in Europe.  This also explains in part Jewish migrants’ choice of Palestine.  From 1932 on, with the Nazi victory in Germany and the intensification of persecution in Austria and Czechoslovakia, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased dramatically.  Between 1932 and 1939, Palestine absorbed 247,000 newcomers, 46 percent of Jewish emigration from Europe.  In the European political context, this fifth aliya constituted a flight rather than a “Zionist choice.”

~ Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, "Jewish Immigration to Historical Palestine," CJPME Factsheet 181, November, 2013

CJPME on the beginning of Jewish immigration to Palestine

When did Jewish immigration to historical Palestine begin? 

An ancient community: There was already an indigenous Jewish population in Palestine during the Ottoman Empire and before.  Its members were concentrated principally in the holy cities of Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberias and Hebron.  Nonetheless, the Jewish presence in Palestine, prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, had fluctuated through time, with various communities appearing and disappearing.  Regardless, in 1880, before immigration began, Palestine’s Jewish population numbered about 25,000, and had been deeply rooted there for several generations. 

The beginning of Zionism and immigration: The beginning of modern, national-minded Jewish immigration coincides with the foundation of the modern Zionist movement. Zionism as a political movement is conventionally dated to 1882.  Small groups of Jews dispersed through Europe began to cooperate to establish agricultural colonies in historical Palestine.  These groups met officially for the first time in 1897, for the first Zionist conference, in Basel, Switzerland. 

The first two waves of immigration took place under the Ottoman Empire.  The first aliya, between 1882 and 1903, brought 20,000 to 30,000 Russians fleeing Czarist Russia’s pogroms. Between 1903 and 1914, during the second aliya, 35,000-40,000 more Russians, most of them socialists, established themselves in Palestine.  The newcomers were very active in the building of Tel-Aviv and also founded kibbutzim (collective villages). 

Marginal immigration: This immigration remained small relative to both the total Palestinian population and the other destinations of the migrants.  In fact, on the eve of WWI, the 80,000 Jews of Palestine constituted only a tenth of the country’s total population. Moreover, Jewish immigration to Palestine constituted only 3 percent of the transoceanic Jewish migration during that period.  By way of comparison, of the 2,367,000 Jews who left Europe then, 2,022,000 established themselves in the US.

With WWI and the subsequent famine, Palestine’s total population dropped.  Its Jewish community now numbered only 60,000.

~ Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, "Jewish Immigration to Historical Palestine," CJPME Factsheet 181, November, 2013

CJPME on Jewish immigration to Israel after 1948

Has immigration been promoted after the creation of the State of Israel?

After the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, all limitations on Jewish immigration were lifted, which triggered a large influx of migrants and displaced persons after WWII.  The State of Israel also passed the Law of Return, under which any Jewish person has the right to immigrate to Israel. 

The newcomers came from Europe, counties in the Near East, and the Maghreb.  Jews in Arab countries, such as Iraq, faced growing public hostility because of the conflict in Palestine and later as a result of Israel’s creation at Palestinian Arabs’ expense.  Fearing for their security, most Arab Jews eventually chose to emigrate, in response to hostile Arab governments and encouragement by Israeli representatives and agents who were eager to bring them to Israel.  This combination of factors led to the nearly total disappearance of ancient Jewish communities in the Near East and Maghreb.  Immigration leapt again in 1989-90, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the opening of borders in Eastern Europe.

Today: In total, the State of Israel has absorbed 3.1 immigrants since its creation, 1 million of them between 1990 and 1999.  The State of Israel has in fact strongly encouraged Jewish immigration with the objective of ensuring that the majority of Israel’s population remains Jewish, despite Arab Israelis’ high birthrate.  Today, however, large-scale immigration is almost non-existent, with many residents leaving the country.

~ Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East, "Jewish Immigration to Historical Palestine," CJPME Factsheet 181, November, 2013

Frédéric Bastiat on the "people are no good" premise

The claims of these organizers of humanity raise another question which I have often asked them and which, so far as I know, they have never answered: If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good?  Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race?  Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?

~ Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

1850

Fred Hickey on troubles in commercial real estate

As we all know by now, March brought a new banking crisis, as many banks have huge losses lurking on their balance sheets...  Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and Credit Suisse all collapsed, and depositors were rescued using various means in order to forestall panic...  These regional banks also have huge exposure to the reeling commercial real estate (CRE) market, where vacancies are already nearing 2009 recession levels thanks to overbuilding and the remote work trend - even before a recession hits.  An estimated $1.5 trillion in CRE debt comes due over the next three years.  It's not just banks that are in trouble.  Insurance companies and pension funds have experienced large portfolio losses and some will have trouble meeting obligations.

~ Fred Hickey, The High-Tech Strategist, April 3, 2023

Avi Shlaim on how the Six-Day War transformed the IDF

Israeli generals speak about their operations in Gaza as "mowing the lawn."  This is a very grim metaphor and in any case a very curious way of bringing about peace with the Palestinians.  I served in the IDF in the mid-1960s and I served loyally and proudly because in my time the IDF was true to its name.  It was the Israel Defense Forces.  But as a result of the occupation, the IDF was transformed into the brutal police force of a brutal colonial power.

~ Professor Avi Shlaim, "Prof. Avi Shlaim - Hamas is Not a Greater Obstacle to Peace Than Israel," OxfordUnion, 8:40 mark, April 29, 2015

Avi Shlaim on the Israel-Palestine peace process under Benjamin Netanyahu

The peace process is a charade.  It's all process and no peace.  It's worse than a charade because it gives Israel just the cover that it needs to pursue its aggressive colonial project on the West Bank.  The present government is hellbent on settlement expansion and settlement expansion is theft.  Land grabbing and peace making don't go together.  It's one or the other.  And by its actions, if not by its words, this government has opted for land grabbing.

This government has accelerated Jewish settlement in and around occupied Arab East Jerusalem in defiance of international law.  This government continues to build the wall on the West Bank.  It calls it a security barrier and it claims that its purpose security.  But a much more important purpose of the wall is land grabbing.  The wall is illegal.  Maybe good fences make good neighbors, but not when the fence is built in the middle of the neighbor's garden.

So Netanyahu is like the man who pretends to be negotiating the division of the pizza while he keeps eating it.  There is no Palestinian leader, however moderate, who is prepared to make peace on these ludicrous terms.

~ Professor Avi Shlaim, "Prof. Avi Shlaim - Hamas is Not a Greater Obstacle to Peace Than Israel," OxfordUnion, 3:30 mark, April 29, 2015

Benny Morris on the Six-Day War

The ultimate consequence is that, paradoxically, the war both contributed to advancing towards peace with the Arabs as well as undermining the peace between Israel and the Arabs. 

On the one hand it contributed to peace because it was so decisive that it persuaded the Arab regimes that Israel couldn’t be beaten militarily, and it gave Israel the bargaining chips in terms of land it could give in Sinai for peace with the Egyptians.  On the other hand it gave rise in Israel to a messianic rightwing expansionism and ideology that had not really existed before 1967.  Once Israel took over the West Bank and more and more settlements were built, these became a major obstacle that worked against peace.

~ Benny Morris, visiting professor of Israel studies at Georgetown University and author of 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War

(As quoted in The Guardian, "The six-day war: why Israel is still divided over its legacy 50 years on," May 20, 2017.)

2008

Avi Shlaim: "Zionism lost its way" after the Six-Day War

[Although Shlaim agrees that it was a defensive war, he argues that – in the ease of the victory and in the national sense of joy – opportunities were lost, not least for a wider peace.]

Zionism lost its way in 1967, that’s the crucial thing.  The main aim of the Zionist movement before the war was the establishment of an independent Jewish state in Palestine.  But by the eve of the war that objective had already been achieved.  The victory in 1967 reopened the old question of the territorial aims of Zionism. 

And the two trends that emerged cut across party lines... the big division after 1967 was between those who accepted the division of Palestine as a solution and those saying the West Bank was an integral part of the land of Israel.  And in an Israeli society split down the middle, the government resolved the dilemma by deciding not to decide.

~ Avi Shlaim, author of The Iron Wall, an acclaimed study of Israel’s military policies

(As quoted in The Guardian, "The six-day war: why Israel is still divided over its legacy 50 years on," May 20, 2017.)

2000

Gideon Levy on the Six-Day War

From the military point of view, it was indeed a "glorious" war, which was seen as justified.  But it was also a war that generated a fundamental transformation in Israeli society.  It led to the growth of unbridled national arrogance, which exacted an awful price in blood over the past 50 years and turned the military victory into a moral defeat.  In retrospect, it should be called the 50 Year War, not the Six-day war, and judging by the political situation, its life expectancy appears endless.

I think most Israelis will be quite indifferent.  It is a society in denial.  It is a society totally preoccupied with private affairs.  No one but the settlers will celebrate.  But, also, no one will mourn.  In that respect, Gush Etzion is the right place to mark it, because only settlers will feel the day.  In Tel Aviv, people couldn’t care less and no artificial effort by the government can change that.

~ Gideon Levy, Haaretz, April 7, 2017

(As quoted in The Guardian, "The six-day war: why Israel is still divided over its legacy 50 years on," May 20, 2017.)

Murray Rothbard on collective security and the Middle East crisis

We cannot fully understand the nature of the crisis in the Middle East by just following today’s and yesterday’s headlines.  There are far deeper and longer lasting factors at work than merely who commands the Strait of Tiran or who is responsible for the latest border skirmish in the Gaza Strip.  The first thing that we as Americans should be concerned about is the absurdity of the fundamental foreign policy position of the U.S. government.  This is a doctrine that the United States first adopted, to its woe, in the late 1930s and has clung to ever since: the doctrine of “collective security.”  The collective security thesis assumes that, at whatever moment of time one happens to be in, the territorial distribution of States on the world’s surface is just and proper.  Any forcible disturbances of any governmental boundary anywhere, then, automatically becomes “aggression” which must be combated either by all other nations or by the United States itself, acting as “world policeman.” 

In short, the whole thesis of collective security that has guided American policy for thirty years rests on a ridiculous analogy from private property and the function of police in defending that property.  Mr. Jones owns the property; it is then certainly not absurd to say that he has an absolute moral right to that property and that, therefore, any invasion of that property by force is immoral and unjust.  It is also not absurd, then, to say that it is just for Mr. Jones’s property to be defended by some form of police (whether public or private is not here at issue). 

But surely it is worse than absurd to leap from this concept of just private property to say that a State’s territory is equally just, proper, and sacrosanct, and that therefore any invasion of that State’s self-acclaimed territory is just as wicked as invasion of private property and deserves to be defended by some form of “police.”  All State territory, without exception in history or in any part of the world, was obtained, not by legitimate voluntary productive means such as used by Mr. Jones or his ancestors, but by coercion and violent conquest.  Therefore no one allocation of territory — certainly no allocation of territory that happens to exist at any moment of time — is ipso facto proper and just and deserving of any form of defense. If, in Year 1, Ruritania grabs part of the territory of Waldonia by force, then surely it is nonsensical for the United Sates or some other group to step in with righteous indignation when, in Year 5, Waldonia tries to grab that territory back.  Yet this is precisely what is implied in the whole theory on which the United Nations is grounded, and in the U.S. foreign policy to “guarantee the territorial integrity of all the nations in the Middle East.” 

Basic to the current crisis in the Middle East is the fact that such Israeli territory as the port of Elath, and indeed the entire Negev desert area surrounding Elath, which is now a big bone of contention between Israel and the Arab powers, was grabbed by force from the Arabs by Israel in 1948.  For the US, then, to go to war to “defend the territorial integrity” of Israel in the Negev would be, on this and on many other grounds, the height of folly.

~ Murray Rothbard, "The Middle East Crisis," 1967

(As appeared in Never a Dull Moment: A Libertarian Look at the Sixties, pp. 27-28.)

Six-Day War

Murray Rothbard on the Six-Day War

Why the wave of adulation and admiration that greeted the blitzkrieg war of conquest by Israel against the Arab countries?  That greeted the conquest, that is, in the United States; most of the rest of the world was stunned and appalled.  Has a sickness eaten its way deep into the American soul?  Do we all simply love a winner — even if he wins by means of fire-power, surprise attack, and mobile blitzkrieg tactics?  Even if he wins, as Israel did, by napalming innocent women and children in Arab villages?  Have we lost all sense of moral principle, all sense of justice? 

Two major reasons have been advanced for the acclaim heaped by American public opinion on the state of Israel.  One is that it is a “bastion of anti-Communism in the Middle East.”  This is an odd argument, since, in the first place, none of the Arab countries is Communist or anything like it; all are governed by deeply religious Moslems.  Sure, the Arabs accepted military aid from Soviet Russia, but only after they found that they could not get such aid from the U.S., which was arming Israel instead. And, furthermore, the Arab countries are certainly no more socialist than Israel: Israel has been governed, since its inception, by an avowedly socialist party (the Mapai); it has a very large proportion of its economy in government hands; and it has a fantastically strong labor union movement (the Histadrut) which, as a virtual State within a State, controls and owns a large chunk of the economy of Israel in its own right.  And, what is more, there exist in Israel the famous kibbutzim, which are communes, in which communism (in its true sense of virtual absence of private property) is practiced on a scale far more intense than in any Communist country in the world (with the exception of China).  And while membership in the kibbutzim is generally voluntary, there are also many Israeli refugees literally enslaved to the kibbutzim, and who cannot leave them until they “pay back” the Israel government the passage money from Europe to Israel.  Furthermore, since their pay in the kibbutzim is very low, it is almost impossible for them to work out their term, and so they remain, often with great reluctance, in forced labor on the Israel communes. 

The other common argument is that Israel is “little,” compared to its Arab neighbors, and therefore deserves admiration as an underdog surrounded by giants, as Davids surrounded by Goliaths.  The “littleness” here is a complete misreading of world affairs; it would be just as absurd to hail Britain when she conquered India quite easily.  Are we to consider the British Empire as the “underdog,” since India’s population outnumbered England by a huge multiple?  Certainly not: clearly the technological level and relative standards of living were so disparate, that the “smaller” nation could easily conquer and dominate the larger.  The same is true for “little” Israel.  The rulers of Israel are not Middle Eastern, like their Arab neighbors; they are largely European, and furthermore, they are financed very heavily by wealthy European and American Zionists.  These, then, were Europeans who came, on the backs of and in collusion with, the British Empire (from the end of World War I to the end of World War II), with European technology, wealth and know-how, to seize the lands and homes of Arabs, and themselves to colonize Palestine.  To think of these Zionists and Israelis as “underdogs,” in the light of the true situation, is nothing less than grotesque — as can be seen by the swift wars of conquest fought by Israel in 1948, 1956, and now today.

~ Murray Rothbard, "'Little' Israel," 1967

(As appeared in Never a Dull Moment: A Libertarian Look at the Sixties, pp. 35-36.)

Six-Day War

Andrew Higgins on the roots of Hamas

Hamas traces its roots back to the Muslim Brotherhood, a group set up in Egypt in 1928.  The Brotherhood believed that the woes of the Arab world spring from a lack of Islamic devotion.  Its slogan: "Islam is the solution.  The Quran is our constitution."  Its philosophy today underpins modern, and often militantly intolerant, political Islam from Algeria to Indonesia. 

After the 1948 establishment of Israel, the Brotherhood recruited a few followers in Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza and elsewhere, but secular activists came to dominate the Palestinian nationalist movement. 

At the time, Gaza was ruled by Egypt.  The country's then-president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, was a secular nationalist who brutally repressed the Brotherhood.  In 1967, Nasser suffered a crushing defeat when Israel triumphed in the six-day war.  Israel took control of Gaza and also the West Bank.

"We were all stunned," says Palestinian writer and Hamas supporter Azzam Tamimi.  He was at school at the time in Kuwait and says he became close to a classmate named Khaled Mashaal, now Hamas's Damascus-based political chief.  "The Arab defeat provided the Brotherhood with a big opportunity," says Mr. Tamimi. 

In Gaza, Israel hunted down members of Fatah and other secular PLO factions, but it dropped harsh restrictions imposed on Islamic activists by the territory's previous Egyptian rulers.  Fatah, set up in 1964, was the backbone of the PLO, which was responsible for hijackings, bombings and other violence against Israel.  Arab states in 1974 declared the PLO the "sole legitimate representative" of the Palestinian people world-wide. 

The Muslim Brotherhood, led in Gaza by Sheikh Yassin, was free to spread its message openly.  In addition to launching various charity projects, Sheikh Yassin collected money to reprint the writings of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian member of the Brotherhood who, before his execution by President Nasser, advocated global jihad.  He is now seen as one of the founding ideologues of militant political Islam.

~ Andrew Higgins, "How Israel Helped Spawn Hamas," The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2009

Sheikh Yassin

Jeremy Powell on the creation of Hamas

Between Israel and the broader Arab world after more than seventy years, nobody stands right.  Politics in the Middle East is complicated, but one word summarizes the situation perfectly: sectarianism.  I can’t do much justice to Arab-Israeli history here, so I’ll advance to recent events.  When Hamas launched its blitzkrieg into southern Israel and committed atrocities there, people didn’t think much about the organization other than merely another terrorist group dedicated to wiping the Jewish state off the map.  By any decent person’s definition, Hamas is a terrorist organization. 

But there’s a plot twist not many are aware of: Hamas is a creation of Tel Aviv intended to further Israeli interest in annexing the Gaza Strip by dividing the Palestinians into factions.  It wasn’t a conspiracy theory but a full-fledged project in the 1980s by Tel Aviv to destabilize Palestine by dividing the more secularist Palestine Liberation Organization with what would become Hamas through funding radical mosques.  It was a classic divide-and-conquer move, with the end goal being annexing the remainder of Palestinian territory.  Even though Israeli funding for the group ended years ago, Tel Aviv still lobbied Arab states to fund it until 2020. 

The initial divide-and-conquer campaign partially did what it intended to do.  The move split Palestinian territory and helped Israel to an extent in annexing territory.  But the price was paid by thousands of Israeli and Palestinian lives through the years as Hamas’s grip on Gaza continues, at least for the time being.

~ Jeremy Powell, "Israel Isn’t the Brilliant Friend of Freedom the Beltway Claims It to Be," Mises Wire, November 7, 2023

Ralph Raico on Winston Churchill's love of war

But while Winston had no principles, there was one constant in his life: the love of war.  It began early.  As a child, he had a huge collection of toy soldiers, 1500 of them, and he played with them for many years after most boys turn to other things.  They were "all British," he tells us, and he fought battles with his brother Jack, who "was only allowed to have colored troops; and they were not allowed to have artillery."  He attended Sandhurst, the military academy, instead of the universities, and "from the moment that Churchill left Sandhurst … he did his utmost to get into a fight, wherever a war was going on."  All his life he was most excited—on the evidence, only really excited—by war.  He loved war as few modern men ever have—he even "loved the bangs," as he called them, and he was very brave under fire.

 

In 1925, Churchill wrote: "The story of the human race is war."  This, however, is untrue; potentially, it is disastrously untrue.  Churchill lacked any grasp of the fundamentals of the social philosophy of classical liberalism.  In particular, he never understood that, as Ludwig von Mises explained, the true story of the human race is the extension of social cooperation and the division of labor.  Peace, not war, is the father of all things.  For Churchill, the years without war offered nothing to him but "the bland skies of peace and platitude."  This was a man, as we shall see, who wished for more wars than actually happened.

When he was posted to India and began to read avidly, to make up for lost time, Churchill was profoundly impressed by Darwinism.  He lost whatever religious faith he may have had—through reading Gibbon, he said—and took a particular dislike, for some reason, to the Catholic Church, as well as Christian missions.  He became, in his own words, "a materialist—to the tips of my fingers," and he fervently upheld the worldview that human life is a struggle for existence, with the outcome the survival of the fittest.  This philosophy of life and history Churchill expressed in his one novel, Savrola.  That Churchill was a racist goes without saying, yet his racism went deeper than with most of his contemporaries.  It is curious how, with his stark Darwinian outlook, his elevation of war to the central place in human history, and his racism, as well as his fixation on "great leaders," Churchill's worldview resembled that of his antagonist, Hitler.

~ Ralph Raico, "Rethinking Churchill," The Costs of War: America's Pyrrhic Victories, by John Denson

Balfour Project on the British Mandate in Palestine from 1917-1948

Angry Arab crowds soon massed in Jerusalem denouncing the Balfour Declaration and demanding the self-determination that had been promised by Britain and France in 1918.  Having made conflicting promises, Britain now had to face up to their consequences.  She had created a contradiction.  Just unworkable this situation was, it took her 30 years to accept.  Both communities, Jews and Arabs, believed they had been promised land.  

As the Zionists swiftly began to implement their objectives, the Arabs were the first to conclude they had been deceived.  Riots broke out in 1920.  In 1921, there was even greater violence as Arabs attacked Jews and the British tried to regain order.  After a period of relative calm, mutual suspicion between the Arab and Jewish communities flared up again in 1929 and rapidly escalated into mob violence with horrific consequences.  133 Jews and 116 Arabs were killed.

Britain's response was slow and inadequate.  Calm was finally restored by a show of British force.  Meanwhile, the Jewish community was forging ahead under the umbrella of the British Mandate, securing major economic concessions and establishing its own elected assembly and institutions of government.  The Arab majority, on the other hand, felt left behind economically and politically.  To be granted democratic representation they were effectively required to accept the Balfour Declaration.  But the Arabs rejected this fearing that a Jewish national home would lead to the creation of a Jewish state in their land.  For their part the British feared that an elected Arab majority would oppose Jewish demands for land and immigration.  And so they held back the democratic progress they were supposed to foster under the Mandate.  Britain was upholding the first part of the Declaration, to establish a home for the Jewish people, but the second undertaking in the Declaration, to protect the rights of the Arab population, proved to be hollow.

Arab alarm grew still further in the 1930s when increasing numbers of Jews sought sanctuary in Palestine as the specter of antisemitism grew in Nazi Germany.  As more and more land passed into Jewish hands, the sense of Arab disposession grew.  By May 1936, Palestine was in open rebellion and it was not just Jewish communities who were being attacked.  It was the British, too.

Increasingly losing control, the British authorities resorted to ruthless methods to put down the revolt including hangings, house demolitions and the use of civilians as human shields.  For a period, British and Jewish men fought jointly in a counter-insurgency force known as the Special Night Squads.  By 1939, the rebellion was suppressed, leaving the Palestinian leadership weakened for years to come.

To try to address the underlying deadlock between Arabs and Jews, London had responded with a succession of inquiries and commissions through the 1930s.  Their dilemma was that any attempt to placate one community would provoke the anger of the other.  At a loss for a solution, the Peel Commission of 1937 proposed to partition Jews and Arabs into two states.  But Arab opinion, led by the [inaudible] anti-Zionist Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, denounced any idea of conceding territory to Jews as "unthinkable."

However, as Europe slid towards war the British government changed course.  A government white paper of 1939 abandoned partition and proposed that in ten years Palestine would become independent, representatively governed by Arabs and Jews.  Controls were now put in place over how many Jews could immigrate to Palestine and how much land could pass into Jewish hands.  For the first time Arabs were to be given a say over Jewish immigration.

The reason Neville Chamberlain's government swung in favor of Arab opinion at this point was the prospect of war.  London feared that in a global conflict the Arab world might turn against Britain while the support of Jews would be guaranteed in view of their persecution by the Nazis.

Jewish opinion immediately condemned the white paper as an act of British betrayal and retreat from the Balfour Declaration.  There was fury that Jewish people would restricted from finding sanctuary at their hour of greatest need.  Nevertheless, Britain upheld the limits on Jewish immigration into Palestine right through the war.  As refugees fleeing the Holocaust were arrested trying to enter Palestine, [inaudible] even sent back to Germany, in the case of the Exodus [in 1947].

The Jewish community turned against Britain and the Mandate.  Sections of Jewish opinion became increasingly militant and violent, and Britain suffered heavy losses from terrorist attrocities.  In February 1947, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin stated that Britain was referring responsibility for the Palestinian problem to the United Nations.  By September, as the situation continued to worse, Britain announced that she would terminate her Mandate for Palestine in May 1948.

The U.N. solution to the Palestine problem was partition.  But this was again rejected by the Arabs.  As British forces beat an ungainly retreat and the mandate came to an end, partition was abandoned, leading Jews and Arabs to an undeclared war for domination.

On the 14th of May, 1948, Israel declared itself a state and was immediately recognized by America.  The events of this time are known to some as the War of Independence and to others as the Nakba, or the catastrophe when about 60% of the Palestinian population became refugees as they fled or were expelled.  Today's conflict between Israelis and Palestinians had begun.

~ Balfour Project, "Britain in Palestine: 1917-1948," 9:30 mark, April 11, 2023

Fareed Zakaria on the shifting of empires the past 500 years

There have been three tectonic power shifts over the last five hundred years, fundamental changes in the distribution of power that have reshaped international life—its politics, economics, and culture. The first was the rise of the Western world, a process that began in the fifteenth century and accelerated dramatically in the late eighteenth century. It produced modernity as we know it: science and technology, commerce and capitalism, the agricultural and industrial revolutions. It also produced the prolonged political dominance of the nations of the West.

The second shift, which took place in the closing years of the nineteenth century, was the rise of the United States. Soon after it industrialized, the United States became the most powerful nation since imperial Rome, and the only one that was stronger than any likely combination of other nations. For most of the last century, the United States has dominated global economics, politics, science, and culture. For the last twenty years, that dominance has been unrivaled, a phenomenon unprecedented in modern history.

We are now living through the third great power shift of the modern era. It could be called “the rise of the rest.” Over the past few decades, countries all over the world have been experiencing rates of economic growth that were once unthinkable. While they have had booms and busts, the overall trend has been unambiguously upward. This growth has been most visible in Asia but is no longer confined to it. That is why to call this shift “the rise of Asia” does not describe it accurately. In 2006 and 2007, 124 countries grew at a rate of 4 percent or more. That includes more than 30 countries in Africa, two-thirds of the continent. Antoine van Agtmael, the fund manager who coined the term “emerging markets,” has identified the 25 companies most likely to be the world's next great multinationals. His list includes four companies each from Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Taiwan; three from India; two from China; and one each from Argentina, Chile, Malaysia, and South Africa.

~ Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World

2008

Curtis LeMay on committing war crimes during World War II

I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal...  Every soldier thinks something of the moral aspects of what he is doing.  But all war is immoral and if you let that bother you, you're not a good soldier.

~ Curtis LeMay

August 13, 1945

Curtis LeMay on the killing of civilians in war

There are no innocent civilians, so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.

~ Curtis LeMay

Tom Baker on confirmation bias

You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.  They don't alter their views to fit the facts.  They alter the facts to fit the views.  Which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.

~ Tom Baker, actor who plays the Fourth Doctor in Doctor Who episode "The Face of Evil - Part 4," which aired January 22, 1977

Dylan Saba on racist assumptions about Palestinians living in Gaza

It is precisely anti-Palestinian racism that allows people to say that there is no distinction between Palestinians living in Gaza and Hamas, which is exactly the messaging of the Israeli government.  They're saying it openly.  They're saying that they're not treating them differently and they're saying that Gaza is full of terrorists.  That distinction is based on racist assumptions about Palestinians.  It's based on the abiliy to paint Muslims and Arabs and Palestinians with a broad brush, that is to paint them as a threat to Israeli safety and Jewish safety.  So that is what is behind the smears and what allows the naked genocidal rhetoric on the Israeli side and on the U.S. side in supporting these actions.

~ Dylan Saba, "Zionist anti-Palestine censorship is surging," The Chris Hedges Report, 16:25 mark, November 24, 2023

Dylan Saba on censorship of pro-Palestinian positions

I work for Palestine Legal.  We're a legal non-profit representing folks who speak out, Palestinian rights, and we were founded in 2014 and we've never seen anything remotely like this.  We've had hundreds of requests for legal assistance over the past several weeks, completely eclipsing the total number of intake requests we've had for the entirety of all of last year.

So it's an exponential surge.  It's reaching students, employees, professors, folks in all different industries.  We've seen a wave of retaliatory firings for posts made on private social media accounts supporting Palestinian rights.  We've seen student groups surveilled, suppessed from levels ranging from the federal government to state government to individual campus administrations.  We've seen professors had classes cancelled, being locked out of emails.  The range of political expression that is being targeted is wide from very banal calls to a ceasefire to more radical statements, and it is widespread.

I think it's important to note a couple of things.  One is that this is a response to a massive upsurge in pro-Palestinian support in the United States, that the [Palestine solidarity] movement has made major gains...  And more and more you have folks who are willing to speak out for Palestinian freedom.  Now, of course, this is met with suppression that this growing movement is a threat to the Israel lobby, it's a threat to Israel advocacy organizations, and folks who have the interests of the U.S. government and U.S. imperial interests, who share those interests as well.

I think that the comparison to the post-9/11 era, though I was only a child then, is probably apt.  We have been describing this as a McCarthyite level of suppression.  But I do want to raise a key distinction here.  This is now happening in the era of social media and that has particular concerns and implications for regular individuals who may not be famous or notable names, and that's the introduction of doxxing as a particularly heinous tactic, and you mentioned this with reference to the trucks on campuses.  What we're seeing is college students, individuals who are speaking out or even for an action as benign as removing a poster are being filmed.  That footage is being sent then to major media outlets like Fox News, and you have folks on the internet who are digging into it, finding out who these students are, publicizing their names, releasing their names, and then those individuals are being hit with a torrent of disciminatory comments, threatening texts, emails, phone calls, dealth threats, heinous remarks, and are basically being bullied into silence.  

This is a widespread tactic that we're seeing and it has the negative consequence of chilling speech.  Folks are scared to speak out because they worry that they're going to be smeared, that they're going to lose their job or future employment offer.  The doxxing tactic is something that the Israel groups have been using for a while.  Folks are probably familiar with Canary Mission, stopantisemitism.org, which are some online blacklists that have really honed in on this tactic of online smears and doxxing, but we are seeing it at an unprecedented level right now.

~ Dylan Saba, lawyer for Palestine Legal, "Zionist anti-Palestine censorship is surging," The Chris Hedges Report, 4:45 mark, November 24, 2023

Thomas Jefferson on honesty

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Brett Lewis on the death of Dr. Hammam Alloh in Gaza

On October 31, Dr. Hammam Alloh was the last nephrologist at Al-Shifa Hospital and the last nephrologist in Gaza.  When asked by a journalist why he wouldn’t evacuate south with his wife and two children despite heavy bombing and the encroaching Israeli army, he didn’t hesitate.  “And if I go, who treats our patients?  We are not animals.  We have the right to receive proper health care.  You think I went to medical school and my postgraduate degrees for a total of 14 years so I think only about my life and not my patients? … Do you think this is the reason I went to medical school, to only think about my life?”

Two weeks later, Dr. Alloh was killed alongside several members of his extended family in an Israeli airstrike.

Close your eyes and imagine working long hours in the hospital, without the proper equipment to care for scores of injured patients crowding the hospital hallways.  Imagine doing so knowing that you are facing certain death, knowing that you will be forced to leave your family behind.  Imagine the fear and grief and rage and helplessness you would feel, that Dr. Alloh and his colleagues must have felt.  And then remember that in the face of fear, Dr. Alloh chose to stay with his patients.  He died because he refused to believe that his life was somehow worth more than theirs.  He rejected any reference to the idea that Palestinian lives are somehow disposable, that Palestinians are “animals,” that civilian casualties are “the price of waging war.”  By standing by his patients, at the cost of his own life, he stood up for their humanity– something the rest of the world has largely failed to do. 

~ Brett Lewis, "Doctors in the U.S. Can’t Be Silent in the Face of What’s Happening in Gaza," TIME Ideas, November 20, 2023 

William Easterly on foreign aid

Too much of America’s foreign aid funds what I call authoritarian development. That’s when the international community–experts from the U.N. and other bodies–swoop into third-world countries and offer purely technical assistance to dictatorships like Uganda or Ethiopia on how to solve poverty.

Unfortunately, dictators’ sole motivation is to stay in power. So the development experts may get some roads built, but they are not maintained. Experts may sink boreholes for clean water, but the wells break down. Individuals do not have the political rights to protest disastrous public services, so they never improve. Meanwhile, dictators are left with cash and services to prop themselves up–while punishing their enemies.

But there is another model: free development, in which poor individuals, asserting their political and economic rights, motivate government and private actors to solve their problems or to give them the means to solve their own problems.

Compare free development in Botswana with authoritarian development in Ethiopia. In Ethiopia in 2010, Human Rights Watch documented how the autocrat Meles Zenawi selectively withheld aid-financed famine relief from everyone except ruling-party members. Meanwhile democratic Botswana, although drought-prone like Ethiopia, has enjoyed decades of success in preventing famine. Government relief directed by local activists goes wherever drought strikes.

~ William Easterly, "Stop sending aid to dictators," Time, March 13, 2014

Steve Berger on foreign aid

I believe we should not give any foreign aid to any country on the P.T. Bauer theory that it is unjust taxation of US citizens to finance the purchase of munitions, monuments and Mercedes for foreign autocrats.

~ Steve Berger

Lysander Spooner on democracy

The principle that the majority have a right to rule the minority, practically resolves all government into a mere contest between two bodies of men, as to which of them shall be masters and which of them shall be slaves.

~ Lysander Spooner

Murry Rothbard on why libertarians should oppose war

Many libertarians are uncomfortable with foreign policy and prefer to spend their energies either on fundamental questions of libertarian theory or on such "domestic" concerns as the free market or privatizing postal service or garbage disposal.  Yet an attack on war or a warlike foreign policy is of crucial importance to libertarians.  There are two important reasons.  One has become a cliché, but is all too true nevertheless: the overriding importance of preventing a nuclear holocaust.  To all the long-standing reasons, moral and economic, against an interventionist foreign policy has now been added the imminent, ever-present threat of world destruction...

The other reason is that, apart from the nuclear menace, war, in the words of the libertarian Randolph Bourne, "is the health of the State."  War has always been the occasion of a great - and usually permanent - acceleration and intensification of State power over society.  War is the great excuse for mobilizing all the energies and resources of the nation, in the name of patriotic rhetoric, under the aegis and dictation of the State apparatus.  It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society.  Society becomes a herd, seeking to kill its alleged enemies, rooting out and suppressing all dissent from the official war effort, happily betraying truth for the supposed public interest.  Society becomes an armed camp, with the values and the morals - as the libertarian Albert Jay Nock once phrased it - of an "army on the march."

~ Murry Rothbard, For A New Liberty, pp. 347-348

1973

Ludwig von Mises on the treatment of minorities in a nation state

Because of the enormous power that today stands at the command of the state, a national minority must expect the worst from a majority of a different nationality.  As long as the state is granted the vast powers which it has today and which public opinion considers to be its right, the thought of having to live in a state whose government is in the hands of members of a foreign nationality is positively terrifying.  It is frightful to live in a state in which at every turn one is exposed to persecution - masquerading under the guise of justice - by a ruling majority.  It is dreadful to be handicapped even as a child in school on account of one's nationality and to be in the wrong before every judicial and administrative authority because one belongs to a national minority.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism, p. 141

1927

Phil Duffy on how embargoes have turned out in history

Wikipedia initially blames the Continental System on Napoleon’s Berlin Edict of November 1806 for barring trade with the British Empire. Only later in the first paragraph do we learn that the Berlin Decree was in response to,

… the naval blockade of the French coasts enacted by the British government on 16 May 1806.

Napoleon and his troops ate fairly well, as did the leaders and troops of the British. Both got the external enemy they needed to acquire more power. The British and French people did not fare so well.

The runup to World War I included interference of free trade according to Historic UK:

Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th 1914, but rivalry between the two countries had been growing for years. Germany resented Britain’s control of the world’s oceans and markets, while Britain increasingly viewed a Europe dominated by a powerful and aggressive Germany as a threat which must be contained.

The Mises Institute has a good summary of the situation that led to World War I:

After creating a powerful and industrializing German federation which threatened Europe's "balance of power," Bismarck worked to prevent war. He reconciled Austria, maintained friendly relations with Russia, and got along as well as possible with France. He worked against Germany's "encirclement" by France and an ally-to prevent a two-front war. After Bismarck's dismissal in 1890 by the impulsive young Kaiser Wilhelm II (a crowned TR), German policy drifted into the encirclement Bismarck feared.

Much of the analysis of the runup to World War I focuses blame on Wilhelm II’s clumsy efforts at diplomacy. It seems the theme of Barbara Tuchman’s first chapter in The Guns of August, The Funeral [of Edward VII of Britain]. But a timeline sheds a different light on the matter, with the Entente Cordiale of April 1904 being the leading event. The Gov.UK site states this about the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907:

On 31 August 1907, Britain and Russia signed an agreement in St Petersburg which put in place the final piece of the alliance system which has widely been considered to have been a major contributing factor regarding the outbreak of the First World War.

There was some real concern in Germany about “encirclement.” It is too easy to become distracted by “Who started World War I?,” and lose sight of the lesson that comes out of that period. Europe had flourished with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo and the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which led to Europe’s most peaceful time until the outbreak of World War I in 1914 (Crimean War the exception on the continent). That corresponded with a move away from mercantilism/militarism toward classical liberalism and free trade. Peace and economic flourishing were shattered when mercantilism made its comeback, and the fault may be laid on the leadership of all of the nations involved in that war. The people surely were not seeking war. It was the political elites that wished it and expected to benefit from it. The armistice and Treaty of Versailles did nothing to resolve the underlying problem of economic warfare. After the devastation of Germany and surrounding countries, European leaders finally came to their senses with the Treaty of Rome in March of 1957 which led to the creation of the European Economic Community.

~ Phil Duffy, November 21, 2023

Jacob Hornberger on how China got into the crosshairs of the American empire

For decades after the Communist Party took control over China, the Party established and maintained a strict socialist system, one in which the government owned and controlled most everything. The result was massive poverty across the land, which, of course, meant a Chinese communist government with relatively few resources. 

Then a few decades ago, China began liberalizing its economy, permitting the Chinese people to engage in economic enterprise, engage in trade, open businesses, and accumulate large amounts of wealth. The result was a tremendous increase in economic prosperity. 

For a time, Americans celebrated this economic phenomenon. And why not? For decades, many Americans had criticized China’s socialist system precisely because it generated so much poverty among the Chinese people. Now the standard of living of people was soaring. Why wouldn’t everyone celebrate the fact that people in other parts of the world are escaping poverty? 

Moreover, the rising prosperity in China meant that the Chinese people were increasingly able to purchase goods and services from Americans. The resulting trade made everyone better off. 

But the U.S. Empire — specifically, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — saw trouble in all this. That’s because China’s economic prosperity meant vast new tax revenues for the Chinese communist regime — resources that enabled the regime to increase the size of its military and also to increase its influence around the world. 

During the 20 years that the U.S. government was waging war against the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, China had no such burden. Rather than using its tax revenues to kill large numbers of people, as the U.S. Empire was doing, China was using them to expand its influence around the world by helping countries with big, grandiose socialist projects. 

Thus, in the eyes of the U.S. national-security establishment, China’s rise posed a grave threat to its post-Cold War role as the world’s sole remaining empire. Something had to be done to bring China down, even if it harmed the American people at the same time. By suppressing China’s economic prosperity, the empire aimed to diminish the amount of tax revenues flowing into the Chinese government’s coffers, thereby limiting its ability to expand its military and its influence around the world.

~ Jacob G. Hornberger, "Xi Jinping is Right About the U.S. Empire," The Future of Freedom Foundation, November 20, 2023

Phil Duffy on history

History is messy.  Until you learn that lesson, you are nothing more than a receiver and transmitter of propaganda.

~ Phil Duffy

As far as I am aware, Eamon Duffy is no relation to
 my father, Phil Duffy, just a wonderful coincidence.

John Adams on democracy

Remember democracy never lasts long.  It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.  There never was a democracy yet, that did not commit suicide.  It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.

~ John Adams, letter to John Taylor, December 17, 1814

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on how the Founding Fathers felt about democracy

Even the Founding Fathers of the U.S., nowadays considered the model of a democracy, were strictly opposed to it.  Without a single exception, they thought of democracy as nothing but mob-rule.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed

Hans-Hermann Hoppe on the social contract

The state operates in a legal vacuum.  There exists no contract between the state and its citizens.

~ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, "The Mind of Hans-Hermann Hoppe," The Daily Bell interview on mises.org, March 27, 2011

Henry Kissinger on Deng Xiaoping

Deng Xiaoping thought of himself as a great revolutionary and a great reformer.  He had dismantled the Chinese communist management of the economy.  In my next-to-last conversation with him, which was about six months before Tiananmen Square, he said to me that his aim would be the next phase to reduce the Communist Party to philosophical issues.  And I said, "What's a philosophical issue?"  And he said, "Well, like if we make an alliance with Russia."  Given his view of Russia, that was not the likeliest thing that would ever happen.

~ Henry Kissinger

The diplomat Chiao Kuan Hua, Secretary of State Kissinger

and Deng Xiaoping in 1974

Henry Kissinger on the Israeli-Arab conflict

The Israelis want security.  The Arabs want dignity.  And they consider the demands of each other as incompatible.

~ Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger and Egypt's Anwar Sadat

Henry Kissinger on competition between the U.S. and China

There are some people who think that at some time in the future, China may challenge us for supremacy in the Pacific, and therefore, what do we do today to prevent that?  And you, of course, will say that we will try to thwart any economic progress in China.  If we engaged in such a policy, we would turn a billion-plus people into nationalist opponents of the United States.

~ Henry Kissinger

Ian Bremmer on the fragility of U.S. support for Israel

I would say that Biden could not be more supportive of Israel following the October 7th attacks...  But Generation Z, young people in the U.S., support the Palestinian position more strongly than they support Israel.  And you have seen that particularly on college campuses across the country, but also more broadly.  And many on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.  And I'm not just talking about "the Squad" and Rashida Tlaib and AOC.  I'm talking more broadly are increasingly uncomfortable with the extent of the Israeli military strikes against Hamas and the Palestinian civilians in Gaza.  All of the human destruction that we are all witnessing right now.

And President Biden has made it clear to the Israeli war cabinet that the ability that the ability of the United States to continue to provide unconstrained support for Israel is a window that will narrow if the present levels of atrocities continue.  So the conditions for peace are not just about making sure the Palestinians have an opportunity to live; they're also about making sure the Americans can continue to support Israel the way they have here-to-fore.

I think it is not guaranteed that in another four weeks time, the U.S. will still be willing to provide the kind of military equipment - high-tech military equipment and support - that they have provided to Israel historically if Israel continues to fight the war the way they have been fighting it.  Even the United States, Biden and his cabinet and core members of the Senate and the House, are facing that pressure from their own progressive wing.  And that is going to grow over time.

I also think that this is a risk for Biden in 2024 because this war right now is primarily about Gaza and Hamas.  But there are American carrier strike groups in the eastern Med[iterranean] and in the Gulf.  They've already been involved in direct strikes against Iranian Shia proxies in Syria.  There will surely be more of those strikes in the coming weeks.  American servicemen and women have already taken casualties.  Not deaths, not so far, but actually injured troops because of the knock-on impact of the war between Israel and Hamas.  So if it turns out that the United States is directly involved in a Middle Eastern war that Biden has not sold to the American people - he hasn't justified - you go from no wars started under the Trump administration to two wars started under the Biden administration.  Neither of them started by Biden, but both of them the American taxpayers are paying for and one of which the Americans might be taking casualties.  That is a very hard thing to run on if you are President Biden.  And they know it.

It also, the distraction of the Middle East - and President Zelensky has been saying this - has made it harder for people to focus on the contined support for Ukraine, especially given a counteroffensive that has failed.  So you now have these two massive global foreign policy crises, both of which are not looking so great for the United States, as we head into 2024.  I expect that Trump, when he becomes the Republican nominee, and that certainly looks very likely at this point, will make a meal out of that.

~ Ian Bremmer, "Political scientist Ian Bremmer on the Isreali-Palestinian conflict," Big Think, 44:45 mark, November 9, 2023