http://mises.org/journals/lar/pdfs/3_3/3_3_4.pdf
I was completely astounded by this article. It distorts the history to an almost impossible extent, its full of lies and poison. Murray Rothbard is my favorite intellectual, but this piece of crap propaganda is simply inexcusible.
Y’know, like they say, you “can’t have your cake and eat it too” or whatever that means.
Eugene, details please.
^ that is what is referred to as intellectual dishonesty ^
So you made a topic-starting post in which we find out that 1.) you were astounded and 2.) that Rothbard is you favorite intellectual.
Unless you think your state of emotion and the matter of who is your favorite intellectual merit a topic all to itself you are consciously spamming.
If you’re not saying something that is self-evident try to elaborate or else shut up, as bare assertions on controversial questions have no value for readers.
I just thought it is obvious to anyone reading this article that it is completed silent about all the Arab aggressions, including all the massacres and power grabs. The article only talks about Israeli aggressions. It is clearly one sided. The article doesn’t mention the 1929 Palestinian riots, or the Hebron massacre, the Arab revolt of the thirties including its massive killings of innocents, and most imporantly the Arab war of aggression of 1948.
I understand Rothbard’s anti-statism and I can understand the harsh language used against states, but that must include all states, Arab states as well.
Eugene,
I’m with you here, and expect some irrational responses from some guys.
In another thread, I pointed out how Rothbard got Dir Yassin all wrong, with Arab writers admitting in Arab newspapers that it was a hoax.
Do you maybe have a link to the thread?
Read it. Didn’t see any lies, poison, or distortion. Perhaps it’s challenging to your values?
Marko,
Sorry, no.
But no great investigative reporting was needed, if I recall correctly. It’s all from wikipedia on dir yassin. Look for a jordanian newspaper article they quote, and an interview with an arab villager who was actually there.
Nowhere did it say in the Wiki that the event was a hoax. Hoax =/= exaggeration. Did you read the article? Eyewitnesses reported rape and slaughter of unarmed Arabs.
The plot thickens…
Anyways, did anyone quote any specific distortions or lies, or is the OP just trolling?
Eugene, substantiate your accusation of lying, or edit it out of your post.
Also, choose a different title. You can’t call Mises or Rothbard “COMPLETELY nuts” here.
True, but Rothbard’s focus on Israel’s aggressions is motivated by the same reasoning as Rockwell’s focus on American aggression - the public discussion hears plenty about all the real (and imagined) evil-doings of the Philistines but it’s nothing but crickets when it comes to American (or Israeli) crimes. There is no need to document the wrong-doings of the Muslims, they are already amply documented by a veritable army of Muslim-crime chroniclers. What is needed is some counterpoint to provide the other side of the story.
The point is not that the Israeli or American governments are especially evil but, rather, that they are very normal - as far as governments go. They beat, torture, extort, murder, steal, instigate and wage wars just like every other tinpot dictatorship in the world. The differences are two-fold. First, the American and Israeli governments are unusually prolific and second they are unusually adept at whitewashing, propaganda and double-speak. So, the difference between the US/Israel and the Arab governments is just a matter of degree. US/Israel commit more murders, wage more war, steal more property and extort larger populations than their counterparts in the Middle East and elsewhere. Beyond that, there is little, if any, difference between them as far as any moral consideration goes.
Clayton -
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought “lies” where the actual tellings of untruths…as in, saying something that was false. I never knew that by not mentioning something I could be deemed a “liar” and spreader of “poison”.
I guess I better get started to talking. I wouldn’t want to leave anything out.
Wasn’t that Rothbard’s point? One party is more guilty than another party. ..
Exactly, I was going to bring this up. He spells it out in the intro. He accepts that both parties in any state war are guilty as a given. But he takes issue with irrelevant sectarians who stop here. He goes beyond this to show that this is not the same as to say that both parties are equally guilty. His not talking about Arab states’s war guilt does not at all mean he is implying they are without blemish since he already said they share in the guilt. So the acusation of ‘complete onesidedness’ is false.
The only reason he does not talk about “Arab aggressions” is because he did not feel he needed to prove that Arab states share in the guilt. So unless Eugene disbelieves this notion and requires proof before he will believe that Arab states too are guilty he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Let’s start:
The Br i t t sh, in r e t u r n f o r mobilizing the Ar ab people s aga ins t t h e i r o p p r e s s o r s of i m p e r i a l Turkey, p r omi s e d the Ar a b s t h e i r independence when t h e w a r
was over. But, a t the s a m e time, the B r i t i s h government,
with c h a r a c t e r i s t i c double-dealing, wa s p r omi s i n g Ar ab
P a l e s t i n e a s a “National Home” f o r organi z ed Zionism, , -
T h e s e p r o m i s e s w e r e not on the s a m e m o r a l plane: f o r i n
the f o r m e r c a s e , t h e Arabs w e r e being p r omi s e d t h e i r own ~.~
land f r e e d f r o m T u r k i s h domination; and i n the l a t t e r , ..
world Zioni sm wa s being p r omi s e d a land mo s t emphati-
c a l l y not i t s own. When World War I wa s o v e r , the B r i t i s h
unhesitatingly c h o s e to ke ep the wrong p r omi s e , t h e one
t o world Zionism.
Already so much bias in the first sentence. First of all the British promised nothing to Arabs. They promised to a Saudi Sheih a control of the middle east without specifying whether Palestinian territories will be included or not. Second of all national home was promised not to “organized Zionism” but to Jews. So there was no big promise to the “Arab people” in return for their mobilization. It was a mere political promise to an Arab dictator (Sayyid Hussein bin Ali). Yet Rothbard frames it this way in order to show that the Arabs were betrayed by the British. They were not, because nothing was promised to them. Why does Rothbard all of a sudden become collectivist?
Since when does Rothbard think that land belong to nations? Palestine is not the land of Arabs. It was land on which Arabs, Jews, and Zionist Jews already lived. So why would it be right to give Arabs to rule Palestine? This is a collectivist non libertarian thinking which leads nowhere.
Now you asked me about lies. Well here Rothbard simply lies or distorts things. He says the British kept the promise to Jews but not to Arabs. Yet they DID keep their promise to “Arabs” as 95% of the middle east did go to the control of the Saudi Sheih and his sons. In fact it was the other promise that was not kept as evident by the numerous “white books” that were published by the British.
There is no such thing as equal guilt. Who attacked first? Who resents whom for what? Most israelis don’t care about religion: they are former Soviet Union atheists. They resent getting shot at. But most Arabs do care about religion.
Eugene is correct. There have been threads in the past on this issue. Mostly, it ends up people talking past each other, because some people have naive theories of imperialism. Just like many people use same ideas to claim Soviet Union was not imperialist, but United States was.
In analyzing Arab world, Rothbard ignores fact that Religion, control of Jewish irrigated land bought for exceptionally lower prices before it was irrigated from large Arab landholders in 1890’s-1930’s, honor/shame dynamics of Arab military defeats, Arab view of women versus Israeli atheist view, Arab socialist movements, are the major causes of trouble. Trouble which deosn’t get resolved because these issues are not understood by the 45%-ish quantity of socialist politicians in Israel and United States which constantly meddles in its affairs.
Rothbard seems to have been a very nice person and kind of naive about effects of specific customs when confronted with division of labour.
Rothbard does make historical mistakes quite often:
saying that Daoism is more libertarian than Confucianism, whereas in fact, it is the opposite, Daoism being the patron saint of totalitarian resource-wasting Dynasties since the Han dynasty and of socialist movements up till today,
saying that Israel is also one of these cases, because israel now looks much more industrialized and militarily more competant than its neighbours,
arguing that case was doctrine of war being provoked by barriars to immigration from countries with high population density (e.g., supposedly Germany back in WWI), a point totally denied by Yves Guyot, third in line after Bastiat, and also denied by Mises. High population density does not mean lack of jobs, nor is excuse for war, even if nearby countries deny immigration (although they really shouldn’t, since free travel is one big point of economics, after free trade),
and so on. His work in those areas is too naive. I’ll stick to Basil Hart.
I just ignore that parts where Rothbard writes anything about international politics or ethics. Just about every scientist has papers which are not well thought out. Ignore them into oblivion and pay attention to valuable work in other areas (e.g., Rothbard on economics, Einstein or Gabor on physics, and so on, as opposed to Rothbard on history, Einstein or Gabor on economics).
I’ll say it again: until the Arab world on average starts behaving like Japan people, every single more or less capitalist country will have trouble with it, especially if such a country is at center of arab world. Imagine Japan or South Korea being where Israel is, and Israel being far away in South America. Do you think there would be peace in the Middle East then? Nope. Violence would continue.