Finally, an America Hater

You've managed to sidetrack this discussion to talk about Indians and silly novels. It is fradulent to compare the Indian situation with the Palestinian one. In the latter case, the aggression and theft is taking place as we speak. The victims are not anomynous bodies in unmarked graves. They have names. They can be found. They have been shunted from one refugee camp to another for fifty years. They deserve redress for the crimes committed against them.

In a brazen manner worthy of Goebbels' Big Lie, the government that committed these crimes claims to be democratic and to support the rule of law. It manifestly is neither democratic nor lawful.

I too am a devoted SF fan, although to my shame, I have never read L. Neil Smith. But I am still intelligent enough to recognize that most of it is escapism, although it's obviously worthwhile to think about alternate futures.

If I'm too aggressive in my choice of words, I apologize. I am certainly not trying to pick a fight with you, simply trying to point out the inconsistency between libertarian principles and your views on the Israel/Palestine situation. Libertarianism is about the rights of real people when confronted with collectivist visions. And Zionism is nothing if not a collectivist vision.

You talk about the name of the place. It makes no difference whether we call it Israel or Palestine. It's still the same place. The Palestinian (Philistine) claim on the place is even older than the Jewish one. But that's irrelevant because this claim is a collectivist claim. Palestinians are also more closely related to Biblical Isrealites than are the white Europeans who came into their land a hundred years ago with a vision of building a theocracy. That too is irrelevant. It's a racist argument. And the same kind of argument is also irrelevant when made by Isreali Jews.

The choice of a name for the country only turns the debate into a racial fight between the Jews (plural) and the Arabs (plural) and obscures the real issue - which, for a libertarian should be the rights of individual people.

dennisw has already pointed out that 90% of Isreal is stolen land. He takes the curious position that this is OK because half of it is desert. You seem to think that it's OK because land was stolen earlier from Indians. I've already pointed out how the two cases are not the same. But even if they were, that would simply enhance the case for compensation of Indians - not by the government but by the people who stole their land. It would not negate the Palestinian claim.

It so happens that the land which was stolen from Palestinians has been socialized into the hands of the government of Israel. It should be given back to its proper owners, just as the property of East Germans was returned to its owners after fifty years of communism. This is the proper analogy. When you can find the owner of stolen property, give it back to him. Sell off the rest.

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