An Afterword from Readers, Authors, Reviewers (May 1975)

Old Lies for New Looks

The “New Look at the Zionist State of Israel” in the January LR is not at all new; it is the time-honored look through Soviet eyes. The outright falsehoods and disgustingly selected halftruths are too numerous to refute in a letter, but one wonders why Lilienthal and Chomsky, both sitting on land that once belonged to the Indians, do not go back to where their ancestors came from. The logic is dubious, but at least the facts would be firmer, for the Indian was, for the most part, displaced by the White Man by force.

Not so the Israeli Arabs. In 1948, they were encouraged by Israel to stay and help build the country; more than 300,000 stayed, and they are now far better off politically and economically than the serfs in the neighboring dictatorships. But many more were hooked by the propaganda assault of the Arab governments to leave and return as victors in the war against the new nation. A few regrettable incidents that happen in any war cannot obscure the fact that the vast majority left voluntarily. Since when are losing gamblers refugees? They are not in the same class as, say, the American Indians, or the 10 million Germans expelled from East Europe in 1945, or the Jews expelled from Arab countries (none of which Lilienthal mentions).

“It is a measure of the bias and irrationality of American opinion,” says Chomsky, “that Quaddafi is regarded as a fanatic, whereas his counterparts are considered moderates.” Quite so, Mr. Chomsky. Does the Israeli government amputate thieves’ hands? Does it sentence pregnant women to be flogged? Does it make contracts with private enterprises only to confiscate their property before the ink is dry? Chomsky, the great socialist and champion of civil rights, manages to embezzle an interesting fact: In all of the Middle East there is only one country that allows a Communist Party: Israel.

As far as I know, Lilienthal and Chomsky are themselves Jewish, and this is another aspect of the Soviet “new” look. Unlike Hitler, who made no bones about his racism, Soviet antisemitism is enforced under various, if transparent, cloaks. One of them is to point to Jews who hold high positions in the Soviet system and fervently support it. There is one (and usually only one) in every ministry. The mass of Soviet Jews call them “Paradeyiden,” for they have no other job than to be paraded as proofs against antisemitism for the stupid and the gullible.

Lilienthal and Chomsky have well earned that title for themselves.

PETR BECKMANN Boulder, Colo.

Letters from readers are welcome. Although only a selection can be published and none can be individually acknowledged, each will receive editorial consideration and may be passed on to reviewers and authors. Letters submitted for publication should be brief, typed, double spaced, and sent to LR, 410 First Street, S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003.

Lilienthal Replies to His Critics

A justifiable case for either Middle East contestant can be made, depending on where one starts. In his letter [LR, April] David Glasner labors valiantly to prove that the dangerous escalation in the Middle East arms-race was caused by Soviet shipments to the Arabs rather than by U.S. (and earlier, Western European) arming of Israel. He prefers not to start with the original sin: the 1947 creation of the state of Israel on Palestinian soil over the expressed objections of two-thirds of the population. And this came 30 years after the British government’s promulgation in the Balfour Declaration of a “Jewish national home” in the face of the 93 percent Muslim-Christian Arab populace. The World War I declaration contained a sop for the Arabs by providing for the protection of the rights of “the existing non-Jewish communities.” The language used was intended to hide from the British people the outrageous population figures. It was equivalent to referring to 93 persons out of a group of 100 as the “non-seven.”

As for the Arabs reliance on the Soviet Union, the late Lebanese industrialist, Emil Bustani, expressed it succinctly: “Had it not been for Israel, we Arabs would not have felt the need for a single new weapon. And had it not been for the American preferential treatment of Israel, we would not have been introduced to a single new Russian face!”

True libertarians such as Frank Epp, Martin Buber, Albert Einstein, Moshe Menuhin, and myself always have had a definite idea of a solution to this harassing problem, which once again—and more seriously than ever—threatens to blow up the world. The only answer, as it has always been, is the sharing of the Holy Land by the two Palestinian peoples. The first move in this direction would be the establishment of a Palestinian state embracing the West Bank, Gaza, and Al Humma. And eventually there could be one Arab- Israeli secular state.

This bi-nationalism, and not Zionist exclusivism, was what the UN 1947 resolution contemplated. For even within the so-called Jewish state, under the partition plan, there was to have been a 42 percent Arab minority, which could have risen to 51 percent, had not the Israelis begun their deliberate campaign to rid the country of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs. The propaganda lie that the Arabs left on their own accord has so often been disproved that it needs no further comment.

The historic record of Arabs and Jews living together for centuries establishes the guidelines, rather than the relatively short period of hostility between Arabs and Zionists to which misguided Massada-minded segregationalists turn for a precedent.

If, as Mr. Glasner contends, Israel plays a central role in Jewish religion, why sit around a Passover table in Los Angeles, as he must have recently, and pray “for next year in Jerusalem.” Let those of this view go there at once. There are many others who believe that “next year” is a spiritual hope for the day on which, as Rabbi Morris Lazaron once expressed it, “men shall look into each other’s eyes and see the reflections of their own unfulfilled longings, and the hearts of men shall go out to each other in understanding, for they will know that all suffer hurt and heartache and dream the same dreams of freedom, security and peace. And together they shall build the Kingdom of God”....

The letter writers’ obsession with the security of Israel, even as the security of the U.S. becomes increasingly endangered, recalls the experience of James Forrestal in his efforts to take the Middle East out of domestic politics. When Congressman Franklin D. Roosevelt warned him that such a move would deprive the Democratic Party of important moneys needed for an election campaign. Forrestal responded, “For God’s sake, won’t someone worry about losing the U.S.?”

ALFRED M. LILIENTHAL New York, N.Y.

Problems of Philosophy

Causation and Types of Necessity, by a great American philosopher, Curt J. Ducasse, was reviewed in LR’s January 1975 issue. I would like to call attention to his far more important later book of more than 500 pages, Nature, Mind, and Death, published in 1951, and dealing with the same problems as well as many others, such as knowledge, substance, determinism, sense-perception, the mind-body problem, and personal survival. It represents Ducasse’s maturest thoughts on these subjects. This book should be considered a classic of American philosophy on a par with Blanshard’s Reason and Analysis. It is unfailingly lucid, simple (considering the complexity of ideas), and so beautifully written that it is a delight to read. The earlier book has been somewhat superseded by the later one, and it is the later one that I would recommend to all serious students of philosophy.

I must also take issue with a point or two in the LR review for which I believe Ducasse is unjustly taken to task. (1) Are things really causes? I agree with Ducasse that strictly speaking they are not. We do make such statements as “The other car caused the accident,” but it is not the car per se that caused it, but the event of the car swerving and hitting the second car. Not only events but conditions or states-of-affairs can be causes, e.g., the presence of oxygen in the air in causing a fire. The cause of an event might be defined as the totality of events and conditions which are together sufficient for the occurrence of the event which is the effect (and these causal factors may run into the thousands). Of course, events are usually (though not always) occurrences in the history of entities, or substances (“things” in the narrow sense of that term). (2) One becomes weary of quick dismissals of “linguistic philosophy” as if it were somehow superficial or indecent. The term “linguistic philosophy” has different meanings as used by different persons, of course. If it means that philosophy is basically a study of language, then it is false. But philosophy cannot be pursued fruitfully or far without a careful study of language, and many discussions of philosophical problems are confused and aborted because of inadequate understanding of language. Through years of teaching I have become convinced that a solid course in philosophy of language is absolutely indispensable—even more important for a student who wants to grapple with philosophical problems than a course in elementary logic. For every formal fallacy committed, there are probably twenty or more fallacies having to do with misuse of language or misunderstanding of the function of language (including definition) in the formulation of the problem. This is really no news, of course; every major philosopher from Plato and Aristotle to the present has grappled with problems of language in analyzing and solving philosophical problems, and has been a “linguistic philosopher” in that sense: using language as a tool (one among many) to unsnarl the perennial problems of philosophy.

JOHN HOSPERS Los Angeles, Calif.

Some Thoughts on “Students of

Objectivism” Mr. Childs’ letter in the January LR was most interesting. It is my sincere hope that the following observations will help shed some light on the questions he raises. Because there is a confident, authoritarian (in the sense of assertiveness, not of dogmatism) undercurrent to Miss Rand’s work, there is an attraction to those who, in practice, reverse her conviction that respect for the facts and for each individual’s independent judgement entitles one to act with a certain amount of authority (in the broad sense) and certainly as determined by the nature of subject matter.

In some instances an individual, instead of using facts to arrive at a position, will use a position to arrive at facts, usually the most convenient emotionally. As one concerned with individualism and justice Miss Rand may attract a minority who are docile conformists and/or arbitrary dogmatists who derive emotional comfort from the outward expression of opposite ideas (they hope to convince themselves more than others). The difference is not one of expressed beliefs but one of methodology, of how one arrives at a certain position. Through identification with her they hope to obscure their own emotions.

However, the docile conformity shows itself by the absolute, unquestioning acceptance of her principles and the implicit identification of other positions as threats. Arbitrary dogmatism may be expressed by a preponderance of highly emotionally charged assertions having at best little logical relationship to the main topic.

This is also indicated by the insistence for such religious-style identifications as “Students of Objectivism,” “as a professional philosopher,” etc. (one does not generally hear “as a student of J. S. Mill,” or “as an Anarchist Theoretician”), which are coupled with emotional remarks such as “a known plagiarizer,” “mealy-mouthed professors,” “flunking students,” and other irrelevancies which, while ostensively are relevant “background facts,” are actually emotionally oriented and can perhaps be best described by Miss Rand’s characterization of “emotional ejaculations.” However, this should not be regarded as an invalidation of Objectivism or as a rationalization for dismissing consideration of these principles.

RICHARD E. PIRRO Ringoes, N.J.