# Letters to LR (Feb. 1981) **URL:** **By** Various Authors **Published:** February 1, 1981 --- “Both the PLO and the Israeli government are terrorist organizations willing to murder innocent individuals to achieve their ends.” ## A Plague o’ Both Your Houses... Why is it that some “libertarians” seem unable to be consistently anti-statist and anti-authoritarian, and feel the need to choose a “lesser” evil when dealing with political and nationalist conflicts? In the September 1980 issue of _LR_, David Brudnoy has written an apology for the Israeli government, certainly not a libertarian organization, while attacking Bill Birmingham for favorably reviewing a book sympathetic to the Palestinian nationalists. It seems to me that neither approach is truly libertarian. Both the PLO and the Israeli government are terrorist organizations willing to murder innocent individuals to achieve their ends. In fact, if one counted bodies we would find that the Israeli armed forces have killed far more Arab civilians than the PLO has killed Jewish civilians. However, it seems that many consider a bombing of a market resulting in seven deaths a terrorist act, but a bombing raid on a village or refugee camp resulting in 100 deaths, an “anti-terrorist” raid. Is it that more efficient terror is, by virtue of its scale, more acceptable? However, whichever group has killed more people, neither one is more morally defensible than the other. Anti-statists should oppose both the Israeli government and the PLO as racist, murderous groups, just as all governments and nationalist movements have always been. Libertarians... must not fall into old-fashioned lesser-evilism, but must offer the only real alternative to oppression: Opposition to all authority and all government, as well as all nationalism. JOE PEACOTT Jamaica Plains, MA Like David Brudnoy, I found Mr. Birmingham’s whitewash of the PLO to be distressing. And I found much of worth in Mr. Brudnoy’s reply (“Palestinian fantasy,” _LR_ Sept 80). But, I was also disturbed by several aspects of his reply. Perhaps the most immediately disturbing aspect is the implicit racism during his comparison of the attacks on a group of Israelis and on three Arab mayors: “And what did the Arabs and the Jews have to say about these incidents? From Damascus, and from the PLO leadership, came high praise for those, presumably Arabs, who killed the Israelis in April.” Neither the PLO nor the rulers of Syria (separately or together) are “the Arabs,” Mr. Brudnoy; they are two segments of a larger Arab population. Mr. Brudnoy also seems to think (though this may be an inference on my part) that because Israel is less evil than the PLO (a premise with which I agree), it is therefore good (an unwarranted conclusion). And given that Mr. Brudnoy has a sounder justification for (the actuality of) Israel (rather than the general notion of a Jewish homeland) which he lacked an opportunity to present, this does not justify his apparent belief that the United States government should support Israel. There is questionable morality involved here, in that a call for government support carries with it an implicit rejection of the feasibility of ‘private’ support; but if people won’t voluntarily subscribe directly to a cause, it is doubtful that a government which does so can obtain the necessary capital without initiating coercion. It should be noted that, given the open-border policy which all (true) Libertarians call for, the (possible) destruction of Israel need not mean the destruction of the Israelis. Like Mr. Brudnoy, and unlike Mr. Birmingham, I have no stomach for the scum who make up the PLO. And I recognize that the argument that the Jews must have a homeland is not without merit. But this does not translate into support for Israel, let alone for interventionism on its behalf. DANIEL KIAN MCKIERNAN Westerville, OH A friend has sent some pages from your No 9, Vol 9 (September ’80) issue, with the article “Palestinian Fantasy” by David Brudnoy. I am used, or so I think, to wilful misrepresentation and deliberate deception, but something like this article I have not seen for a long time.... I am enclosing material from _Israeli Press_ and one article of mine from 1975 by way of rebuttal, and will also give you one single example of Mr. Brudnoy’s misrepresentations: His statement (p. 12) that Israel “is the only country in the Middle East demonstrating total respect for the holy places of all three great Western faiths.”... The following facts should be noted: 1. The old Moslem “Mamila” cemetery of West-Jerusalem was desecrated in the early fifties. “Independence Park” and “Plaza Hotel” were built on it, and only a vestige (around 5 percent of the original area) was left. 2. Similarly in Tel-Aviv, Hilton and Sheraton were built on the desecrated Moslem Cemetery of Jaffa. The bones were thrown on a garbage-pit. 3. The cemeteries of Rafah Approaches inhabitants in Sinai were treated likewise in 1972-1974. 4. The cemeteries of the Moslem villages destroyed in 1948-49 (385 were razed to the ground, most of them Moslem) were totally destroyed. Not a grave remains. The above statement is not intended to justify the Jordanian desecration of Jewish cemeteries, well publicized in the American press, but to point out that a half-truth is worse than a lie. ISRAEL SHAHAK Jerusalem, Israel Since I was appalled by Bill Birmingham’s review of Edward W. Said’s _The Question of Palestine_ (“The revolution that will be,” June LR), I am relieved by David Brudnoy’s devastating response to that review (“Palestinian fantasy,” September LR). Relieved but still concerned. Like many others, I believe that the libertarian movement’s most valuable contribution to American politics is its advocacy of individual freedom. But again like many others, I am troubled because this advocacy of individual freedom often is not accompanied by an appreciation of free (or relatively free) societies and a commitment to support those societies. Many libertarians attempt to justify their position by arguing that, if they were to support the United States government’s military activities, intelligence operations, and international alliances, they would help increase the government’s capacity to restrict freedom at home and abroad. This argument is based on two assumptions: first, the purpose of the American government’s international activity is to restrict freedom; second, the major threats to our freedom are posed by our government and its allies rather than by the Soviet Union and its clients. I think that both assumptions are wrong, but at least the first assumption is consistent with libertarian skepticism about all government activity. What is not consistent with libertarian philosophy—what should be abhorrent to all libertarians—is support for the so-called Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is a terrorist organization that intimidates Palestinians and murders Israelis; that is committed to the destruction of a democratic country, Israel; and that is supported by an imperialist totalitarian state, the Soviet Union. (See Charles Horner, “The Facts About Terrorism,” _Commentary_, June 1980). In the last sentence of his review, Mr. Birmingham says, “I would like to see American libertarians put aside their conservatism, and their xenophobia, and their terror of being somehow contaminated by ‘leftist’ issues....” Mr. Birmingham’s review and some other articles on international affairs in libertarian journals suggest that American libertarians should be concerned, not over “their terror of being somehow contaminated by ‘leftist’ issues” but over the fact that their movement has been contaminated by leftist issues. Since Mr. Brudnoy clearly has not been contaminated, he knows freedom when he sees it—and the enemies of freedom when he sees them. Therefore, I hope that we will see more articles by Mr. Brudnoy in the front as well as the back of _Libertarian Review_. TERRY KRIEGER New Orleans, LA After reading Mr. Birmingham’s rabidly pro-PLO, anti-Israel diatribe in the June LR, I really felt despondent. I thought: “Oh, no! How could libertarians encourage the venomous mobs attacking the Jews?” Thus, I was glad to see that the LR editors allowed David Brudnoy’s article to be printed in the September issue.... Everything he says in his short, eloquent article is true.... So far, what has the right to political self-determination accomplished for the Jews, except one war after another? Furthermore, it is obvious to me, especially since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, that the world’s statesmen are about the business of pressing the Jews into a corner they won’t be able to get out of through traditional political-military means.... If history and the present course of events teaches me anything, it is the utter futility of the Jewish fantasy that peace can be achieved by imitating the Philistines. It is my strong opinion that if the bloodletting is to be stopped and if there is to be true coexistence between Arabs and Jews, there has to be an alternative to the Philistine - Babylonian - Roman policy of self-determination. JONATHAN DULEY Pacific Palisades, CA