The Little Brown Reader

Ilana Mercer: Libertarians who loathe Israel

This column was one of the first big shots fired in what has become a significant battle. I posted a link to one of the other shots fired (fired back at Ilana in part for this very column, in fact) a while ago (see: Shame on WorldNetDaily).

Her column is basically a series of distortions and snide slams, wherein she mocks those libertarians who speak at all in sympathy for the beleaguered Palestinians, and who speak out against Israel's extremely heavy-handed "defensive" tactics.

She doesn't quite make the claim that such people are anti-semitic, but she wants to pretty bad. She comes about as close as she pssobily can without going over. You can see it right in the column's title: the libertarians mentioned above don't "loathe" Israel -- they oppose a number of the policies of its government and leaders. None of them say they loathe Israel -- in fact, I'd wager that few if any of them have expressed emotions toward the nation of Israel at all. It's about policies, and the actions of leaders -- but Ilana's trying to convince you it's about a whole nation of people, and that libertarians who oppose the government of Israel's aggressive, xenophobic actions toward the Palestinian people, and their clear-cutting "defensive" measures and police actions toward those same people on their own land are actually libertarians who loathe the people of Israel -- namely, Jews.

You can see her try to make that switch-over right in the first few sentences of her tirade column, below.

One result of this (or at least this theme) is that someone wrote in to me saying that his friend came to him saying Libertarians are anti-semitic. Thanks a lot, Ilana.

WorldNetDaily: Libertarians who loathe Israel

by Ilana Mercer

Posted: August 13, 2003
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

Admittedly, there is a lot about the Israeli side of the Palestinian-Israeli dispute to be critical of. For one, demolishing the homes of a terrorist's family isn't just or prudent. But it's hard to make sense of a perspective that sees everything Israel does as arch-evil, as is the case with those libertarians who religiously and robotically depict Israel as the devil incarnate.

So, how about it? Is Israel always wrong? Is there nothing redeeming about a people that revived a desolate land and a long-dead biblical language just over 100 years ago? ...

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