Saturday, September 24, 2011

Israel’s Fault?


Having lived in Israel for years, learned the national language – Hebrew – and spent the better part of my life “supporting” the Jewish state, I can’t imagine I’m about to say that when it comes to the country’s current beleaguered situation, Israel has, quite arguably, done this to itself! “Back in the day,” I remember when a young aspiring Israeli leader named Benjamin Netanyahu declared that an independent Palestinian state is out of the question. There just isn’t room in this tiny region, a scant 50 miles across, for two independent nations. Nor is this Switzerland, where folks of French and German stock have learned to just “get along.” Mr. Netanyahu – Bibi – used to say, “This isn’t a peace process; it’s a war process.” To that he added, “The Palestinians don’t want a peace with Israel; they want a piece of Israel.” Moreover, Israel needs the territories it conquered in the 1967 Six Day War in order to protect itself from existential threats. It needs the strategic Jordan Valley as a buffer zone against attack from the east. And it can by no means allow a hostile Palestinian state to exist just a few miles from its largest city, Tel-Aviv, and occupying the eastern half of its capital, Jerusalem.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

The Libertarian’s Bible


All right; it’s time for some political musings!... from a "Libertarian" perspective...  
What do we think of when we think of the Bible? The “Good Book.” A book of Faith. The Word of God. All very nice designations. But how often to we dare to think of the Bible as a book of politics? Doesn’t the Bible engender enough religious disputes without throwing politics into the mix? But what if the Bible actually weighs in on political issues and principles relevant to our own times? What if it teaches valuable political lessons that we can’t afford to miss?