The libertarian movement is infected with Israel Derangement Syndrome
And at times this is breaking out into open antisemitism.
I’ve been a libertarian for seventeen years, since Ron Paul filed to run for President in early 2007 in the 2008 Republican Party primary. After nearly eight years of George W. Bush’s wars, hearing Ron Paul advocate a non-interventionist foreign policy was the freshest of breaths of fresh air. I dove into learning all I could about the non-aggression principle, self-ownership, and Austrian economics. I never thought I’d see a day where I was at odds with many in the libertarian movement, but the movement has been infected by what I call “Israel Derangement Syndrome,” and in some corners open antisemitism. It has gotten so bad, that I feel I must speak up about it.
I’m not Jewish, so I have no ethnic connection to Israel. I’m a Protestant Christian, so I’ve always felt a kinship with the Jewish people due to our shared religious heritage, and I’ve always wanted to visit Israel. I believe that it’s a good thing that a Jewish state exists in the historic land of Israel, and I wish for the safety and good fortune of the Israeli people. I believe this makes me a Zionist, and I am more than happy to have that label applied to me. This does not mean I think the Israeli government is above critique. Israel is, like all governments on Earth, made up of people, and people are flawed. I have no problem with good-faith criticism of the Israeli government or its prosecution of the war in Gaza.
I’m not seeing much level-headed assessment of that war from libertarians though. Back in March, when there were rumors that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. might seek the nomination of the Libertarian Party, libertarian foreign policy columnist and radio host Scott Horton penned a blog post at his Libertarian Institute website that consisted entirely of the following text:
He drinks the blood of dead Palestinian babies for his breakfast.
There is zero chance of him getting the LP nomination this year.
I promise.
What did Kennedy due to “earn” that vitriol from Horton? He was outspoken in his support for Israel after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israeli citizens by Hamas. I’m sure that post was written in haste and in an unhealthy emotional state, but it’s still up on the website of The Libertarian Institute today, so there’s no evidence that Horton feels any contrition for the tenor of his words. Whatever you think about the conflict in Gaza, I think we can all agree that “unhinged” succinctly describes that blog post.
In May of this year, it came to light that the Mises Institute, the organization carrying on the legacy of Ludwig von Mises, the most well-known proponent of the Austrian school of economics, had removed Dr. Walter Block from his longstanding position of senior fellow at Mises due to his support of Israel’s retaliatory war against Gaza. My friend Jordan Schachtel documented that story well, including publishing the “justification” offered by Mises Institute president Tom DiLorenzo, which was filled with exaggerations and misinterpretations of things Block has actually written about Israel, Gaza, and even vaccines.
As Block has pointed out, libertarians who fall on different sides of the abortion issue have continued to be libertarians in good standing despite that major difference of opinion. Murray Rothbard was pro-choice and Ron Paul is pro-life. They both disagreed with each other on that important issue, yet still held each other in warm affection because of their shared views on a whole host of other issues. Despite the fact that, from the pro-life position, abortion entails the mass killing of tens of thousands of unborn human beings every year, no one would ever be disfellowshipped from the Mises Institute over a difference of opinion on abortion. It’s ridiculous that they would disfellowship one of their brightest and most widely published scholars due to disagreements over Israel and the war in Gaza.
I have long been a fan of the Mises Institute, and am a former dues-paying supporter of the Institute, but I cannot in good faith financially support them again until either Block is reinstated, or the Institute is under new leadership. After I learned of Block’s dismissal I reached out to him via email to express how sorry and disappointed I was to hear about what had happened to him, and to thank him for all the years of his written work and podcast appearances from which I’d learned so much. He was very kind and gracious in his reply to me.
There is much journalistic work being done by people in the libertarian movement, including at Antiwar.com, which has published some truly great reporting over the years. However, their reporting on Israel over the last year nearly always carries a distinctly anti-Israel bias. One such example is a post on X from Dave DeCamp, news editor for Antiwar.com. He shared a piece he wrote called, “Israeli Strike Hits Greek Orthodox Church in Gaza.” I replied to him asking if there was evidence that Israel had intentionally targeted the church. I did so because I find that there is almost never an attempt to actually conduct objective reporting on these sorts of stories. He conceded that he really didn’t know if the church was intentionally targeted, though by his language he made it clear that he’s convinced that it was. I expressed to him that I wish journalists would be more clear when there’s no evidence in support of a claim or implication of intentionality. He replied, “Are you kidding? I'm not giving the IDF the benefit of the doubt after 10 months of targeting civilians.” My own view is that targeting Christian churches is wrong. Full stop. But as this exchange made clear, DeCamp could not substantiate his implication that the church was intentionally targeted, and he’s allowing his personal biases to guide his journalism. That’s not helpful given how difficult it is to sort out fact from propaganda (and mere confusion) in any armed conflict. This type of bias is commonplace in libertarian reporting and commentary on the war in Gaza.
Monday night I had a very unpleasant exchange on X with Daniel McAdams, who is the regular cohost of Ron Paul’s daily YouTube show, “Ron Paul Liberty Report,” and serves as the executive director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity,Ron Paul’s foreign policy think tank. McAdams shared a post from an anti-Israel account on X called “The Savior” that said, “Wtf is wrong with these ‘people’?” The accompanying video was a TikTok dance video made by young female Israeli soldiers. It’s certainly fair to question the wisdom of making such a video while serving in uniform in a time of war, but to dehumanize them as the anti-Israel poster did was part and parcel of the antisemitic rhetoric frequently associated with social media discussion of the war. McAdams quote-posted that post and added his own sarcastic commentary: “Tomorrow MSM headline: ‘innocent Israeli teens massacred by Hezbollah attack…in Lebanon.’” I replied, “They’re young women making a TikTok video. Meanwhile the guy you’re quoting is implying they’re not human.” To which McAdams replied in part, and I kid you not, “They incinerate babies.” I wasn’t having that, so I said, “You have no evidence that these young women have been involved in ‘incinerating babies.’ You don’t even know what job they do in the military. Nor can you provide a single shred of evidence that any babies have been intentionally targeted by Israel in this war.” Did Daniel McAdams, executive director of a foreign policy institute, attempt to provide such evidence? Predictably, he did not. Instead he said to me, “You are either incredibly stupid, ignorant, or a liar. Whatever the case save your crap. The adults are talking.” At no point in this exchange did I ever insult him personally. After a bit more back and forth in which he continued to insult me, he closed with the following post: “In fact I know that is just your "persona" assigned to you at the hasbara factory. Enjoy your death shekels. You'll soon feel the long burn.”
In case it’s not clear what he meant in that post, he was accusing me of being a mindless, paid propagandist for the Israeli government, and told me I’m going to Hell. All because I challenged him to provide evidence that Israel is intentionally targeting babies. Israel Derangement Syndrome is bringing shame upon Ron Paul because he associates himself with someone like McAdams, and has no idea (I’m sure) that McAdams is speaking this way on X.
I wish I could say that was the worst of it. Late last week, Dr. Michael Rectenwald, who nearly got the Libertarian Presidential nomination this summer, went on an antisemitic rant on X, and it wouldn’t be the last time he did so. In a post that has since been deleted, Rectenwald wrote, “The Jewish ‘elite’ must be stopped. They must be physically removed.” He also wrote, “Israeli society is fully ponerized. That is, the society itself is psychopathological.” In another now deleted post he wrote, “Judaism is not ‘Western.’ It is antithetical to Western values. Those who harbor and promote values that are antithetical to the West must be physically removed.” He also twisted Bible passages to justify his antisemitism, including his interpretation of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount: “No, because the Palestinians are the poor in spirit that Jesus spoke of in the Sermon on the Mount. This people is closer to Christ than any Christ killers.” And of course he posted references to Revelation 2:9 and 3:9which are frequently twisted by antisemites to be a condemnation of all Jews for all time, something Jesus never intended. Just this afternoon, as I write this, Rectenwald wrote one of his most unhinged posts yet in reply to an interlocutor: “No, fuck you, you Zionist cult member and genocider. You people will be stopped. Mark my words.”
I created a thread with screenshots of these and other antisemitic posts from Rectenwald, and it’s gone somewhat viral on X. I’m not actually trying to “cancel” anyone, but I am very much working to cancel these horrific ideas. Just because someone has the freedom to think things and say things doesn’t mean they should, and I don’t want the libertarian movement to be associated with vile, hateful rhetoric like this.
What has been deeply frustrating is just how few libertarians will speak up about this. I know it’s somewhat vain to be excited when someone you respect follows you back on X, but I had long been followed by a prominent libertarian whose work I have deeply respected and learned from for years. I won’t name him out of that respect, but I was crestfallen when he unfollowed me following my public critiques of Rectenwald’s posts.
At the end of the day, Rectenwald is not going to be moved to change by little old me. It’s going to take one of his friends in the upper echelon of libertarian luminaries to get through to him. I hope that some of them are doing that privately. But their public silence encourages that kind of behavior, including from the thousands of anonymous antisemitic accounts on X. I will not ignore this.