Contra Taki on Israel

By Walter E. Block

Taki Theodoracopulos is the editor of Taki’s Magazine, which is a paleo-conservative periodical. He does not much like the concept of “Greater Israel.” He is dead set against Donald Trump’s plan to banish some two million Palestinians from their ancestral homes in Gaza. Pretty much the first words out of his mouth, well, off his laptop, in this Israeli denunciation of his, surprise, surprise, well, I’ll let you read what he writes:

“… the first man to think about displacing a whole populace was one Adolf Hitler, although he never went through with it. He decided to kill them instead. I am talking about plans to deracinate the Gaza population to faraway places, 2 million souls in all, give or take 100,000, depending on the death toll of innocent old men, women, and children following the Israeli bombardment of the place.”

There is more wrong here than you can shake the proverbial stick at. For one thing, this argumentum ad Hitlerum is getting a bit tired, dontcha think, perhaps out of overuse. One would have expected something, what, better, from a world-class wordsmith such as Taki. I’m a Hitler, you’re a Hitler, he’s a Hitler, she’s a Hitler, everyone, it would appear, nowadays, is a Hitler. Can’t Mao or Stalin or Pol Pot ever get a chance to besmirch an idea? Life is just not fair to these other mass murderers.

For another, that statistic is roughly double the amount of fatalities claimed, even, by Hamas itself. Well, you have to admire this scribe’s creativity with statistics. Some might call making it up as you go along, but I am content to express my admiration for Taki’s mathematical skills.

Then there is that bit complaining about “the Israeli bombardment of the place.” What was the only civilized nation in the Middle East to do when Hamas hides behinds the skirts of Palestinian women and their children, by placing weaponry, rocket launchers, etc., in hospitals, schools, Mosques, residential areas? Yes, this terrorist organization took some 250 hostages from Israel on that day of infamy, October 7, 2023, but they use the entire two million Palestinians, in effect, in this manner, as shields to protect their cowardly selves.

Taki attacks David Freedman (sic), who he describes as “a rich New York Jew” for supporting Trump’s plan on expelling Palestinians from Gaza. Unhappily, he cannot be bothered to spell this man’s name correctly (Friedman). Worse, all too many people fitting this description continue to vote Democratic, although fewer, happily, in the last US election. Well, I’m a middle class Jew who also emanates from the Big Apple, and I support the President of the United State on this matter, and on much else to boot. I do so because it is eminently justified. Are these people to pay no price at all for their vicious, depraved, continual, assaults on a country that only yearns for peace? Not every Jew, fortunately, supports Hamas vis a vis Israel. All too many do, such as many Reform Jews, members of Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and those young Jews who joined the Iranian-inspired campus protests in favor of barbarism.

Taki waxes eloquent in condemnation of Israel “annexing … the Golan Heights.” But the Arabs were shooting rockets down from these hills. Is the Jewish state supposed to just sit there and take it? How would Taki react if his own country were subject this sort of bombardment? Turn the other cheek? Get used to it?

He complains bitterly about the “More than one million refugees (who) were packed into camps in Lebanon and Jordan.” Again, a slight correction, this time, on his statistics, assuming he is now discussing the so-called right of return of the Palestinians who departed from Israel during its war for Independence. It was, instead, about 700,000. (What’s a few hundred thousand people when we are pontificating?) Many of these people, however, were guilty of actual treason, in that they followed the orders of the seven invading Arabs armies to depart, so as to enable their slaughter of Jews to occur more smoothly, efficiently effectively.

By some coincidence, at around the same time some 850,000 Jews were ejected from the Arab countries they also had been living in for centuries. The difference between these two massive migrations are stark. The Jews ousted were guilty of nothing. Well, except of the crime of being Jewish. And how were these two different groups of people treated by the recipient countries? Those Jews kicked out of the Arab countries were quickly integrated into the Israeli society and economy. Their counterparts were subjected to dismal refugee camps, the better to demonstrate to the world the cruelty of the Israelis. Is Taki aware of any of this? Not so that you would know it, based upon this publication of his.

According to our magazine man, “Mossad was aware of the planned October Hamas attacks and did nothing in order for Israel to unleash the counterattack on Hamas. Since the war began, Hamas has been 90 percent destroyed, ditto Hezbollah; Assad has been overthrown; and the Iranians have been exposed as paper tigers. The theory that Israel knew and did nothing makes sense, but I don’t buy it. If proved true, Netanyahu would be a dead man, as would all those involved who knew. And they are not brave men, just plain criminals.”

This is a pretty vicious smear. Indeed, it is difficult to think of something worse. If he doesn’t “buy it” why is he popularizing this notion? Neither he nor anyone else has ever offered a shred of evidence supporting this claim. One can only ask this man the proverbial “have you stopped beating your wife yet” question in response. As for Netanyahu not being “brave” one wonders what universe Taki is occupying. Criminal? Well, yes, sure, if defending your country against savage thugs is a criminal act.

Taki takes great exception to people regretting the fact that recently released the Jewish hostages were subjected to semi-starvation during their months of captivity. He states: “I keep reading in British newspapers about some of the freed male Israeli hostages having lost weight. In the meantime there are thousands and thousands of dead and thousands and thousands of badly wounded women and children among Palestinians, but somehow they’re no longer mentioned.”

What about the almost 2000 Palestinians recently released from Israel jails, in trade for these hostages. Have any of them “lost any weight?” Not so that you would notice. They were well-treated, as befits a civilized country. As for the admittedly horrid damage suffered by “thousands and thousands” of Palestinians in greatly regretted collateral damage, whose fault are these tragedies? I’ll give you two choices in this multiple choice exam, gentle reader:

One, the IDF who were defending Israel against continual attacks, capped off by the October 7, atrocity.

Two, Hamas, which launched these unprovoked despicable series of murders, and used its own people as cannon fodder.

Go to the head of the class if you chose the correct answer. Taki, obviously, fails this exam.

Taki ends his screed on this scholarly note: “Are we all as crazy and fanatical as the Netanyahu band of criminals?” If this is the intellectual level of Israel’s most gifted critics, and, indeed, he is one such, this country really has little to fear.