By Allen Gindler
Image by Krapulat – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikipedia [Resized]
Among the more paradoxical developments in contemporary political discourse is the growing prevalence of anti-Israel, and sometimes explicitly antisemitic, rhetoric in certain libertarian and anarcho-capitalist circles. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in the output of the Mises Institute, an organization otherwise known for its staunch commitment to Austrian economics, individual liberty, and stateless social theory. What, then, explains this convergence of radical anti-statism with a selective hostility toward a small state, thousands of miles away, with no jurisdiction over them? The answer, I propose, lies in a psychological mechanism as old as politics itself: scapegoating. I am leaving the obvious explanation—blatant antisemitism—aside for now.
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