Samson Blinded

RSS Feed Homepage

Articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

Tithe, realistically
2013-02-15 07:46:00
Jewish society is individualist. Its major tenet is, Do not harm your neighbor, “live and let live.” In the metaphysical realm, the society is bound with the common religious goal of divine service. In reality, the society is bound by communal justice, defense, and charity. Of those, justice is not specifically Judaic, even in Israel. Defense is too politicized, and is an altogether non-Jewish matter in the Diaspora. Charity is the major communal factor among the Jews. Helping others automatically positions them as neighbors, and binds the individuals into a societal web. Material charity makes stronger ties among people than ethereal ideology. At the current stage of assimilation, charity is critical for the survival of Jewish communities. Leftism imbues people with guilt. Natural, unavoidable things such as wars, poverty, and inequality are declared evil. People who live safely and prosperously take it as their responsibility to help strangers in distant war zones and less...

No human rights in Judaism
2013-01-25 08:26:00
The worst thing done to Judaism is redefining it in terms of rights: the right to life (pikuah nefesh), Jeffersonian freedom and democracy, and even privacy (homosexuality). Judaism has no rights, but only obligations. Our biblical obligations toward other humans are very limited: they should not be murdered or robbed, and that’s it generally. We have a few more obligations toward fellow Jews. At any rate there is no right to statehood, work, or migration. Palestinians are no more justified in claiming statehood than are the Native American Indians, Chechens, or Eskimo. Palestinians have no stronger right to travel to Israel for work than do the Mexicans to the United States. Liberal political theories are formulated in terms of protecting rights to avoid the government’s infringement. In Judaism, there can be no infringement: Jews, whether they want it or not, are the people of God and must do his bidding. We have no sphere which would be private and protected from God. We have...
More About: Human , Rights , Human Rights

Holocaust by the world
2013-01-01 08:01:00
The Holocaust was a self-perpetuating spiral between Germans, Christians, and Zionists. The Germans started by pushing the Jews to emigrate peacefully, and entered into expensive haavara agreements with Zionists, essentially supplying Jewish emigrants with scarce foreign currency. When local Jews did not respond to haavara calls, Zionists were not eager to admit the “human waste” to the land of the new Jew, and Britain refused them entrance to Palestine. The Germans pushed harder, but other countries closed their borders to refugees. First Switzerland demanded that Germany stamp the Jews’ passports with J, so the Swiss could deny them entrance despite their open border policy with Germany. Then, at the Evian Conference, the other Western countries made it clear to Germany that they didn’t want to have anything to do with Jews, either. For a time, the Germans toyed with the idea of forcible resettlement of Jews, first to Madagascar, then to Siberia, the place later earmarked ...
More About: World , The World

Mossad and the thugs
2012-12-28 08:26:00
Mossad has long grown into a self-serving organization independent of Jewish purposes. Staffed by ultra-leftists of “Nordic character,” Mossad doesn’t see its job as defending the Jewish Israel. The results of Mossad operations even in enemy states are mostly negligible, as the government fails to act on the intelligence gathered by such operations. At any rate, those operations fall under the jurisdiction of Israel’s Military Intelligence, which does its work pretty well. Mossad has evolved into a political and commercial arm of the Israeli establishment, known for cheap Hollywood-like stunts such as targeted assassinations. They solve nothing, are tremendously expensive, misuse scare intelligence resources, and greatly endanger the Diaspora Jews who fall prey to retaliation. Mossad, like much of Shabak, has become a strong arm for Israeli leftists. Mossad operations in non-enemy states are dismally inefficient. To know everything is not a proper objective; that’s CNN’s...

History and utopia
2012-12-21 07:22:00
To talk about values is the toughest part. Proving theorems is straightforward, but how could you prove that two parallel lines do not cross in infinity? The opposite view is just as good. Try talking about suicidal Israeli politics with a worshiper of ethnic-blind democracy. Everything is fine for him: odd Jews become like other people and embrace Arabs. Assimilators do not consider what it means to be like others. Other people have their countries, distinctive secular cultures, and nationalist heroes. Jews have always lacked that. The normality of a nation is measured by it having a country and a culture. Jews normalize by shedding our distinctive features and adopting those of other nations. That is not normalization, but assimilation. Jews do not behave like a normal nation which strives to preserve its distinctiveness. The United States or France assimilate their aliens and integrate them into the existing cultural core. The Torah prescribes likewise: pagan residents of the Je...
More About: History , Utopia

Making Israel a Jewish State
2012-12-07 07:26:00
Hezbollah does not fight now to destroy Israel . Rather, it fights on behalf of the “oppressed” Palestinians. Eliminate Hezbollah now, and another guerilla group will come in its stead. Someone will always stand up for their oppressed brethren. And truly they are oppressed. They live in a state that proudly proclaims itself Jewish , whose national anthem— The Hope—is Jewish, and which welcomes Jewish, not Arabs immigrants. It would take only fifty miles’ resettlement of the Palestinians to let both Jews and Arabs live in their own monocultural states. True, no one wants to be evicted, or even relocated to a nearby house, but sometimes there are no options. Palestinians are not some idyllic pastoral farmers for whom life is centered on the ancestral land plot. They travel to study and to work like people in any other state. They will not enjoy relocation and the loss of work opportunities in Israel, but Greek Turks, Turkish Greeks, and Polish Germans hardly enjoyed their ...
More About: State

Giyur in four generations
2012-11-20 07:01:00
Observing the absurd rules of Shulhan Aruh, which were antiquated from their inception, doesn’t make a Jew. Almost no proselytes study Jewish philosophy and theology. Historically, conversion was a momentary formality for entering the Jewish way of life which includes not only orthopraxy but also the expectation of dying from anti-Semitic violence and suffering anti-Semitic attitudes. Modern conversion is a sham, but some kind of conversion was always there. The crowd which joined us in Exodus, were foreigners who settled in Samaria and turned to a kind of Judaism. Idumea was converted, as were many proselytes who historically joined the Jews. Defining Jewishness through bloodline is tempting, but doesn’t square with practice. It’s not self-evident that a Jewish great-grandmother alone makes one a Jew. Torah curses idolaters until the fourth generation because those are the furthest descendants who could know the idolater. Similarly, living a Jewish life for four generatio...

Liberalism not now
2012-03-06 08:53:00
The Palestinian problem is the American-propped democracy. No country has ever been democratic and liberal at this stage of formation: Ben Gurion’s forces fought his political opponents (ETZEL), if half-heartedly, and assassinated competing politicians (Arlosoroff). Forming a state is a matter of immense national resolve, of readiness to shed blood and kill opponents. Liberalism is great, but it only works in established societies. Arafat had a chance to enforce order on his own and competing terrorist groups. More often than not, he closed his eyes to their terrorism but retained the ability to suppress any opponents. Hamas has only grown because Israel supported it against Fatah; without our support, Arafat would have extinguished it. Theoretically, Israel could have signed a durable peace with Arafat. Since the US Administration pushed Shamir to allow Palestinian elections, the situation started to deteriorate. Arafat became accountable to his voters, who wanted no concession...

The danger of procrastination
2012-02-10 09:33:00
“The praises of God in their throat and a two-edged sword in their hand” Psalm 149:6 Prophets have told us repeatedly than when Israel returns from Exile, God will fight for us. Likewise, the Torah promises that God will instill fear in the hearts of the natives and they would cleanse our land of themselves. Does that mean we should do nothing? Realizing the absurdity of that proposition, rabbis explain that Jews should perfect themselves, and once the nation becomes observant, God will do his part. That’s unrealistic. From reading the Bible, it is clear that the Jewish masses were never too religious. Samson’s father Manoach bringing a pagan-type offering onto a hilltop at a stranger’s suggestion must have been typical. Jews commonly violated commandments on seventh-year slave release and sixth-year loan provisioning, and their religiosity was grossly syncretistic. If we are to rely on the entire Jewish nation suddenly becoming religious, we may as well pack an...

Nukes against liberals
2012-02-07 08:03:00
In order to impart their artificial identity to the people, nation-states embrace cultural homogeneity. They need to destroy traditional values so that people accept new ones. In doing so, states, essentially totalitarian institutions, enlist their opposite, the liberals. Liberals break cultural values under the guise of encouraging tolerance to deviations. Civil unions offer homosexuals excellent tolerance: they are tolerated in the sense that they are not being persecuted or discriminated against. But calling their partnerships “families” imposes their values on society, which has to adapt its own understanding of families to the deviants. The difference is not merely semantic, but whether a family serves the societal interest of procreation or is irrelevant to the society, and is just a vehicle for pleasure. Tolerance lessons in schools inevitably turn into propaganda for homosexuality because it is elevated to a norm rather than tolerated as a harmless deviation. Libertaria...

Peace is not just
2012-02-03 08:46:00
Justice exists on the domestic level only. We can only single out criminals and other offenders of peace in our own society, because police enjoy sweeping powers domestically but none internationally. On the national level, offenses go unpunished—and Israel talks to Fatah terrorists. The difference is simple: a society can afford to root out its own criminals, but the cost of exacting justice on foreign offenders can be prohibitive. In fact, an attempt to exact justice may result in more domestic casualties. Justice is only applicable domestically because it presumes a shared system of values. A thief and his victim share the same values; the thief betrayed them knowingly and intentionally, thus there is a moral ground for punishing him. International and civil clashes presume a different system of values. Both peoples consider the land theirs; who is to blame for the casualties? Thus, international justice is always sacrificed to peace, or perhaps expediency. An alliance with th...
More About: Peace

Tit-for-tat is not merely retaliation
2012-01-31 08:07:00
Confidence-building looks good on paper. The assumption that both sides want to end the conflict but are reluctant to do so is mistaken. In real life, they want to win the conflict rather than end it. Hope dies last, and neither party loses the hope to prevail, especially when the confidence-building measures fan the hope. Confidence-building is essentially a string of concessions, and each concession is a mini-victory. Victories encourage. When the opponents exhibit hostility rather than free will, confidence-building does not work even in theory. The confidence is already there: each party is confident of the other’s hostility. No amount of handshaking between their leaders can obviate the fact that the Jews and Palestinians would love to see each other dead. The Jews who recite daily, “Remember, O LORD, against the children of Edom the day of Jerusalem” are not as nice as your temple “rabbi” leads you to believe. The alternative to confidence-building is clearly lai...

Editorials are good, too
2012-01-27 08:00:00
The Torah bears obvious traces of the developing Jewish law. For example, between Exodus and Leviticus, “an eye for an eye” was expanded from pregnant women to everyone and apparently substituted with compensation. They say, “If the Torah is not divine letter-for-letter, then how we know what to do?” How did the Hebrews know before Moses told them? How did the Sadducees live while rejecting Deuteronomy? We test conjectures, live normal lives, respect tradition, and assess the writings critically. Moses judged the people well before he received the Torah. On Jethro’s urging, Moses wrote down the law and passed it to the elders. The Torah itself is clear that a significant portion of Jewish law is not divine. People observe secular laws because they are enforceable and basically authoritative. Secular laws are promulgated because they are thought beneficial for the nation. Likewise, religious laws dating back to the priests are good enough if Israel cares to enforce them...
More About: Editorials , Good

Afghani playground for liberals
2012-01-24 08:49:00
Afghanistan served as a playground for liberal morale. If one read the American newspapers in those days, the liberation of Afghani women seemed almost to have been the reason for the war. And what was that liberation? Removing the veil. Never mind that many women welcomed the veil as a safety measure against male harassment. The real problem is Islam’s extreme sexual restrictiveness, which turns males into sexual predators and makes veiling expedient. Unable to tackle the real problem, the liberals fought its consequences. It was perhaps the first modern war openly advertized as an ideological clash with no strategic relevance: the war of liberals and feminists against Islamic fundamentalists and female oppressors. Whoever had lost in Afghanistan, the liberals won by asserting their power to wage wars against those of different views. Unwilling to wait patiently for centuries until the Afghanis developed their own society through affluence to liberalism, fighting and suffering fo...
More About: Liberals

Afghanistan: moral and military aspects
2012-01-20 08:43:00
The American invasion of Afghanistan was all the more bizarre since the Russians fled it just a few years ago. American politicians and military men universally predicted the Soviet failure, but rushed to fail on their own. The NATO contingent in Afghanistan is pathetically small—one-fifth of the number of Soviet troops who served there—and the Soviets lost. In Iraq and Afghanistan, American generals failed to convince their political leaders that saturation is a major factor in pacifying an occupied state. The lack of peacekeeping forces is especially odd on the background of huge conscripted armies elsewhere: when countries such as Russia and China pay to train their young in the mass murder called the art of war, why not use those conscripts for peacekeeping missions abroad? A lot of them would gladly accept the action for little pay. The United States lacked a goal in Afghanistan. Speaking thirty-three days after 9/11, Bush demanded of the Taliban a single thing: render Osa...
More About: Military , Aspects

American puppet won’t last
2012-01-17 08:25:00
The American choice of Karzai for Afghanistan’s ruler is strikingly reminiscent of Shah Shuja, whom the British attempted to install there in the nineteenth century. The Afghanis, a proud bunch, cannot accept rule by a weak exile, essentially a puppet. The choice of weak Karzai is especially odd for a country immersed in a century-long civil war with intermittent coups. After the Americans leave, Karzai will welcome the Taliban, with whom he was very close in the mid-1990s. He’s aware that the only alternative to welcoming them is the fate of the Soviet puppet Najibullah, who was eventually castrated and hanged publicly by the victorious mujahedeen. The extent to which the mujahedeen despise Karzai is evident in the way they trust him. In the cruel and treacherous Afghani struggle, it is unthinkable for warlords to gather in a meeting: naturally, the host would kill the guests. But they are not afraid of meeting Karzai, certain that he lacks the guts to kill them all in a s...

America and Taliban
2012-01-13 08:20:00
The story of America n support for the mujahedeen must be instructive for Israelis. With rare exceptions, Afghani mujahedeen militias are a remarkably murderous bunch. While generally refraining from alienating the neighboring population, they often engage in grisly atrocities against less supportive segments. American officials never did so much as scold the Northern Alliance publicly for their human rights violations. Israel, however, is constantly investigated for ridiculously minor transgressions. The Northern Alliance’s secret is threefold: its atrocities are sufficiently gross that reforming its policies is not an option—and diplomats do not like to involve themselves with thankless tasks. Reporters also are not permitted into areas where atrocities have been committed, and the atrocities are large enough to turn from human tragedy into statistics. The American-propped Kabul government is rotten: not only does it incorporate a number of high-profile thugs, but many Taliban ...

American failure in Afghanistan – the origin
2012-01-10 08:18:00
The American involvement in Afghanistan had little to do with fighting terrorists. Al Qaeda had no responsibility for 9/11: always eager to appropriate other terrorists’ laurels, Osama has only announced that he knew about the attack a few days in advance. It is unimaginable that Obama risked his dream of a caliphate and that the Taliban risked their state by attacking America. Even stretching the facts to allow for Al Qaeda’s involvement would justify a punishing raid, but not occupation. Not because the occupation is unjust—who cares about justice to others—but because it is impossible. As Machiavelli noted, nations which do not learn to live under state control are inherently ungovernable. An occupier can exterminate them but not rule over them. The Taliban were sensible enough to enforce their order in major cities but leave the rural areas alone. They did not try to defeat other groups, but merely pushed them out of sight. The Russians, and later the Americans, w...
More About: Failure

Jewishness is paternal
2012-01-06 09:36:00
The basic laws of Judaism apply to foreigners who live among us: the Torah obligates them to fast on Yom Kippur, refrain from work on Sabbath, and destroy leaven on Pesach. Likewise, they must not blaspheme. Thus, an Egyptian foreigner was liable under Jewish law because his offense had been gross, he lived among us, and he was somewhat connected to the Jewish people through his mother. In rabbinical tradition, Jewishness is matrilineal while clan affiliation is patrilineal. This leaves an “interfaith” family without a clan and, consequently, with no land to settle in. The assumption that “interfaith” families settled in the land of the wife’s clan is impractical: she did not inherit the land and physically had no place to live in. Women went to live in their husband’s clan’s tents; the suggestion that a man moves into the home of his wife’s clan amounts to matriarchy, which is alien to the Jewish Bedouin mind. Such an arrangement for mixed families would put interm...

Courage to kill
2012-01-03 08:53:00
They say that justice is the most important thing in the Torah since God reiterated it, “Justice, justice should you establish.” But the Tanakh offers us two examples of something reiterated still more strongly. One is the famous “Holy, holy, holy,” which the angels sing to God. Jews need to emulate that holiness: our justice is the earthly equivalent of divine holiness. Justice has nothing to do with democracy, liberalism, or any such values—it is the world’s way of maintaining holiness. In practical terms, justice equals purity, and therefore opposes liberalism, which legalizes deviations and impurities. In Tanakhic terms, executing Rabin or homosexuals restores purity, and is unquestionably just. Another instance of reiteration bears on the current events. Before Joshua crossed the Jordan, God commanded him to be “strong and courageous”—thrice. Grammatically, it is the strongest repetition in the Tanakh: be strong and courageous, only be strong and courageous, ...

Transfer as the ultimate goodness
2011-12-30 08:49:00
Jews are humane. The only way to prevent Arab rioters from being killed on a daily basis is to expel them all. Jews are merciful. Since the Arab minority perpetrates a vast majority of the crimes in Israel, expelling the Arabs is an act of mercy toward Jews. Jews are realists. The Arabs will be expelled to Syria and Lebanon rather than to Egypt and Jordan. Jews are just. The Arabs will be compensated for any real estate they leave in Israel. They can collect their compensation from the Arab countries which owe it to the Sephardic Jews who fled to Israel. Jews like Arabs. A hundred years after expelling them, we must start beating our collective chest and teach a course about the lost Arab culture in all our schools. Jews are tolerant. We are prepared to live side-by-side with Arabs as long as they remain on the other side of the border. Jews are observant. The transfer is the only alternative to the biblically mandated extermination of the natives once they launched a war on Jews. J...
More About: Transfer , Ultimate

Enigma of Ruth
2011-12-27 08:22:00
“In many places, the Torah warns against [oppressing] gerim [strangers], for they are naturally evil [and can return to their ways],” – Rashi on “You shall not oppress the stranger” (Exodus 23:9). Rabbis made rich biblical characters into plain vanilla saints. The story of Ruth, a model proselyte, is fraught with oddities. Tanakh denigrates Jews often: the forefathers committed unsavory acts, Rachel stole idols, Moshe failed to circumcise his son, the Hebrews in Sinai rebelled against God time and again, and fell into idolatry as soon as they entered the Promised Land. In line with this exceedingly strange attitude, Ruth’s grandson David essentially murdered his military chief to take his wife, and was forbidden to build the Temple because he had shed too much blood in wars of expansion beyond the Promised Land. Even in biblical times, racketeering, though typical of Bedouin, hardly won David admiration among settled Jews, especially given his murderous behavior (1S...
More About: Enigma

Fashionable anti-Semitism
2011-12-23 08:16:00
Though talk about crumbling patriarchal societies is normally limited to Muslim countries, a similar process is taking place in America. The redneck majority was parochial, openly racist, and anti-Semitic just forty years ago. In the span of a single generation, tremendous changes took place. “Normal” families left the cities for the suburbs. Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean enemies became friends and immigrants. Homosexuals got married. Blacks gave the country a president. Jews took control of the economy, media, and the Senate. Though the American majority’s mindset falls beyond my area of expertise, I imagine they should behave like Arabs. In the sea of change they need some firm values connecting them to the days of old. Anti-Semitism is just such a value. Unlike other hatreds, anti-Semitism remains politically correct if one dresses it in anti-Israeli garb. This reveals an immensely important tendency of liberal societies. They have demolished natural lines and differen...

Israel, the only lost empire
2011-12-20 08:56:00
The end to the era of empires is yet another leftist end-of-history myth. Empire s answer a very deep human need for grandeur. Already the ancient empires tend to be unprofitable. The Romans conquered the entire civilized world, yet poverty abounded in Rome. If the imperial ventures had been even slightly profitable, the smallest tribute from ten to fifty million subjects would have sufficed to grossly enrich every citizen of a tiny Roman city. The Greek and Persian empires similarly did not enrich the masses. The proverbial riches of the Persian court were insignificant: even by the standards of ancient sustenance economy, a few hundred golden plates cannot be described as the wealth of a nation. Since the Renaissance, empires have turned staggeringly unprofitable, typically bankrupting their leaders. The condemnations of the third world notwithstanding, the British Empire spent more on guarding its colonies than received in income from them. Unsurprisingly, the commercial compani...
More About: Lost , Israel

Science is also a religion
2011-12-16 08:42:00
Theoretically speaking, science can never contradict religion. Even miracles have rational explanations. The rabbis were adamant that God does not perform miracles by violating the laws of nature. Nor do the historical accounts have to be accurate: the rabbis insisted that all of them were given only for the sake of their interpretation. Three questions distinguish religion from science: does God exist, how was the universe created, and what is the nature of life? The first proposition cannot be disproved. It cannot be proved, either, but at least it passes the Occam’s Razor test as the simplest explanation of observed phenomena. Scientific explanations of how the universe appeared border on religion because they are inherently unverifiable and use transcendent notions. Scientists declare that matter is eternal, thus sidestepping the issue of creation. Curiously, Genesis employs a similar approach when it says that the world was bara, ‘formed’ rather than ‘created.’ Th...
More About: Science , Religion

Credibility of nuclear response
2011-12-13 08:17:00
Israel’s nuclear capability is tentative in a sense. The problem is not only just the Jewish cowardice which precludes the government from using effective weapons. The problem is, we do not know if the weapons are effective. No fewer than five to six tests are required to perfect a bomb’s design, but Israel conducted a single test only, decades ago. All the newer designs are completely untested and might produce a negligible explosion only. Israel does not want to risk her deterrence by revealing a faulty design. The claims of an unnecessarily large number of nuclear weapons (around 200) suggest doubts about their operational capacity. Compared to Israel, other nations are highly successful. Encouraged by Pakistani nuclear proliferation, scores of countries are racing toward the bomb. Nuclear proliferation is unstoppable because the sixty-year-old technology is simple. Two hundred years ago, no one could have imagined terrorists owning Stinger missiles. Decades from now...

Jews always look bad
2011-12-09 08:08:00
Stop worrying about how the Jews look, whether in giving charity to foreigners or working for the peace process. Whether we look like scrooges or enemies of peace, Jews will always look bad to anti-Semites. Whether for withholding Jewish charity funds from Darfur Muslims or not being swift enough in ceding their capital to the Palestinians, Jews will always be hated. Return to normality, start minding your own interests. You’re a Jew anyway; you will never look good for them. Jews are framed as enemies of peace because Arabs are unflinching. When the Arabs refuse to yield and Jews yield consistently, foreigners take Jewish procrastination in yielding as malicious. The enemy of peace is someone who can yield but does not. Arabs cannot be expected to yield, thus the Jews became an obstacle to peace. The Arab refusal to yield is recognized as sensible: they are fighting for nationalist goals. Jews, on the contrary, speak in terms of security. Foreigners rightly assume that the curr...

Jewish charity is only for Jews
2011-12-06 08:50:00
Jewish aid to non-Jewish causes bothers me. Look at the Israeli government, which “economically develops” Palestinian areas while lacking adequate funding to fortify Sderot schools. The issue of government funding is never clear cut. Is it moral to pay for infrastructural projects while the same money can directly save lives if invested in healthcare? At least, such questions pit Jewish life versus the quality of Jewish life. Often enough, it is Jewish life versus the quality of the others’ lives. The Torah law is straightforward: we only aid fellow Jews and proselytes (gerim, which is often mistranslated as strangers). The legist does not indulge in political correctness. We don’t need his omniscience to understand that any money devoted to foreign causes is money taken from Jewish ones. In effect, aiding foreigners means robbing Jews. This logic is particularly relevant to Jewish charity organizations, whose donors count on their money being spent for Jewish causes. Ro...
More About: Jewish , Charity

Israel can sell for more
2011-12-02 08:34:00
US aid to Israel is not just useless but counterproductive. The EU and Russia oppose Israel as an American client. They adopt the most radical anti-Israeli stance in the expectation that America would smooth things out. They field anti-Israeli resolutions for America to veto. In 1967 and 1973 Russia armed the Arabs, and today Europeans support the Arabs politically for imperialist reasons of world competition. Without American involvement, the Israeli-Arab issue would fade into insignificance. Destroying Israel militarily or politically is in no one’s interest. For the Arab regimes, Israel offers a welcome vent for their masses’ discontent. For the Christian powers, Israel creates a slight tumult in the Middle East, providing them with numerous opportunities for political intrigue and profitable rapprochement with Arab countries. Islamists despise Israel as the Great Satan’s associate. Without Western influence, Jews and Arabs could have fought each other out long ago. Arab...
More About: Sell

Anarchy is not anti-Israeli
2011-11-29 08:20:00
Anarchism is unrelated to pacifism. Anarchy is a means while pacifism a goal. Democracy, likewise, works just as well in pacifist Switzerland as it did in militant Ancient Rome. Anarchy can be highly repressive, as it is in communes, and arguably in Rousseau’s Utopia. The only example of a large-scale anarchist movement, Nestor Makhno’s, was militant, with little concern for liberal human rights. Even the most liberal anarchic society would have to fight initially against government resistance. Anarchist communities might infringe on the private ownership of the land they take. Near-anarchic wild-west towns were founded on land expropriated from the exterminated peoples. In light of anarchist theory, there is nothing wrong with Jewish pioneers taking the land from the Arab inhabitants. Anarchy is an intra-societal policy. It only works among the consenting people and does not preclude repression of opponents. The litmus test of any action’s compliance with anarchism ...