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Articles by Walter E. Block
Is a New Jewish Defense League Needed?
Anti-Semitic outrages are a serious and disproportionate problem. Commentary How well have the Jews in New York City been faring under their new mayor? Not too well. Zohran Mamdani’s continual criticism of Israel—if not actual incitement to do harm to Jewish citizens—might well at least amount to instigation. He has characterized Israel’s campaign in Gaza as a “genocide.” This is an open sesame for Jew haters to get out from under the slimy rocks they have been hiding under.
From the river to the sea, Israel is the rightful owner
Former President Barack Obama recently spoke out regarding the situation in the Middle East. In an October 2026 interview with journalist Susan McKay, Obama declared that Israel’s reliance on military and technological superiority risks undermining its moral standing. He warned that Israel has “ceded moral ground” by refusing concessions and engaging in excessive military engagements.
Palestinians don’t want freedom
The Palestinians want to be occupied, but not by Israel. Rather, they want to be governed by people of their own ethnicity and religion. For decades, Palestinian nationalism has been presented as a struggle for freedom. Give Palestinians sovereignty over Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank — the proper appellation for this territory is Judea and Samaria — and they will supposedly achieve the “freedom” and “self-determination” they have long sought. Real journalism.Trusted by millions.
My Reflections On October 7: Email Correspondence
-----Original Message----- From: John ******* <***********.com> Sent: Wednesday, October 7, 2026 12:09 PM To: Walter Block <wblock@loyno.edu> Subject: My Reflections On October 7 Walter, I just wrote the following on X as I reflect back on how much personal change I’ve experienced since 10/7/23, and wanted to share it with you since I mentioned you in it: I woke up in the wee hours of October 7, 2023, checked X, and saw that Hamas had launched a terrorist incursion into Israel.
Bibi Is A Warmonger? – OpEd
The article rejects the New York Times claim that Netanyahu seeks conflict for electoral gain, arguing instead that Israeli actions respond to ongoing threats from Iranian missiles and Hormuz disruptions, Houthi control of Red Sea waterways and islands, Hezbollah attacks in the north, and the lasting impact of Hamas’s 7 October 2023 atrocities.
Defending the Litterer
What is the Mises Institute? The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard. Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order.
Defending the Slumlord
Audio Mises Daily Tags: Capital and Interest Theory, Entrepreneurship, Philosophy and Methodology What is the Mises Institute? Become a Member
Sorry, Britain. The Falkland Islanders are just 190-year-old squatters
Argentine President Javier Milei is hardening Argentina’s sovereignty claim over the Malvinas/Falkland Islands while paving the way for severe sanctions against British companies. He has also initiated a sanctions process against 45 companies and legal entities, including 16 British and 13 Israeli companies. How are we to determine who is in the right in the present controversy between Argentina and Great Britain concerning the Malvinas/Falklands Islands? Stay informed.Stay ahead.
Statehood won’t make Palestinians free. It will trigger the next war
Suppose that a Palestinian state comes into existence. Suppose further that it is democratic, internationally recognized, and sovereign over the West Bank and Gaza. Which political movement would most likely form its government? On the basis of recent Palestinian political history, Hamas would be a serious contender, perhaps the most likely winner. What would such a government do? If the future resembled the past, it could launch atrocities comparable to Oct. 7, 2023.
No, Israel isn't 'stolen land' — it was purchased at astronomical premiums
Inside libertarian circles, critics attack anyone defending Israel as "collectivists" peddling broken ancestral claims. Their intellectual challenge boils down to one smug question: “Where is the private property? Where is the chain of title?” Fine. Ignore the archaeology , genetics, and linguistics proving indigenous Jewish ties. Let us meet these critics strictly on their own turf: individual property rights, contracts, and Lockean homesteading.
No, Israel isn’t ‘stolen land’ — it was purchased at astronomical premiums
Inside libertarian circles, critics attack anyone defending Israel as “collectivists” peddling broken ancestral claims. Their intellectual challenge boils down to one smug question: “Where is the private property? Where is the chain of title?” Fine. Ignore the archaeology, genetics, and linguistics proving indigenous Jewish ties. Let us meet these critics strictly on their own turf: individual property rights, contracts, and Lockean homesteading. Stay informed.Stay ahead.
Challenging the one-sided boycott of ‘West Bank’ exports
(Sept. 20, 2026 / JNS) Numerous facts have been ignored regarding the one-sided European boycott of “West Bank” exports. But first, two important terminological issues should be mentioned. First, there is no such thing as the “West Bank.” It has been common parlance for a long time, but the term is incorrect.
What the Haredim owe Israel
(Sept. 16, 2026 / JNS) Israel’s Haredi community has many good qualities—make that excellent qualities. In one important sense, they are the moral core of the country. Thanks to their studies, the Torah is not a dead letter; it is a living, breathing document. Others have let that tradition lapse; the Haredim did not. Israelis and all Jewish people are richer for it. But we come here not to praise the Haredim but to criticize them. The occasion is a law.
Netanyahu lets journalists blame him for Oct. 7 — Iran kills citizens for honking horns. Guess who ‘progressives’ back?
A common narrative claims that before 1948, the Middle East was an interfaith paradise where religious minorities enjoyed full equality. This argument exists mainly to frame Israel’s founding as the single cause of sectarian strife across the region. By depicting the pre-modern Middle East as an idyllic garden of mutual respect, critics present Jewish statehood not as an act of historical self-defense, but as an unnatural rupture that destroyed an organic peace.
Israel’s sin was building a shield instead of digging graves
When an air defense system intercepts 9 out of 10 rockets fired into civilian areas, it achieves something remarkable for civil defense. Yet in international opinion, that success frequently works against the state that built it. By denying adversaries the mass casualties they seek to inflict, Israel’s defense creates a strange political inversion. The absence of catastrophic domestic death tolls is rarely treated as a triumph of civilian protection.
91 años de error: el Banco Central y la inflación
En su historia, Argentina le quitó 16 ceros a su moneda, introdujo cinco signos monetarios distintos, atravesó dos episodios de hiperinflación, vació sus reservas internacionales en múltiples ocasiones y pasó la mayor parte de su existencia sufriendo diversos desastres monetarios, como alta inflación, cepos cambiarios y numerosas restricciones económicas.
After 9/11, we protected Muslims. After Oct. 7, elite colleges betrayed Jews
The 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is upon us. Several thousand innocent civilian victims were murdered in three separate events in three locations. Those who remember that day won’t ever forget it. Stay informed.Stay ahead. Join Washington Examiner for unlimited access to the news, analysis, and commentary that matter most. See Options › Already a member? Log in Already a print subscriber? Click here to login/register your account Trusted reporting.Unlimited access.
Opinion: Let’s not put special taxes on successful innovators Original
Skip to Content Some inventors aren't motivated by financial considerations and give their patents or profits away. The rest of us need incentives Because most of us are not saints, if we want less innovation, taxing the profit from it is certainly the path we should take. In 1921, Canadians Frederick Banting and Charles Best discovered insulin and in doing so changed the fates of millions of diabetics. They sold their patent for it for the princely sum of $2.
Two State Solution – OpEd
The author argues Palestinians have repeatedly rejected offered statehood and that Gaza after 2005 was a near-state they lost by attacking Israel, especially after October 7, 2023. Countries now pushing a two-state solution and recognizing “Palestine” are called hypocritical unless they donate their own land (on the scale of Gaza) for a Palestinian state far from Israel.
The UN, NGOs, and the Business of Perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict International bureaucracies ostensibly devoted to peace have developed powerful financial incentives to keep the conflict alive.
For the global justice system of today, we look at the United Nations and the big NGO industrial complex. What are they doing? They do not make arbitrations of international peace. Instead, they operate as a parasitic cartel. They take warlords and theocratic killers and wash their genocidal ambitions in a linguistic laundry of human rights terminology. Frankly, this is a multi-billion dollar vulture industry.
The UN, NGOs, and the Business of Perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict International bureaucracies ostensibly devoted to peace have developed powerful financial incentives to keep the conflict alive.
For the global justice system of today, we look at the United Nations and the big NGO industrial complex. What are they doing? They do not make arbitrations of international peace. Instead, they operate as a parasitic cartel. They take warlords and theocratic killers and wash their genocidal ambitions in a linguistic laundry of human rights terminology. Frankly, this is a multi-billion dollar vulture industry.
Useful idiots: Why college activists are acting as unpaid interns for a dead Soviet empire
If you walk into the quad of any elite Western university today, you will be deafened by a very specific vocabulary. You will hear endless lectures on “settler colonialism,” “genocide,” “apartheid,” “from the river to the sea,” “imperialist implants,” and “indigenous resistance.” The students and tenured professors chanting these slogans are convinced they have uncovered a profound moral truth, imagining themselves as the vanguard of global justice.
Squatters on sacred ground: Why John Locke proves Israel’s claim to the holy land
The notable philosopher John Locke maintained that justified land titles are predicated upon homesteading — the first person to mix his labor with the land is the rightful owner of it. Not the most recent occupant, the original homesteader. Unless, of course, the rightful owner abandoned his property. Then the next person to step up to the place and occupy it assumes that role. The Jews have occupied contested territory in the Middle East for about 3,500 years.
Squatters, Trespassers and Other Criminals
Walter E. Block Archive Squatters, Trespassers and Other Criminals Alternative title: The Man Who Never Stopped Saying It Was His ◄►◄►▲▼ • B Suppose that you, gentle reader, are taken from your home at gunpoint. Not for an afternoon. You are held for thirty-two months. Eventually you are ransomed, released, and you make your way back. You find your house occupied. Other people live in it now. You explain, politely, that it is yours. They decline to leave.
To Palestinians and their supporters: How’s the resistance going?
(Aug. 19, 2026 / JNS) Here is a question for Palestinians and their supporters around the world: How is the resistance going? Is everyone pleased with the results? Has it benefited Palestinian Arabs themselves? After decades of war, intifada, rocket fire, mass murder, kidnappings, international campaigns, boycotts, rejected peace offers and billions of dollars in humanitarian aid, the Palestinian people remain stateless and impoverished.
Could a Future Iran Be an Ally of the United States? A History of Strong Relations Says Yes
People walk past an anti-US billboard on a street in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 3, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS The historic alliance between the US and Iran was built on deep economic, military, and institutional trust. In 1957, the United States chose Iran as one of its primary partners under the “Atoms for Peace” program, which established the Tehran Nuclear Research Center in 1967.
What if Netanyahu surrendered? Israel’s real crime is refusing to die
There is a persistent habit among Western commentators to analyze the Middle East using ideas that sound reasonable in London or Washington, but fall apart the moment they hit the ground elsewhere in the world. Chief among them is the belief that strength is inherently suspicious and material weakness is proof of moral innocence. In a Western university lecture hall, that premise might pass for high-minded ethics. In the Middle East, it is a death sentence.
The West forgot how to fight. Israel hasn’t
Carl Schmitt left modern political theory with an uncomfortable truth: Politics, at bottom, has nothing to do with legal arbitration, procedural rules, or economic trade-offs. It comes down to a single distinction: friend and enemy. Political survival means knowing exactly when a threat stops being manageable and becomes existential — knowing who stands beside you, and who wants you erased. Liberal democracy was never built to accept that crucially important insight.
Tehran wants you to forget: The Israelis and Iranians were once friends
Walk through a diaspora protest in London, Los Angeles, or Toronto, and you will spot something that shatters decades of state propaganda. Right beside the ancient Persian Lion and Sun flag flies the Star of David. This isn’t a cheap political stunt. It’s a raw, spontaneous nod to a shared history stretching back thousands of years. The people holding those flags are entirely ignoring the modern borders and religious ideologies designed to keep them apart. The numbers tell part of the story.
The case for finishing the war against Iran
(Aug. 5, 2026 / JNS) Opposition to the U.S.-Israeli war against the Iranian government is nearly universal in the West. Polls show large majorities opposed in both the United States and Europe. Politicians across the spectrum, as well as the Pope, have called it strategically reckless and morally indefensible. These objections are serious. They are also wrong.
Trump's alternative to war with Iran isn't peace. It's a bloodbath
For years, the Iranian government has attacked Israel mainly through proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis . More recently, it has launched direct, gratuitous strikes on the Middle East's only relatively free country. If holding this regime accountable isn't morally justified, there is no such thing as moral justification.
Trump’s alternative to war with Iran isn’t peace. It’s a bloodbath
For years, the Iranian government has attacked Israel mainly through proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. More recently, it has launched direct, gratuitous strikes on the Middle East’s only relatively free country. If holding this regime accountable isn’t morally justified, there is no such thing as moral justification.
Birthright Citizenship: A Rejoinder
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By Walter E. Block (August 2026) Illegal immigrants wait outside the Roosevelt Hotel for placement in a shelter after New York City’s Manhattan relief center reached full capacity.
Why Trump's smoke tariffs miss the real Canadian culprit
President Donald Trump has recently boosted tariffs against some Canadian exports to the U.S. to the 50% level, something unprecedented, even for him. He has done so, in part, as a reaction to smoke inundating the United States from Canadian forest fires The New York Times, and who would know better on this matter, indeed, on all matters, rises to the defense of the Great White (pardon me for using this word, and, worse, capitalizing it) North.
Canadians should kiss Trump's ring. He just shocked their economy back to life
According to a recent report, nine of the 10 premiers will now allow full free trade among all their provinces, at least insofar as beer, wine, and liquor are concerned. Canadians ought to bow down and kiss President Donald Trump's ring. That is because this new provincial initiative emanated from his recent announcement of a 50% tariff on many exports heading in a southward direction between the two countries.
Canadians should kiss Trump’s ring. He just shocked their economy back to life
According to a recent report, nine of the 10 premiers will now allow full free trade among all their provinces, at least insofar as beer, wine, and liquor are concerned. Canadians ought to bow down and kiss President Donald Trump’s ring. That is because this new provincial initiative emanated from his recent announcement of a 50% tariff on many exports heading in a southward direction between the two countries. Russia isn’t negotiating over Ukraine. It’s running a clock An Afghan saved my life.
Both pro-life and pro-choice positions are evil. Why not try this instead?
First, let us get it clear: Human life begins not with birth but with the fertilized egg. As soon as the sperm inserts itself into the egg, there is a new human being in existence. He, not it, is very young, incapable of entering into contracts, and does not even look at all like the rest of us, for example, those reading this present essay. But he is as much of a rights-bearing person as anyone else on the planet. There are only two other theories available that are alternatives to this one.
Alliances, Foreign Aid And Israel – OpEd
Herein is a debate that took place between two Jewish libertarians. I am an ardent Zionist. My intellectual opponent who started off this conversation, is in my view a staunch and gifted libertarian, but his views on this one subject I find totally incompatible with this political economic philosophy that we share. Before I introduce this recent interaction, let me mention two issues. First, what is libertarianism? It is predicated upon two foundations.
The New York Times stumped for Stalin. Now it’s mooning over Mamdani
Nothing much has changed with the New York Times over the years. In the 1930s, thanks to Walter Duranty, the so-called “newspaper of record” was effectively cheerleading for Joseph Stalin’s communism. Today, in Jia Lynn Yang’s “How American Socialism Changed, and Stormed the Democratic Party,” it displays a similar sympathy for a modernized version of that same evil system, now advanced by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his allies.
Distraction before disaster: Israel’s eye is off the ball
In every sport played with a ball, football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey (the puck counts), golf, volleyball, handball, the oldest piece of coaching wisdom is also the best: “keep your eye on the ball.” Look away for a moment, and the game slips through your fingers. Is Israel keeping its eye on the ball? Sadly, no. And the ball here is not hard to spot. It is the war.
Birthright Citizenship: Trump Is Wrong
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... By Walter E. Block (July 2026) The Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 states: ‘All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.'” Why discuss this black letter law? It is due to the controversy brought to us courtesy of President Donald Trump. He is attempting to banish people born here in these United States of parents who lacked citizenship.
A Zionist response to the owner of Poetica Coffee Original
(July 1, 2026 / JNS) I am a strong and committed Zionist. Is there genocide occurring in the Middle East? You bet there is! Refer back to a series of pogroms before the establishment of the modern-day State of Israel in 1948, where Jewish women, children and elderly men were mowed down. Recall the wars of 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973—and all the other attacks and attempts by Israel’s neighbors to invade and eliminate as many people as possible. If that’s not genocide, then nothing is. The events of Oct.
Poetica justice: Why this Jew-hating coffee shop owner deserves a Zionist thank you
I write as an adamant Zionist. The Japanese have a country of their own. The French have a country of their own. The Chinese have a country of their own. The English have a country of their own. The Mexicans have a country of their own. The Italians have a country of their own. The Koreans have a country of their own. The Nigerians have a country of their own. The Argentinians have a country of their own. The Iranians have a country of their own. The Poles have a country of their own.
Self-defense and its libertarian enemies Original
(June 23, 2026 / JNS) A great many libertarian leaders, loyal to every other aspect of the creed, lose their footing the moment the subject turns to war. They can recite the non-aggression principle in their sleep and then abandon it just when it matters most. Start with Antiwar.com.
The mystery of Palestinian publicity: Why Jews are losing in the court of public opinion
Fair is fair. When it comes to publicity, to verbiage, to shaping world opinion, to swaying college campuses, to harvesting votes at the United Nations, Iran, the Palestinians, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis run rings around the Israelis in particular and the Jews in general. This is a puzzle. The Jews are the “People of the Book,” a phrase that connotes learning, intelligence, creativity.
The untold truth about Israel and the ‘West Bank’
A familiar charge runs through most of the commentary on this conflict in the Middle East: that Israel’s presence in the “West Bank,” settlers and all, is a central obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. Even those who stop short of calling it the only obstacle treat it as one of the larger ones. The reasoning is tidy. Palestinians homesteaded land in the West Bank and Gaza, the argument runs, and yet Israel controls most of that land, along with most of the water beneath it.
Un cuento de dos capturas: Una perspectiva libertaria sobre la jugada de Trump en Venezuela
¿Cuándo secuestrar a un dictador se convierte en un acto de liberación? ¿Cuándo violar la soberanía protege la libertad? Estas no son preguntas hipotéticas para filósofos encerrados en sus torres de marfil; son dilemas urgentes planteados por la reciente aventura venezolana del presidente Donald Trump. Argumento en contra Primero, Trump está violando su promesa de campaña de evitar guerras extranjeras con su aventura en Venezuela.
Israel, The Mouse That Roared – OpEd
One of the funniest movies you will ever see in your life is “The Mouse That Roared,” the 1959 satire in which Peter Sellers plays three roles at once: the dotty Grand Duchess Gloriana XII, her scheming Prime Minister Count Mountjoy, and Tully Bascombe, the hapless field marshal sent off to war. Here is the spoiler.
Why self-hatred largely afflicts Jews: Semitic Stockholm syndrome
In August 1973, a convict named Jan-Erik Olsson walked into a bank on Norrmalmstorg square in central Stockholm, fired a shot into the ceiling, and took four employees hostage. Six days later, when the police finally moved in, something strange had happened. The captives had come to fear their rescuers more than the man holding the gun. The criminologist Nils Bejerot, advising the police, gave the reaction a name. The world now knows it as Stockholm syndrome. The syndrome spares no one.
Does Israel need America’s help?
President Donald Trump is the best leader of the United States that Israel has ever had. He vastly outstrips Former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who smiled while they worked a knife into the back of the Jewish state. Dwight D. Eisenhower was even worse, far worse. He bullied the Israeli military into returning the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, after they had won it fair and square in a defensive war. (Ike himself later opined that this was a mistake, according to some commentators).
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