Post By Prof. Paul Eidelberg

Who are the “LIERs”? The LIERs are a consortium of Libertarians, Internationalists, Egalitarians, and Relativists. These LIERs dominate the news and other opinion–making media.

A favorite pastime of the LIERs is Israel-bashing.  Media bias against Israel assumes obscene proportions whenever Israel retaliates against Arab terrorists—be it Hamas in Gaza, Fatah in Jenin, or Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Some commentators attribute the media’s anti-Israel bias to Arab threats against journalists.  Probably true in some cases, but Arab threats do not account for all the venom the LIERs spew against Israel.

Other commentators attribute the mediacracy’s bias to anti-Semitism. There’s some truth in this, but it’s superficially understood.  I’ll come back to this later.

Still others ascribe the anti-Israel bias to the LIERs’ underdog mentality.  Israel is portrayed as the Goliath in its conflict with those poor, little people, the “Palestinians,” who are compelled to use their own children as human bombs in this uneven conflict.

But is it right to sympathize with Arab terrorists that use women as human shields? I ask these questions because it’s absurd to apply the Geneva Convention to Arab terrorists.  When you think seriously about these terrorists, when you behold their cruelty, their inhumanity, their contempt for human life, it’s not only absurd to endow these monsters with the rights of the Geneva Convention; it makes that Convention a mockery of human dignity.  But for the Vatican to join the LIERs and align the Church with the Palestinian Authority’s quest for statehood  when the PA virtually drove Christians out of Bethlehem is more than hypocrisy. It’s using the PA to gain control of Jerusalem!

This may explain why the “Religion of  Love” denounced the IDF’s counterattack against Hezbollah operating from Lebanon.  Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu has repeatedly said that Israel has a right to defend itself. Whoever questioned this right? Isn’t national self-preservation an axiomatic duty of government? But having descended to psycho-babble about Israel’s right to defend itself, Bibi has repeatedly implored the PA to recognize Israel as a Jewish state! Where does this Jewish Don Quixote come from?

Probing deeper, where did this ridiculous need to invoke the axiomatic principle of national self-defense and consequent use of force against foreign aggression originate? Here’s the story.

Back in the 1920s, Julian Benda, a most insightful Frenchman, warned of the pacifist mentality that was emasculating France, a mentality that would lead to the Second World War. In The Treason of the Intellectuals, Benda anticipated what I call the LIERs—the Libertarians, Internationalists, Egalitarians, and Relativists of today’s opinion-makers. He noted that in the perverse minds of these LIERs justice becomes suspect when backed by force.

I am not suggesting that “might makes right.” But to denigrate right when it is invested with might is to ensure the victory of the wicked.  This is the crime the LIERs of the media perpetrate by their slanderous attacks against Israel. Let’s probe deeper into these LIERs.

Given their Libertarianism, LIERs oppose all restraints on their freedom of expression.  As a case in point, a member of their ilk in the U.S. Senate fantasized about getting the FCC to shut down Fox News!

When all is said and done, however, it’s hard to understand why LIERs, given the meaning of each letter of this acronym, side with illiberal and despotic Arabs and are so often hostile toward democratic Israel.  Here we return to anti-Semitism.

Israel, perceived as a Jewish state, symbolizes nationalism.  This offends the Internationalism of the LIERs. Moreover, the Bible refers to the Jews as the “Chosen People.” This offends the Egalitarianism of the LIERs. The LIERs also oppose any display of the Ten Commandments in the public domain. This offends the moral Relativism of the LIERs.

Israel therefore represents the absolute antithesis of what the LIERs represent. Now one can better understand why the LIERs demonize and want to delegitimize Israel, the Nation which, through blood and tears, carried the Truth from Sinai.