Once again, we see the state-driven circus of international conferences positioning themselves as the vanguards of “peace” and self-determination, as if bureaucratic elites gathering in gilded halls have any legitimate authority to carve out borders or grant legitimacy to peoples. The entire premise of states—as entities claiming monopoly on force, taxation, and identity—is rotten at its core, an affront to the spontaneous order Hayek lauded and a violation of individual autonomy that both Rand and Nozick would find repugnant.
Look at the absurdity: France clamors to “recognize” Palestine, using the power of the state to bestow what it stole in the first place. As if freedom and dignity derive from a piece of paper stamped by a diplomat or a bureaucratic declaration at the UN. Recognition by states is nothing but an exercise in power, a way for governments to play chess with lives that are not theirs to command. No private citizen is asked; no individual choice is in play—just the cold logic of state interest and diplomatic theater.
The so-called two-state solution is state-centrism squared: two monolithic bureaucracies, each seeking to monopolize authority over millions, both equally uninterested in the voluntary associations, mutual agreements, or market-driven peace that would emerge in a genuinely free society. Rand taught us that man is not the property of collectives or states, be they Israeli, Palestinian, or French. The tragedy in this region is not that there’s too little mediation by statists in Paris, London or Washington, but rather that statism is taken for granted by both sides as the only possible path.
Nozick’s “minimal state” barely survives these global spectacles, with interventionists clamoring for sanctions, subsidies, military aid—all the tools of coercion and redistribution. Each conference is a bazaar of traded favors and political posturing, not a celebration of voluntary association or property rights. It is the rejection of spontaneous order, of markets and of freely formed communities, in favor of a top-down imposition that is always backed by violence.
The truly moral solution—never even considered at these conferences—is radical decentralization: abolish the states, open the borders, let people associate, trade and negotiate without masters in Jerusalem, Ramallah, or Paris dictating their fates. The last thing the Middle East—or the world—needs is more recognition of states. What is needed is the dissolution of these coercive monopolies and the flourishing of free, self-determining individuals, each left to pursue their own rational interests in peace.
The UN, Macron, and their ilk stage their pageants and claim to advance peace, all while doubling down on the root cause of strife: the omnipotent state. Strip away the costumed pageantry, and what remains is the age-old assertion of wall-builders, border-drawers, and tax-collectors, desperate to keep us believing that only they can grant liberty. In the words of Hayek, “the more the state plans, the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.” The only path to peace—true, lasting peace—is to get the state out of the way.