by Jacob G. Hornberger

January 12, 2026

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have gotten me killed, as an indirect consequence of his political machinations and manipulations designed to suppress criticism and condemnation of the Israeli government.

I was attending a memorial service for Dan Grossman, one of the great modern-day heroes of the libertarian movement. To get a sense of the important role that Dan played in the libertarian movement, take a look at these two remembrances:

Remembering Dan Grossman (1944-2025)

A Tribute to Dan Grossman

Dan had long lived in the Watergate building in Washington, D.C. He was 81 years old at the time of his death.

Dan was Jewish and so the memorial service was being held at a synagogue in D.C. The room in which the memorial service was being held was almost filled to capacity. Some of the attendees were libertarian friends of Dan, but I assumed that most of the people attending were Jewish friends of his.

One of the beneficial aspects of the libertarian movement is the good friends that one makes along the way. For me, Dan Grossman fell into that category. He was my friend. He was also a longtime member of The Future of Freedom Foundation’s board of trustees. He was also one of FFF’s most generous financial supporters.

After we would receive Dan’s annual donation, I would call him and say, “Well, you know the price for making a very generous donation to FFF. You have to treat me to lunch again.” He would laugh and we’d set the date. We would visit for about 3-4 hours, analyzing and solving all the world’s problems. We so enjoyed our visits that for the past several years, we’d have lunch together a few times a year. He always insisted on picking up the tab.

As longtime supporters of FFF know, our mission has always been to present the principled, uncompromising case for the libertarian philosophy. Needless to say, this mission and this methodology have confounded some of our supporters over the years. During the 36-year-history of FFF, we have lost supporters and even board members over some libertarian position we have taken. The biggest example of this phenomenon was when we opposed the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. We also upset some supporters by pointing out that the 9/11 attacks did not come out of nowhere but instead were the easily predictable consequence of the U.S. government’s foreign policy of interventionism (assuming, of course, that the attacks were not an Operation Northwoods type of operation on the part of the deep state).

That never happened with Dan Grossman. He stuck with us through thick and thin until the day he died, which means more to me than all the generous support he gave us over the years. One of the reasons he stuck with us was that he was as hard-core a libertarian as we are, including our positions favoring open borders, the dismantling of the national-security state, the abolition of the welfare state (including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid), the termination of foreign interventionism, the legalization of all drugs, and the separation of school and state. Moreover, he clearly understood the reasoning in our methodology of raising people’s vision to what is actually needed to achieve a genuinely free society.

For the past many years, Dan lived in constant nerve pain resulting from an infection he had experienced in his back several years ago. When I asked him why he didn’t take pain medication, he said that he valued his mental faculties too much to cloud them with pain meds. He said he’d rather live in pain with a clear mind than the opposite.

Dan traveled around six months out of the year, mostly as part of his duties as a board member for the Atlas Society, which supports think tanks all over the world. He told me that despite his pain, he thoroughly enjoyed traveling overseas. He told me that when he started using a wheelchair, he marveled at the great and special service he got from everyone. I, in turn, would jestingly accuse him of engaging in invalid fraud just to get that special treatment. I once asked him why he just didn’t give up the travel, especially when his physician advised him to do so, and he responded, “Because I wish to keep living.” He was a remarkable man.

So, what does all this have to do with Netanyahu possibly getting me killed? As most everyone knows, as a political device to suppress criticism of the Israeli government, especially given its grave and deadly misconduct in Gaza, Netanyahu conflates the Israeli government and the Jewish religion. Thus, if someone criticizes or condemns the Israeli government, according to Netanyahu, that automatically makes him “antisemitic.” Since many people don’t want to be considered to be hating Jews, the idea is, they will refrain from criticizing or condemning the Israeli government.

One of the problems, however, with this political manipulation is that it places the lives of Jewish people, including here in the United States, in danger from the off-kilter people who conclude that the Israeli government and the Jewish people are one and the same thing. Thus, if an angry, rage-filled off-kilter person decides he wants to retaliate against the Israeli government, he might well do so by simply killing some American Jews.

Therefore, the best thing that Nentanyahu could do to avoid this very dangerous phenomenon would be to abandon his political manipulation and declare, “I wish to make it clear that the Israeli government and people of Jewish faith are two separate and distinct entities and that Jews around the world (and in Israel) do not necessarily support the Israeli government and its policies and practices.”

Thus, as I was sitting in that memorial service, I thought about the possibility that a couple of off-kilter people could easily enter that room with AR-15s and shoot everyone inside. The reason my mind went in that direction was that people entering the building had to pass through a metal detector that was being controlled by two men. Moreover, no one in his right mind would carry a concealed weapon in Washington, D.C., given the harsh legal penalties if caught doing so.

That metal detector, along with D.C. gun-control laws, reflected perfectly the sheer idiocy of the gun-control crowd. A couple of off-kilter killers could have easily shot and killed those two men who were monitoring the metal detector and then quickly made their way up the stairs and into the room where the memorial service was taking place. They could have then easily killed dozens of (disarmed) people, if not most everyone in the room.

Compare that scenario to one where everyone in the room would have been free to carry a concealed gun. Sure, not everyone would have done so, but some undoubtedly would have. In that case, people firing back at the off-kilter killers could have severely limited the damage. As it was, everyone in that room, including me, was a sitting duck. I couldn’t help but think about the irony of me, a Catholic, being killed by someone retaliating for the Israeli government’s misconduct.

In any event, there was no attack, and I came out of Dan Grossman’s memorial service safe and sound. Rest in peace, Dan. Thank you for sticking with us, for your generous support of our work over the years and of the libertarian movement, and for our many years of great friendship. You ran the good race. I miss our lunches already.