It’s not a sudden change: my thinking has been changing gradually over a long period of time (10 – 20 years) but the Gaza crisis has become a tipping point.

I’m convinced Zionism will defeat itself in the long run: unopposed (just like Israel likes it) Israel will continue to expand its colonies in the WB until somehow it will end up having to absorb the remaining Arabs into its population. Then we’ll have de facto, if not de jure, Apartheid. And since as world opinion is likely to shift against that (see precedent – easy to crystallise future opposition around that), at that point the masters may have to accept living among the second and third class citizens as equals (democratically) and the purely Jewish nature of the state will cease. Perhaps they’ll even call it Palestine again?

“This is complete nonsense. In my entire life, I have never met anyone who thought that any criticism of Israel was antisemitic.”

Man, you can be funny sometimes. Please do go and visit the British Jewish Engage website: they’ve made a career out of navel staring about what constitutes “legitimate” (non anti-Semitic) criticism of Israel and “non-legitimate” (anti-Semitic) criticism of Israel.

As a (former) moderate critic of Israel post-1967 handling of the Occupation I’ve been at the receiving end of such allegations (AS) quite a few times, including the other canard, “he must be anti-Zionist, ergo he must be anti-Semitic”.

Now do yourself a favour and do the rounds of centrist (left or right) Israeli/Jewish/non-Jewish supporters in the blogosphere and find out what horrendous racist crap is being peddled there about Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims.

Alex – interesting piece.

No, but mass brainwashing does help. The Arab and Muslim worlds are broadly antisemitic. Pew research did a survey that showed that people’s negative opinions of Jews (not Israelis, Jews) were overwhelming in every Muslim country. People of these countries are brought up on antisemitic ideology. Why would North Africans (and their descendants) living in France or Pakistanis (and their descendants) living in Britain none of whom have ever been effected by Israel, attack Synagogues and Jewish restaurants while not giving a crap about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of other Muslims. The percentage of Muslim and Arab deaths that Israel has been responsible for since 1948, has been minuscule

“The allegation of anti-Semitism continues to be bandied around against anyone who dares criticise Israel.”

This is complete nonsense. In my entire life, I have never met anyone who thought that any criticism of Israel was antisemitic. There are some people, a tiny percentage who massively overreact to any criticism of Israel, I see much much more of this throwing out of false charges of antisemitism as a front to allow themselves to say anything and then say the reaction to their demonization is illogical. A typical thing would be…

“”The allegation of anti-Semitism continues to be bandied around against anyone who dares criticise Israel.” Followed by something like “The Jews learned from the Nazis and Israel is an illegal state that needs to be destroyed”.And then, when someone says you are an antisemite, you can just respond with the “I’m just criticizing Israel you are overreacting as usual” etc…

I also find the idea that Jews don’t really know what is antisemitic offensive. If 90% of Jews think something you do is antisemitic, it is. Would anyone on the left dare to tell black people that they don’t understand racism? Or women, that they are overstating sexism? The reaction by the left to antisemitism is almost identical to the reaction of the right to sexism. How many times have you heard someone identify some hard core feminist and then say “women use sexism as an excuse for everything”. The truth is that the vast majority of Jews understand that criticism of Israel is not antisemitic but also understand that the absurd demonization of Israel-criticizing it where no other country gets criticized, criticizing it more than any country, etc…is a form of antisemitism.

“BTW, have the Gabriels, Avrams, Stephen Hoffmanns (falsedi’s current fanbase, plus or minus…) taken yet a bit of a dive into falsedi’s archives and discovered all these wonderful pieces of on-the-ground insight into what Occupation look like? Doubt it…”

I’ve seen the occupation first hand and I abhor it, but that doesn’t mean I think everything Israel does is wrong or that the Palestinians are completely blameless or that the world-wide opinion of Israel has nothing to do with antisemitism.

Gert – I don’t think any of the three familiar faces you’ve cited would share my politics.

What utter nonsense! As if Israel’s PR problems are not a result of the actions of Israel, but of some insidious works of “anti-Israel left”. Keep living in wishful-thinking, Alex. I am one of those “hypocritical” demonstrators that joined with thousands of mostly Arabs in NYC to protest this horrific slaughter and it is no one else achievement but Israel’s itself.
This war cannot be won not because of PR and you as a smart person should understand this yourself. You seem to believe that what doesn’t work with force, will work with more force. Well, to some extent it is true – if you were to exterminate most of Gaza’s population, you’d achieve your military goals, I guess.
Keep constructing straw men to fight – that a sure way of never understanding what is wrong with you.

“the worldwide protest being meaningless [...]“ is a serious underestimation of the size and strength of feeling. Clearly more people than you like actually know about Israel’s atrocities (two Nakbas and the rest) and many of them aren’t afraid to speak up anymore. Of course some trickle-up effect will be needed before European and American politicians start taking notice (‘the world that counts’ according Alex), perhaps even start enjoying electoral gains by taking a critical stance against Israel’s truly appalling record. To believe otherwise is basically to have given up on democracy altogether.

“[...] antisemitism and the selective demonization of Israel [...]”

The allegation of anti-Semitism continues to be bandied around against anyone who dares criticise Israel. Even ‘moderate critics’ don’t escape the treatment. By doing so the term hasn’t only lost nearly all meaning, in addition no one is really afraid of it anymore.

As regards the Israeli Right, they are beyond help and will not stop until all of Palestine has been Judaeised, so what they think of us is rather immaterial.

BTW, have the Gabriels, Avrams, Stephen Hoffmanns (falsedi’s current fanbase, plus or minus…) taken yet a bit of a dive into falsedi’s archives and discovered all these wonderful pieces of on-the-ground insight into what Occupation look like? Doubt it…