You do not seem to be reading my posts as they were written, and that is why you may well be off target here.
Yoshie and I were engaged in a debate over the reply I had made to Matthew's posting on Israel and Palestine. She said that I was employing an argument based on the logical fallacy of accusing critics of doing the same thing they were criticizing. Such an argument would be a fallacy, of course, because the fact that the critics were doing what they criticized does not mean that it was still not worthy of criticism and condemnation. I replied that she had misunderstood my argument, and that it was in reply to Matthew's contention that Israel should be singled out, among all the many settler states across this globe, for destruction; if one among many is going to be singled out for the most severe penalty, in essence capital punishment as a nation state, then there must be some compelling reason for that differential treatment, I pointed out. My point was not that Israel had done nothing worthy of criticism or condemnation. Rather, it was that singling out Israel for destruction among all the nation-states that had done things worthy of criticism and condemnation, and without any compelling reason for singling it out, is "extraordinarily suspect." That is so, I concluded, because it leaves the reader to discern some reason, some logic, out of what distinguishes Israel from other nation-states such that it alone should be destroyed -- and the preeminent feature of differentiation is that Israel, unlike all of the settler states of the Americas, of the Pacific [including New Zealand and Australia] and in Africa [excepting Liberia], was founded by an oppressed people seeking some self-determination and some means of protection, following a long history of persecution culminating in genocide. That criticism was directed at Matthew, not Yoshie. It could just as easily been directed at Carrol or Macdonald, who have made arguments on this subject far cruder and far more thoughtless than those made by Matthew, but for all of my disagreements with Yoshie on this question, I have not seen make her argument that singles out Israel, among the plethora of settler nation-states throughout the world, for destruction.
Now although you misread what I said, you may still think that I should not make the argument with respect to anyone. You seem to think it is a particularly inflammatory argument, if I can judge by your use of the "shouting fire" example. I have to say that I find that a curious means of identifying what is inflammatory in this discourse. You appear to think that it is not inflammatory to single out the Israeli nation-state as the one nation-state worthy of destruction, and to do so without anything more compelling than the argument that it was founded after WWII; you seem to think that it is not inflammatory to pass over the consequences of the destruction of the Israeli nation-state for the Jewish people; but that it is inflammatory to state that such a call for Israel's destruction is "extraordinary suspect." I think that you need to take a second, more careful look at that sequence of arguments before you decide that singling out the Israeli nation-state for destruction does not deserve the reply I gave it.
It seems to me that you are engaging in a sort of essentialist reductionism -- a person is whatever argument they put forward. So if I say that an argument is suspect, I must be saying that the person who uses the argument is suspect. By contrast, I do not believe that opinions and arguments reflect some true essence of a person. A lot of our opinions and a lot of arguments are not very well thought out: we have simply not worked through the underlying assumptions, or the logical consequences. And unless we are challenged, we will not do so. Gadamer's hermeneutics are correct, I believe, that we operate with what might literally be called prejudices, pre-judgments on all sorts of matters and questions, and that it is impossible not to do so. A lot of those are healthy, reasonable pre-judgments, although that is not always the case. But there is certainly no reason to question those pre-judgments unless we are challenged to do so.
From what I know of Matthew from this listserv, he seems like a very decent person. I did not question his person, I questioned the argument he was employing. I did not say that Matthew was suspect; I said that his argument was suspect. I hope that my comments lead Matthew to reconsider the argument, and see that there were underlying assumptions and logical consequences of the argument that he would not, upon reflection, want to support. Of one thing I am sure, however: if the objection to the argument is not made, there is no reason to reconsider it.
So, no, I do not consider you, anymore than I consider Matthew, anti-Semitic. What I do think, to be honest, is that both of you accept too easily and too quickly a certain kind of "received truth" regarding Israel and Palestine which is current on certain parts of the left, and in so doing, fail to come to grips with some very important parts of a rather difficult issue, fail to see how the struggle against anti-Semitism, as well as the struggle for Palestinian self-determination, are vital dimensions of the issue.
>Leo, please read my post; I took you to task for making an ad hominem
>attack on Yoshie which also smeared her with an almost McCarthy-esque
>innuendo. What is she "extraordinarily suspected" of doing/being?
>Anti-Semitic? Am I now, in your eyes?
>
>Furthermore, I attacked you using your own weapons (e.g. you "being in
>someone's pocket", a ludicrous charge, but how do you like getting tarred
>with the same brush, even if it's for demonstrative purposes only) to show
>you how stupid and hateful such an act looks from the receiving end.
>
>You go on:
>
> >I have always thought, by contrast, that dissent is an
> essential >element of
> >democratic discourse, and couldn't care less whether or not Carrol or
> >Yoshie
> >is sowing 'dissent,' just whether or not they are right.
>
>Have your freedom of speech, Leo; just don't yell "Fire!" in such a
>crowded movie theatre as this one.
>
>Todd
.