> Criticism of Israel's "apartheid"-like policies
> could only be
> "anti-semitic" to the extent that support for
> apartheid is an
> intrinsic part of being semitic. Are you arguing
> that support for
> apartheid is an intrinsic being semitic?
Hello Bill,
Perhaps the quotation marks I used around "apartheid" did not make my intent clear enough. No, I am not arguing what you attribute to me above.
What I am saying is that Israel's policies are not apartheid, and that use of the word "apartheid" in this context is just a way of trying to win a kind of moral legitimacy for opposition to the occupation.
Which I think is not necessary. The opposition to occupation is valid and correct without resorting to exaggeration of the sort by using the word "apartheid."
Otherwise, one would have to say that any state practicing a military occupation is practicing apartheid. So is the U.S. invasion of Iraq also "apartheid?" I think it's criminal and stupid, but it's not "apartheid."
> Merely singling out Israel for criticism, for
> policies carried out by
> every other nation state, is not necessarily
> anti-semitic.
But I would say that it most definitely is. Quite obviously so.
>However, to be fair, I
> hardly think that
> genocide is the normal policy of "any nation-state
> would in a similar
> situation."
Well, this is just silly. Are you saying there is an Israeli plan to physically exterminate the Palestinians? This is like NATO using the word "genocide" to describe anything the Serbs did during the Yugoslav civil war. It cheapens the term.
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