Legitimate criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism

[Little Tich]

46. So there's no illegitimate criticism of Israel whatsoever on DU then?

Last edited Sat May 7, 2016, 10:23 PM - Edit history (1)

Note: I finally got watch the Alan Johnson clip. I must say I really think he's wrong in defining some criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic and some not, and that it would be possible to lay it out as a Venn diagram, and there's some kind of sliding scale that makes some criticism more anti-Semitic than others. That kind of thinking is really useless, because it only deals with what anti-Semitism is supposed to look like, not what it is. The problem is that theoretically, there could be a situation with two identical statements about Israel and/or Jews, where one of them is anti-Semitic and the other not, simply because of context; one statement is made because of anti-Semitic views the other not.

However, listening to him, I realize that he's just another Tory, because he's really not mentioning that there are some in the conservative party who have negative attitudes towards Jews, and he seems to be very careful not to cross the Likud line and actually criticize Israel in any way. It's obvious that he personally sees no reason whatsoever to criticize Israel, and while he's not completely dishonest, he still tries to deflect Israel from valid criticism.

Nice try, but I'll stick to what I know:

Anti-Semitism is a form of racism directed against Jews

Anti-Semitism is antipathy towards Jews