I have a very good friend who is Jewish and one thing I have learned is that he is completely irrational on the subject of Israel. I can make any kind of facetious "anti-Semitic" remark and he'll respond with a joke, but if I dare to suggest Israel is less than squeaky-clean, he gets mightily upset and I usually get a rant of the same nature as one of those above - basically: "Whatever Israel does, the Arabs are worse". I now don't discuss the topic with him because he is not capable of doing so rationally, which is, it seems, the case with many Jews. What he and they don't seem to grasp is that there is no exclusivity in that criticism. I'm equally as likely to criticise any other Government (of a democratic nation, especially) that behaves appallingly. What I cannot do is give "carte blanche" to Israel to bahave badly simply because the Jewish people of a couple of generations ago in a different part of the world were treated appallingly by some other group or because it faces a threat from those who its creation dispossessed. A hallmark of a civilised country is proportional response and the rule of one law for all: Israel has too often failed that test. It's a tragedy.

Good on you, Antiseptic, it is the way I feel as a retired old guy now with a Post-Grad and trying to make sense of modern history by going back as far as the Ancient Greeks.

Would you say the formerly cruelly treated Jews are now being spoilt by America, especially letting them build up an arsenal of the most modern nuclear weaponry.

Is such for America's benefit in the Middle East, or just for Israeli protection from the Arabs?

Cheers - BB, WA.

Lev
"The Sephardic (Semitic) Jews are only a modest percentage of the population of Israel"

Totally untrue. The Jewish refugees from Arab countries, Sephardic (Spanish not Semitic) and Mizrahi (Iraq Yemen etc) roughly equal in number the Israeli Jews of European origin. Up to a million were forced out of countries where they had lived sometimes for over two thousand years when the Arab populations stole their property. Their numbers exceeded that of the displaced Muslim Palestinians.

Antiseptic

"I have a very good friend who is Jewish and one thing I have learned is that he is completely irrational on the subject of Israel."

Find a few more Jewish friends. I think your sample of one person is totally irrational. And read a bit of Israeli history, not just the version pushed by hostile nations.

Marilyn Shepherd

I am not accusing you of anything but a one eyed blindness. The only ethnic cleaning going on in the Middle East is the disappearance of Jews, Druze, Baha'i, Samaritans, Zoroastrians, Christians, homosexuals and women's rights from extreme Islamist lands. Many found refuge in Israel. Look at Saudi Arabia where religious buildings other than mosques are illegal. In Israel, by contrast they all exist, and gay pride marches are held with full police protection, do you know of anywhere else in the region where this happens?

Why do all of you consistently ignore these issues?

And Anti-Semitism, to all but the intellectually dishonest, means anti Jewish and has many notorious historical exemplars. Anti-Arab behaviour may be reprehensible but it is not anti-Semitism except, as I said, to the intellectally dishonest or those who are blind to anything in this debate except criticism of the Jewish State - I emphasise the fact that it is a JEWISH State - because if it was an Arab State, a Zimbabwean State, a Peruvian State doing what Israel does there would not be a peep of criticism.
Get used to the exposure.

Manny’s article falls into the standard Zionist narrative which seeks to deflect any criticism of Israel as a matter of anti-Semitism. Let us be clear here. As a Jew living in Australia, Manny is able to become a citizen of Israel while, at the same time, Israel refuses to recognize the equal rights of the indigenous non-Jewish population. There is not one reference to this fact, a highly relevant factor in understanding anti-Semitism, anywhere in Manny’s article. This reflects a racism that is far worse than the anti-Semitism Manny describes. For Manny, the Palestinians do not even exist.

Not once once does Manny mention the Occupation, the indiscriminate bombing of Lebanon, or the fact that Israel functions as an apartheid state excluding its non-Jewish citizens from much of its opportunities. I can’t think of anything more likely to stoke anti-Semitism than to avoid any critical analysis of what Israel does. Israel is not like any other state that commits atrocities. It is a settler state that unashamedly excludes non-Jews. Israel gets unprecedented billions in military and economic aid from the US, EU and the UK along with unprecedented political support. I am not aware that Sudan has a lobby in Washington that routinely has lunch meetings with the Vice President. I don’t believe Russia receives extra deliveries of ordinance exactly at the time when it escalates its bombardment of heavily populated civilian areas as was the case with Israel when it indiscriminately bombed Lebanon last year. I don’t believe George Bush was speaking of the President of the Sudan, or Russia or Burma, when he described a known war criminal as ‘a man of peace’. (I, of course, refer to Ariel Sharon. A man whom Israel’s own commission of inquiry held to be personally responsible for the slaughter of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 1982).

If we conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, then only two things are certain. Israel will continue to commit its atrocities, and real anti-Semitism, as an irrational racist response to these atrocities, will continue to increase.

Logic:"Find a few more Jewish friends. I think your sample of one person is totally irrational."

Why? It's an anecdote I used to support an expression of an opinion. Perhaps you should try finding a few friends and you might have some of those yourself? Get out of the synagogue occasionally and some of them might even be *gasp* gentile...

" And read a bit of Israeli history, not just the version pushed by hostile nations."

I have. I'm not impressed, on the whole, especially with the history of the last 25 years or so, just as I'm unimpressed with the flood of hysterically pro-Zionist propaganda or flaming that occurs anytime a critique is offered. Why are you people so scared of impartiality?

Plaza-Toro: "I emphasise the fact that it is a JEWISH State - because if it was an Arab State, a Zimbabwean State, a Peruvian State doing what Israel does there would not be a peep of criticism."

Thanks for illustrating my point above