Anonymous asked: That's interesting. I wonder if you could elaborate on why describing it at colonial, or apartheid, could be taken as anti-Antisemitism? You said it's okay to criticise the politics of Israel, and that is essentially a political criticism? As I said, just asking, I'm not trying to be insensitive or start an argument here :)

Well, colonialist European powers and the apartheid South Africa regime involved the oppression, enslavement, ghettoization, etc., of an indigenous people by a foreign imperial power. To say that that’s the case of the Israel/Palestine debate is far from the truth and a gross misrepresentation of the issue.

I do not believe that Israel is practicing genuine apartheid in the Palestinian territories, and so far I have not seen any convincing evidence to the contrary. To make a statement like that is to ignore the myriad factors at play—issues of security, diplomacy, freedom of movement, and the right to self-determination of both peoples. Context is key.

The problem with turning Israel, a flawed democracy with some theocratic elements but a secular society, into a genocidal apartheid demon state is that it very often follows familiar patterns of antisemitism through demonization—a collective libel, the genocide libel, if you will.

If Israel and Jews were really as separate as fervent anti-Zionists claim, why are they almost always brought up in the same breath? That’s not to dismiss criticism so much as to inspire thought.