Observation regarding Israel

[bigmacbear]

Partly because I don't wish to be seen as pontificating about things I know not of, and partly because I don't have time, I'll just observe:

This morning I had my alarm clock set to Air America Radio, the Stephanie Miller show, and somebody got on and started lambasting her for (in his view) equating the two sides in the recent dust-up in Israel and southern Lebanon, calling her "anti-Semitic" among other things. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't both Jews and Arabs considered "Semitic"?

The only other observation I can make is clearly this is a conflict where no one involved is necessarily rational, and under those circumstances diplomacy is unlikely to ever be effective.

Comments

[kevynjacobs.livejournal.com]

The linguistic sleight-of-hand that always pisses me off is the conflation of anti-Israeli sentiment with anti-Semitism (in the anti-Jewish sense). Now, Israel is guilty of some pretty shitty behaviour towards its neighbours, behaviours which any normal, logical and reasonable human being would see as "wrong."

However, criticism of Israel's behaviour is a criticism of a GOVERNMENT, not of a race, people or religion. Unfortunately, Israel has supporters who try to paint all anti-Israeli feelings as anti-Semitic, and that's just not necessarily true. And it makes rational discourse about Israel difficult, because you end up on the defensive about racism and anti-Semitism. It's part of why we don't get enough dispassionate debate about Israel's misbehaviour in the media, because critics have been cowed by charges of racism.