Legitimate criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism

[Little Tich]

Source: The National (Ireland), May 3, 2016, by Sholto Byrnes

Barack Obama has been trying to finalise the details of the largest-ever package of military aid that America has ever delivered to another country. If you knew that this package was for Israel, but that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the hurdle standing in the way of its completion – because he reckoned that $40 billion (Dh147bn) over 10 years wasn’t good enough – your reaction might well be one of outrage.

If so, would that constitute one or more of the following: anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism or criticism of the current Israeli government and its policies and attitudes? It might be suggested that Mr Netanyahu is an undiplomatic warmonger who White House officials have reportedly described over the years as “recalcitrant, myopic, reactionary, obtuse, blustering, pompous and ‘aspergery’," according to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic.

Outside of a small but influential right-wing coterie, he is regarded as an impediment to any peace process with the Palestinians, and a leader who, quite improperly, involved himself in the last American presidential election. Who cares under what category disagreement with him falls?

But such distinctions do matter, very much, as the former London mayor Ken Livingstone found out last week, when he was suspended from the Labour Party over some seriously ill-advised comments about Hitler and Zionism.

Read more: http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/legitimate-criticism-of-israel-is-not-anti-semitism#page1