Yes, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism

[Bradlad]

12. I'd say you both have good points but .

I'd say you both have good points but there is a problem with seeing such fine distinctions - no matter how much they might make it seem that there are rational ways to deal with Israel's enemies. Strong emotion is not of the rational mind. As emotional intensity increases, reasoning capacity is gradually diminished and evolutionary instincts gain more control over behavior. The stronger the emotion, whether hate, love, fear, whatever, the less the reasoning brain has the ability to affect behavior.

Another effect of strong emotion is that the brain becomes less aware of boundaries of kind. Such boundaries as between species of spiders are the domain of an intellect that evolved to make very fine distinctions in nature. When strong emotions are present the ability to see those distinctions is reduced. Someone instinctively fearful of spiders will not be able to make the distinction between harmful or beneficial spiders. They will fear almost any small insect, spider webs will make their heart race, etc. Similarly, someone who strongly enough hates the idea of the state of Israel will hate the Torah, people wearing skull caps of any kind, people with large noses, people with names that end in stein, etc. They may deny this but emotions are manifested in physical changes in the body such as heart rate, perspiration, eye motion, etc. Lab emotion sensors would pick it up.

For those who extremely hate the very idea of the Jewish state the hater can not avoid hating anything associated with Israel - primarily the Jewish people who live and take refuge there - no matter what methods they have learned to avoid being labelled an anti-Semite in social situations. Consistently judging the morality of Israel's existence by standards they only apply - and obsessively apply - to this one place in the world is a good indicator that their hatred for Israel is so strong that it must necessarily include the nation of people who take refuge there (and maintain and defend that state) and everything that supports and protects that state and its people from danger.

I'd say that this emotional background is the subtext for the majority of threads in forums like this. Many of the arguments can be seen as a sometimes interesting game of attempts by Israel-haters to justify their consuming emotions, evident in their desire to see the end of the state of Israel, while maintaining plausible deniability to charges of anti-Semitism.

Side note: The difference between Western leftist and ME Arab haters of Israel is that in the West hatred for the idea of a Jewish state and the Zionists who created it who supposedly stole the land of the natives, can be so strong it necessarily includes some hatred of all Jews as an unavoidable emotional spill-over. This, even though the Western left have developed many ways to avoid the charge (and even convince themselves in many cases) they are not anti-Semitic. For most Arabs in the ME, their cultural hatred of Jews is so strong it necessarily must spill over to include hatred for the state where they live and find protection. Also hatred of their sponsors such as the US. Being a conservative fundamentalist culture they have little need to hide it - except by leaders at times for diplomatic reasons. Usually ME Arab hatred of Jews and everything about them is a badge of honor. (Neo-Nazi or Western rightist Jew hate is another category but follows the same principles spelled out above.)

I'd also add that I am attempting a rational analysis of a complex topic that requires some objective generalization. I do not believe that any individual Arab or Western leftist (or member of this forum for that matter) necessarily falls into these descriptive categories. In fact I am certain that many do not.