Lovely old HP

The problem is that language is very charged around this whole issue, and different people mean different things by terms like "Zionism". Google up the Balfour Declaration if you're interested in the history (Wiki is quite good on this I think).

There is similar imprecision around the term "anti-Semitism" - the Semitic peoples are not all Jewish; however common usage for decades has been to apply this term to anti-Jewish racism solely (to the extent that to consider the term in its original context feels wrong).

It is obviously nonsense to suggest that questioning any aspect of any action by any Israeli government means you don't like Jewish people very much. However the language in which people do so carries baggage they often don't intend. As Frank Luntz, the great Republican psephologist, puts it: "what you say doesn't matter - it's what people hear".

There are conflicting views on what's OK and what isn't from within the Jewish community: contrast User Posted Link and User Posted Link for example.

There is also no doubt that some people who don't like what the Israeli government does to the Palestinians are in fact racist and mean explicitly or implicitly to include all Jews in their criticism.

Posted By: Old Man, Apr 28, 21:52:05