Groupthink Central on redefining criticism of Israel as anti-semitic:
Tell me, Amnon, what do the despicable attacks on Jewish symbols have to do with leftist criticism of Israel’s policies? Am I not allowed to condemn anti-Semitism around the world and Israel’s illegal and immoral occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip? Are you implying that, by voicing these criticisms, we are either spurring on or tacitly supporting violence against Jews? Rubinstein’s column, however, is positively enlightened compared with Zuckerman’s predictable screed, which reads like Likud Propaganda 101 (e.g. Palestine was a desolate, sparsely populated marsh before the Jews arrived, the Palestinians “voluntarily” left their homes in 1948, you get the picture).
As the above shows, it’s not just the more icky free Palestina supporters and suicide bomber apologists who deliberately confused the state Israel with “the Jews”. Here, as Groupthink Central points out, you got Likudnik apologists decrying criticism of the state Israel with anti-semitism. It’s the same tactic as Robert Mugabe uses when he decries any criticsm of his actions in Zimbabwe as “racist”. It serves Likud supporters and greater Israel fanatics well to redefine any criticism of Israel as anti-semitic and thus beyond the pale. That way, any criticism can be safely ignored.
Another aspect of this is the fact that Israel claims to speak for all Jews, whether living there or not.
Israel does proclaim itself to be a Jewish country, after all. Which puts a moral burden on any Jew to blindly support the state Israel and makes it more difficult to criticise its actions without being accused of anti-semitism. The other side of the coin being that it makes it also easier for real anti-semitics to justify their actions of Jew-hating, by pretending to care for the repression of Palestinians by Israel.
All of which makes it more difficult to find real soplutions for the problems surrounding Israel/Palestina. But that is what extremists of both sides want.
(Food for thought: The one-state solution by Daniel Lazare and Israel: the alternative by Tony Judt.)