On the very idea that criticizing Israel is "anti-semitism," again

Comment published on New York Times blog, in response to Bret Stephens, “Antisemitism: A guide for the perplexed,” December 12, 2023:

Stephens's rhetoric contains obfuscations. The concept of hatred here, like that of antisemitism, does heavy lifting but is vague.

Anger is the political emotion; the line between it and "hatred" is rarely clear; rightly, it's not easily interdicted. Anti-Zionism "is anti-semitism" because it is a "political hatred" and the polity in question "is today the principal expression of Jewish politics." You may dissent in the proper public sphere, but not question or oppose an institutional structure.

But Stephens's notion of the political is false. You can question the form of a state, like our Confederacy; you needn't acknowledge its legitimacy and follow its procedures. The "political expression" of a people is a state claiming to "represent" them. The fact and logic of both can be contested. The point here is to make doing so illegitimate.

To refuse ethnic nationalism is not to hate the ethnicity. That so many Jews identify with Israel and support its existence is irrelevant. That the accusation against Israel of genocide in Gaza is "a form of antisemitism" is because "Accusing Jews of the very crime of which they themselves were history’s greatest victim is a uniquely vile taunt." But Israel, not "Jews," is accused. And that the accusation is ugly doesn't prove it false. It is at worst an exaggeration that names a lesser evil (since Nazism was worse!) that is not a tragedy but a crime. The point is that Israel is horribly wrong and this must stop.