He appears to be a bit…Judeo-phobic. He doesn’t seem to understand that Jews in America are sympathetic the plight of Israelis due to Islamic anti-Semitism*. Not many are ‘Israel apologists’. If they are, they aren’t serious academics.
There was much talk about the Arab-American vote and Obama as Arab Americans are concerned with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These Arab-Americans aren’t necessarily Palestinian - it’s about personal identification, religion, and fear of persecution based on one’s ethnic/religious background. Why isn’t there outcry on SD about how Muslims want to ‘control American foreign policy’?
Alan Dershowitz is no more an apologist (well, I’m basing this on The Case for Israel) of Israel than Khalidi is of the PLO. They offer different legal perspectives. They are both biased and can cause offense, but neither are hateful.
What Hamas, the PLO, Iran, Hezbollah, etc. project is hatred. When MK Leiberman says that only Orthodox Jews should be allowed aliyah or that Muslims should be deported to Palestine, that’s hatred.
But…if someone’s rejection of your argument is, “Oh, well you just want to cry antiSemitism because you are an apologist!” I have to wonder if they do hold questionable views, are ignorant, or are just extremely sensitive to disagreement.
Criticism of Israel is often a euphemism for anti-Semitism. I believe one can have anti-Semitic views and be very sincere about it - they’re just ignorant of facts. But Jews and Israelis are critical of Israeli government as well. If I were in Israel, I wouldn’t vote Likud, but because I’m Jewish and am disagreeing with someone in this thread, he sees me as religious Zionist/Israel apologist/god knows what.
Israel isn’t ruled by some despot who has had control for the last 60 years and can be judged as one government. Usually, when talking about the “Palestinian” side, we are talking about the PLO (unless we distinguish ourselves and mention Hamas) as they been the representatives of the Palestinians since Jordan named the West Bank, well, the West Bank. That’s limited to a few people.
Finally, the idea that America is ruled by someone else’s government doesn’t even make sense. America does what is in its best interests. If America did not need Israel, it would not care.
*and the history of people hating Jews for the last few thousand years