Rejecting Israel, the largest and most important enterprise of the Jewish people in modern times - and possibly ever - will meet with hostility by the Jewish community. The country has a mystique - which helps it and also hurts it - but when that mystique morphs into demonization, those who demonize have proven themselves bigots - in a society and at a time when bigots will find themselves correctly marginalized.
Here's the thing. Criticism of Israel, whether we agree with it or not, is not, in itself either antisemitism nor anti-Zionism. But ideological anti-Zionism, meaning demonization and delegitimization of Israel and those who support Israel, is almost always accompanied with anti Semitic assumptions and, in any event, a prejudice in its own right even when the more blatant expressions of anti Semitism are not as apparent. On campus, it means that Jewish students face a hostile learning environment and intimidation in and out of the classroom. There is bullying. Threats of genocide of Israel's population and politicide of a member state of the UN is intolerable.
Rejecting Israel, the largest and most important enterprise of the Jewish people in modern times - and possibly ever - will meet with hostility by the Jewish community. The country has a mystique - which helps it and also hurts it - but when that mystique morphs into demonization, those who demonize have proven themselves bigots - in a society and at a time when bigots will find themselves correctly marginalized.
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