Norman Geras has a response here to this debate between David Hirsh and Martin Shaw on whether the eternally proposed academic boycott of Israel would be antisemitic in nature. I’m not going to quote from it because I think that it should be read in its entirety and citing a paragraph might give readers of this blog the impression that they had got the gist of the argument and could move on elsewhere.

The post should be read both for the contribution it makes to the debate with which it concerns itself and as a model of argumentation. With regard to the latter point, it also serves as an apt response to the straggle of newspaper columnists perpetually prone to relating the rise of the blog to the decline of civilization.