This is a guest post by Petra Marquardt-Bigman, author of the Warped Mirror blog at the Jerusalem Post

Naomi Klein’s recent call for a boycott of Israel has already been countered with some appropriate responses which might be summed up by Ben Cohen’s description of her argument as “monstrous and monumentally stupid”. But I think it’s worthwhile to explain what exactly makes her argument so monstrous, because her call for a boycott is not just “politically irresponsible” for all the reasons listed by David Hirsh. Her aim is to bring campaigns against Israel from the activist fringes into the political mainstream.

As David Hirsh points out in his analysis, Klein makes her case for boycotting Israel by attempting to rebut some of the main arguments against such a move. This actually implies an involuntary compliment for David’s tireless efforts to counter the anti-Israel propaganda of boycott enthusiasts with well-reasoned arguments and solid facts that show the hypocrisy of attempts to single out Israel as a target for political and economic discrimination. It’s obvious that Klein is well aware that calling for a boycott of Israel is problematic - that’s why she starts out hiding behind a letter signed by some 500 Israelis who demand “immediate restrictive measures and sanctions” against Israel as a response to the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Interestingly enough, Klein’s piece on the Guardian’s Comment is Free site doesn’t provide a link to the letter, but the version on her own website does - and the link leads to the “Free Gaza Movement” that has taken it upon itself to ferry all sorts of dignitaries to Gaza for photo ops and other PR posturing.

After Klein has thus assured her readers that boycott calls will be welcomed by “reasonable” Israelis, she soothes any remaining doubts by empathizing with the “many of us [who] still can’t go there.” She acknowledges the “complex, emotional and understandable” reasons that might hold people back from joining a campaign to boycott Israel. But her verdict is clear: these reasons “simply aren’t good enough.”

A recent profile of Naomi Klein in the New Yorker suggests that there is a strategy here: Under the title “Outside Agitator: Naomi Klein and the new new left,” there is a picture of Klein in a somewhat theatrical pose; a prominently displayed button on her lapel reads “Move the center”. In the piece she is quoted as saying: “It’s the job of the left to move the center … Get out there and say some crazy stuff! And then, suddenly, it’ll seem more reasonable for politicians to take riskier positions.”