When Israel commits acts that are inexcusable - like shooting children while they are standing outside their school (e.g., Abir Aramin), or shooting blindfolded, manacled prisoners in the foot, or dragging 14 year-olds out their beds in the pre-dawn hours and jailing them without charge for months, those acts arouse anti-Semitic sentiment amongst people who are pre-disposed to anti-Semitism. This does not justify anti-Semitism. It does not explain anti-Semitism. It is simply an observation.

Nor does it detract from the gravity of Israeli policy and actions - which, I believe, *must* be acknowledged.

This quote seems to me to show what’s at the heart of what Eamonn is on about. The first paragraph lists a series of actions which are characterized as being done as the direct intention of the Israeli state. All are presented as self-evidently true and done on an apparently totally arbitrary basis. Each one listed, as far as I can tell, is in gross breach of Israeli laws or rules of engagement. It is typical of anti-semitic calumnies that they characterize illegal actions by individual Jews as acts committed by and on behalf of the Jewish people as a whole.

Remarking then that “those acts arouse anti-Semitic sentiment amongst people who are pre-disposed to anti-Semitism. and that’s a simple statement of fact” is, firstly a blatant misrepresentation of the Gurvitz line, which is that Israel causes anti-semitism, tout court. Secondly, it’s the equivalent of David Irving justifying the anti-semitism of anti-semites all over the world because he argues that people generally are pre-disposed to anti-semitism.

Calling the phenomenon of racism irrationally being built on irrational ascription of individual evil acts to a whole nation as “a simple statement of fact” seems to me to imply a complacency and moral indifference about anti-semitism in response to any act committed by individual Israelis in uniform or resident on the West Bank. It is in vivid contrast to the outraged denunciations which are made by both of these writers against those individual or small groups of Israelis who spray racist graffiti or commit racist acts against members of groups associated with attempts to destroy their country and culture.

Funny, that.

And, by the way, how is +972 funded? Another recipient of funding from the EU? The New Israel Fund? Truly wonderful to envisage a future for the Israelis and the Palestinians under the common flag of an international telephone dialling code. Says it all.

Is this an example from Michael White in the Guardian?

“…Jews who claim that Israel’s unpopular policies have affected people’s perception of them.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/sep/28/michael-white-ed-miliband-religion

This is an old one, from Caroline Lucas: http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=2244

And a response from howard jacobson: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/howard-jacobson/howard-jacobson-another-act-of-terrorism-another-attempt-to-play-the-blame-game-1054446.html

The point I have just made is a common one, made countless times by others. You cannot refute it, you do not incorporate it into your reasoning, and yet you accuse others of failing to engage in dialogue.

You state:

“When Israel commits acts that are inexcusable - like shooting children while they are standing outside their school (e.g., Abir Aramin), or shooting blindfolded, manacled prisoners in the foot, or dragging 14 year-olds out their beds in the pre-dawn hours and jailing them without charge for months, those acts arouse anti-Semitic sentiment amongst people who are pre-disposed to anti-Semitism. This does not justify anti-Semitism. It does not explain anti-Semitism. It is simply an observation.”

This is contradicts your earlier comment that:

“Anti-Semitism exists. Anti-Semitism is an irrational hatred. Anti-Semitism will probably always exist and would exist with or without Israel’s help.”

Moreover, there is hardly a country in the world in which you will not find incidents of the same type (usually a hundred fold worse) without arousing an irrational and a demand that the country be erased from the map.

And what is your point in making such decontextualized assertions?

Is it, as you conclude to,

“Sometimes I’m glad to shake things up a bit, because the rigid narratives of both sides are such self-serving crap?”

You are not shaking the narrative with such comments. On the contrary, you landing support to a one sided and anti-Israel narrative. You are also giving another excuse to the preachers of antisemitic hatred. Not because you point out that such injustices occur (and I am taking your word that your list of atrocities really occurred) but because those preachers of antisemitism will use your name when they preach hatred of the Jewish State.

It seems to me that it would be more productive to work for a two State solution. To do so you need to earn the trust of both sides. Posting irrational one-sided anti-Israel vitriol will only anger the Israelis and making it that much harder to achieve peace.

Finally, if as you say:

“But mostly, lately, I’m really exhausted by the vitriol and the implacable refusal to engage rationally.”

I suggest you take a long rest and rethink your views and the way you present them to the public. Eamonn is not the problem, Lisa. Your inability to empathize with one side of the conflict is the problem.