Anti-Semitism redux, redux. Er, redux.

Posted by Ampersand | October 10th, 2002

The Lincoln Plawg has a good piece dissecting Larry Summers’ famous speech (as regular readers know, this is a subject I’ve commented on a time or three myself). Here’s a sample from the Lincoln Plawg:

There are two main objections to this:

First, the core meaning of antisemitism is surely ‘hostility to Jews’ - how can hostility exist without intention?

Second, if being anti-Israeli is defined as antisemitism, how can one ever oppose Israeli policy without being antisemitic?

If the motives of those proposing the divestment, say, were antisemitic, why have they not proposed similar divestment from US or European firms with significant Jewish ownership?

It’s a little bit close to “fisking” for my taste, but it’s nonetheless a nicely-done examination of a bad idea. Check it out.

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