I read the articles, and I think Julie Burchill suffers from exactly the same problem as the people she is complaining about...only from the exact opposite angle...she's got a huge chip on her shoulder. When that is the case, people tend to see the World through one set of very skewed glasses, and they find evidence everywhere to support their viewpoint, kind of like Erik Von Daniken thinking ancient space visitors were behind everything that ever happened on this planet.

Sure there is lots of prejudice against Israel and the Jews, and some people are virulently (and often secretly) anti-semitic. Others are simply anti-Zionist. It doesn't necessarily equate to the same thing, if Zionism means a policy of aggressive military expansionism beyond Israel's 1948 borders, and that's what it means to me.

There are plenty of perfectly valid reasons to criticize Israel's policies, while not being prejudiced against Jews as a people.

Would I want to live in Israel? No. Would I want to live in most of Israel's nearer neighbours? No. I don't want to live anywhere near there at all, given the general situation.

It's tiresome reading such stuff. She would be very happy at the Toronto Sun, because that's what they're like too. They've got the World all neatly divided up into the few "good" and the many "evil", and no one can change their minds about it, because their minds are made up.

Are the many Jews both in and outside Israel who oppose the Sharon government's policies also anti-Semitic?

You can just as well make a case for a worldwide anti-Muslim conspiracy if you want to...and some people have done just that. Paranoia has a way of fulfilling its own darkest prophecies. Had Julie been born a Muslim, she might now be writing scathing editorials for Al-Jazeera, pointing out how so many people hate Arabs.

It's an argument that works equally well on either side of the line, but gets no one anywhere useful. Rantings against Jews. Rantings against Muslims. Look for 'em and you'll find 'em. Your own dark prejudices will determine which set of rantings (if either) happens to push your emotional buttons and make you cry out for justice. And that will tell you something about yourself...but little or nothing about Jews and Muslims.

- LH