We had a politician (from my home town) during the last elections (Wilfried may mean that incident; however, I recollect it completely different) who used this tactic ad nauseam:
He singled out a prominent German Jew, made a nasty antisemitic remark about him and also criticised Sharon's politics. His antisemitic remark was called 'antisemitic' by the prominent Jew (but not only by him). Then the politician in all his know public speeches never forgot to include this line of 'reasoning': I am a man who stands here and dares to criticise Sharon's politics and I shall never refrain from doing so even if I am called antisemitic.

He had been called antisemitic and he had criticised Sharon's politics but the two had nothing in common (except that they had happened the same week). Nobody had ever called him antisemitic for criticising Sharon's politics but he made the connection over and over as if this was something of validity. His endless repetition of the sentence 'If it is antisemitic to criticise Sharon then I may be called an antisemite' came over as fishing for sympathies from outspoken antisemites.

Here in this thread, I've counted more than two dozen repetitions of the 'it isn't antisemtic to criticise the Israeli government' argument. It is a correct argument as has been pointed out, among others, by musicmic. I have failed to find any post in support of such a position and I have even failed to find any link or any citation in any post pointing out that a sizeable part of the population believes in such an argument. So why is it repeated over and over without any opposition?

I cannot help but being reminded of the tactics of the German politician.

"It is not racist to point out that some African governments are very lousy". No, it isn't but if this argument would be repeated over and over without any opposition to it I would start slowly asking myself about the motives of those using it.

Musicmic a racist and bigot? I have read his posts over and over and still fail to see even the slightest reason for such a condemnation.

Wolfgang