that's why i made you guys co-hosts.

But you must remember that we are under the gun right now and all these people who would call us anti-semites are lurking about and going over our posts.

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Just a clarification -

Are you guys against the occupation of the West Bank/Disputed Areas, are are you against the whole of Israel as a nation?

I don't know enough about the conflict to make an educated opinion on the matter, although I will be travelling to Israel as part of the birthright group in less than a month. The tour does include seminars on the disputed areas such as the Golan Heights (where we are to be rappelling). However, I definately know they will only present a biased view of the conflict. After the tour ends my brother and I will be sticking around for a further ten days, and I think that we may get a better idea after the tour than during. Then I'll be able to submit an educated opinion.

I do, however, enjoy the idea that Israel can be preserved as a destination for all religions. I also think that Jewish people living in Israel should not be a target for hatred. Of course they want to live there - it's the holy land, the target for thousands of years since the beginning of the Diaspora.

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We are not against Jews or israelis---we are against the government of Israel and the Zionism and the hate and propaganda and misinformation it spreads.

You said:I do, however, enjoy the idea that Israel can be preserved as a destination for all religions. I also think that Jewish people living in Israel should not be a target for hatred. Of course they want to live there - it's the holy land, the target for thousands of years since the beginning of the Diaspora

My response:I don't think that the jews have official carte blanche on Israel in this case.  It so happens they are there now.  But why do they have more right than others to be there?  After all, Jerusalem is a holy place for christians and muslims as well.  But because the Israelis are there now, they should be able to stay.  At the same time, they should be able to compromise and talk with Hamas.

I look forward to hearing from you when you come back.  Be safe.

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Before I get into anything too deep, I want to reiterate that my opinions/ideas are pretty uneducated because most of my learnings of the situations have come from unreliable (and biased on both ends) sources, both anti and pro palestinean. Also, I am not pro-Israeli/Jew or anti-Arab. In fact, I am Jewish, but my boyfriend is half Lebanese. We're Canadian, though. It doesn't really matter so much here.

Anyway. From what I've seen in my tour guides, there is a big mosque on Temple Mount, and the old city of Jerusalem is quartered into Armenian, Christian, Muslim AND Jewish. Not to mention there's like a bazillion Churches all over and some cities (of course like Nazareth) are largely non-Jew. That doesn't seem to be an existance where Jews are against the other religions, they seem to live in relative harmony (except for the Disputed areas, which to me seems more political than religious).

Also, I would assume that the government of Israel would have a tough time swallowing the bullet to go and talk to Hamas. After all, they are the group that's responsible (self-admittedly and continuously) for all the suicide bombings of innocent people in busses and public squares that make all our back page news. Now, I don't agree with the (over)reactions that the government takes, but both sides have majorly dug themselves into a deep hell-hole. For Israel to give the territories back would be to suggest to Hamas that suicide bombing is an appropriate tactic for getting what you want, and Hamas' opinion is likewise. I think both parties would need to cool their heels and not react/kill for an extended period of time (think years) and breathe deep before territory talks/peace could ensue. How this could ever happen in such a potent area is up to them, I don't know how it could personally.

Jewish people are encouraged to move to Israel, and do so regularly. This is something that has been in the doctrine of Jewish philosophy since Diaspora. The greeting is to say "Next year in Jerusalem!". This is not a Zionist greeting, it's a Jewish proverb that is much older. The creation of Israel has made aliya more accesible. While the government does make it easier for Jews to immigrate I'm sure, I don't think the doors are closed to all other groups. I don't think other groups are as excited to immigrate as much as Jews, though.

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But what are the starving people of Palestine supposed to do in the meantime?

They have voted for responsible government.  their choice was clear.  hamas hasn't bombed anyone since getting into office.  Time is something that will deteriorate the situation of the Palestinian people, seeing as all this money that was coming in will stop coming in.  And all because they voted their mind.  I doubt they voted for someone that would promote more killing.

I am in Canada, and this is more apparent than you may think.  At least here in Montreal.  Where are you from?

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I'm in Edmonton, Alberta. I spent 2 weeks in Montreal last May - beautiful city!

Hamas hasn't been in power for very long. I admit I haven't had too much time to read the news, but I did read that Israel is tightening their grip on the areas. I think that's A: very bad news for average Palestineans and B: a sign of distrust of the 'reformed' Hamas government.

None of us really know the whole story. On one hand, Hamas may really have quit the suicide business and are really cool guys and the Israeli government are all full of insensitive jerks. On the other hand, Hamas may be these terrorists who are biding their time until the security to get into the main parts of Israel are decreased and THEN blow crap up. On a third hand, maybe both are slightly psychotic and paranoid and can never do anything right.

I find the whole thing unfortunate. I don't think Jews are in the wrong, I don't think Palestineans deserve unequal treatment. The Israeli government and the Palestinean groups both deserve sound spankings and a week with no T.V. or weaponry. Unfortunately, there's too many people involved, too many cooks. They need G-d to come and settle everything out like in the Passover story. A good biblical cattle-disease plague, that will cause both groups to sympathize with each other. Maybe the States needs to sanction both of them until they can settle their differences.

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I need to warn you that I was kicked out of a group because I used the word "jews" too many times. 

What you say makes sense.  But I also see a lack of action if we just analyse this.  And what this does is work in favour of the Israeli state.  In the meantime, Palestininas are starving.

If time is needed, fine.  But there needs to be money given as before.  Israel and its supporters are having their cake and eating it too.

Palestinians can't afford time.  They need to be free now.

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I dunno about the huge benefit to Israelis.

1. While my brother and I are going to Israel next month, it's only because we were selected to go on a free trip. Most people don't get that luxury, and the consensus I hear from the average person on the street is that one would be crazy to travel to Israel for a vacation. The wars hurt tourism, and that's a major industry.

2. The fighting hurts and undermines the Israeli, and Jewish, global identity. Their dollar is greatly devalued (currently 1 shekel is the equivalent of 25 cents CDN), and newspapers largely favour the Palestinean position. In addition, anti-semetism globally is at WWII levels - There's no way I'd take my Jewish-looking brother to France (although I don't look semetic so I'd probably be fine as long as I didn't reveal my religion). My family hasn't lived in Israel for thousands of years, but we're still the targets of mud-flinging and insults because of the issues with Israel.

3. People are still dying. Suicide bombers killed innocent Israelis before, and they may do it again. Although I don't know this for sure, the average Israeli isn't exactly for the murder of innocent Palestineans either. Also, the fact that every Israeli boy has to be part of the army for 2 years means a lot of manpower is taken out of other jobs and schools. I never thought that defence was a great economical institution.

I dunno. Perhaps if Israel treated the areas in Palestine better the Palestineans wouldn't mind being considered Israeli. But I still think a period of calm needs to happen if they want to talk rationally.

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tess i dont know the facts about everything you said but i do know this..... i knew some people that went to israel and they sent me a video tape of some things going on....about the israeli soldiers killing pal..kids i seen it...yes i seen them shoot down palistinian kids..but i also seen palistinian soldiers shoot at israeli troops and the israeli troops shot back in defence..the palistinian troops but palistinian children on the front line.....so guess who was shot the palistinian children...and we are only told half the truth...

did you also know that if your child is killed in this way or as a sucide bomber the family recieves money its a fact look it up.....its no wonder the palistinians but their children on the front line they get money and think their helping the world in hating jews

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I believe both Catharine and Donna are making good points, and as opposite as they seem I seriously believe both are legitimate AND regrettable.

My point is this: a group like this is hurtful. It presents only one side of the case and inhibits intelligent discussion, and celebrates ideas which may not be sound. I have not only emphasized my lack of solid knowledge but I have said that I don't approve fully of either the Palestinean OR Israeli side, but Catharine, you have taken one line of my paragraph (that of the suicide bombers) to suggest I side with the Israelis. Ok, I may be a Jew, but that doesn't mean I have to side with a foreign government. It's not like the Israeli government is a facet of my religion.

The idiocy surrounding the whole Palestinean affair branches out far further than the starving Palestineans, as horrible as that is. Giving one sided website addresses does little to turn me to one side though (PLEASE realise I am not for EITHER side.) Palestineans aren't always nice either (and here I can throw a whole slew of websites such as:

Palestine not blameless victim in conflict so on and so forth (this search bores me). What you read in these articles are PERSONAL opinions based on one-sided reports of facts. While the facts are true, the reasons behind them are numerous and complicated. We need to learn about the reasons before we can argue the horrors of the facts.

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The money is going to be withhelf from the Palestinians by the Israelis, the EU, and most western governments.  They do with the money what most people do with the money.

Tess, I believe that you hear one side of the argument more than the other.  There is nothing wrong with getting another side of the story.  Perhaps there are neutral sides out there, but sometimes it is better to get the other side of the story.  It would be good for Palestininas to understand that there is also another side and that they need to see it as well.

Donna, you are making the mistake of clumping in Palestinians with "Muslims".  This is a mistake I have made in the past by clumping in "Israelis" and "Jews" when it wasn't appropriate. 

Palestinians are people independent from other Arab or Muslim states.  If you wish to argue about specific Muslims doing bad things, then you should name those people, for example.  You should not clump all of them in.  This causes discrimination and racism. 

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Absolutely I hear one side more than the other. I work at a local JCC, and while there are many Jewish people who keep neutral about the issue (mainly because it's a blight and an embarrassment to the religion, in our opinion), but others such as marriage relations and many in the community are heavily anti-palestinean. They have one-sided views (like " Go to Jordan if you aren't happy" or "Accept the fact that you have new people living in the Country, and quit getting so hung up on it). Many people assume it's a much more violent version of Quebec Seperatists wanting their own place cause they're not happy with the status quo.

I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the one-sided viewpoint. If I did, I probably would not be dating my (non-religious Muslim) Lebanese boyfriend for 2 years and counting, whose extended family is very anti-Israeli. I think I will get a better idea by actually going to Israel (for safety reasons we won't be headed into the West Bank/Gaza Strip).

Also, I agree with the distinction of Muslim/Palestineans. There are of course muslim palestineans (and I'm sure the majority is), but other religions live there too. There are also Muslims of no Palestinean affiliation living in Israel. There are also Palestineans living in peace with Israelis (think of the settlement of Abou Gosh). Things don't have to be this way, but there needs to be a fair trial and equal treatment (sanctions on both sides or the removal of sanctions).

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i guess we gotta underline that its not all the Jews, Muslims or Israelis that we are discussing here. the problems are caused by the "extremists" from all sides. and it is not the problem of two nations living here...US, Britain, France and Russia is the great powers behind the curtains.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&endeca=1&isbn=0805068848&itm=28

and

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&endeca=1&isbn=0060516054&itm=30

are two great books learn the reasons behind this conflict, just take a look at the reviews or get these...if we dont know the reason we cannot solve the problem...

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While leading newspapers have remained silent, the response elsewhere has been swift. Some critics have charged errors of fact. Others have condemned the authors for taking lobbyists’ boasts at face value, saying they exaggerate their strength, unity and impact. And as the authors themselves predicted, the incendiary accusation of anti-semitism has been lobbed their way too: the Anti-Defamation League, for example, has denounced what it terms a “classical [sic], conspiratorial anti-semitic analysis”. Whatever one thinks of the merits of the piece itself, it would seem all but impossible to have a sensible public discussion in the US today about the country’s relationship with Israel. The reasons for, and high costs of, this problem warrant further consideration.

If fear of being tarred as an anti-semite – and there is no more toxic charge in American politics – blocks the way, what anti-semitism actually implies in today’s America is increasingly unclear. Over the past century, secularisation, wealth and prestige have bolstered the place of American Jewry in national life. Polls suggest that seriously anti-semitic views are now found only among a small minority of Americans. Yet, fear of anti-semitism has not vanished. Where once it was suspected – and often found – in the workplace and the domestic political arena, it is now expressed in terms of sensitivity towards criticism of the Jewish state. Often ambivalent about the methods of lobby groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), American Jews generally share the committee’s ultimate goal of maintaining a high level of US support for Israel. As Earl Raab, the veteran commentator, has noted, there is a sense that if America abandons Israel, it also may be in some way abandoning American Jewry itself. In the process, the line between anti-semitism and criticism of Israeli policy has become blurred. Defending what Bernard Rosenblatt, the distinguished interwar Zionist, predicted would be “the Little America in the East” is seen by many as synonymous with defending Jews as a whole.

A striking illustration of this occurred in the run-up to the 2004 US presidential elections. At that time Congress passed the Global Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, in spite of strong objections from the State Department. The foreign service did not see why any one form of discrimination should be singled out for official US concern. It was equally troubled by the Act’s language, which asserts that “strong anti-Israel sentiment” or indeed “Muslim opposition to developments in Israel and the occupied territories” should count as evidence of anti-semitic attitudes. At one level, Congress was connecting with a diplomatic strategy of the Sharon government that sought to highlight anti-semitism as a way of deflecting criticism of its policies in the occupied territories. But behind the lobbying lie deeper semantic shifts in mainstream American discourse. To be a Zionist is unproblematic in political terms, but to declare oneself an anti-Zionist is to become vulnerable to the charge of anti-semitism. I have even heard a student impute the same bias to a professor for referring to “Palestine” rather than Israel in a lecture on the eastern Mediterranean under Roman rule: it was as though any reference to Palestine, especially when not accompanied by a reference to Israel, was troubling.

Most sensible people of course recognise that opposition to Israeli policies is quite different from anti-semitism. For those who think they are linked, it has proved hard to fix the precise boundary between the two. The Global Anti-Semitism Act talks about a line separating the latter from “objective criticism” of Israel but does not spell out where this line lies. Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University, castigated “profoundly anti-Israel views” for being “anti-semitic in their effect if not their intent”. Others refer to “disproportionate” criticism and vilification. But none of these terms are self-evident in their application. Because the costs of stepping over the line are high, the result is that debate is put under surveillance and inhibited. I came to appreciate that this may cause serious damage to life in the classroom and to pedagogy as a whole when I served on a faculty committee looking into such matters last year.

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Intellectual discussion has thereby been constrained too. To take an extreme but pertinent example: any comparison of Israel and the Third Reich is generally denounced by the organisations that pronounce on these issues. It is not hard to see why. Offensive to many Jewish survivors of the camps, the comparison with the paradigmatic criminal state of the modern world is often made as a means of ruling out the Israeli state’s right to exist. Nevertheless, German and Jewish nationalists – like many others in the 20th century – sought to nationalise land through a combination of colonial settlement and conquest. It happens that the two shaped many of their colonisation policies in reaction to the very same historical experience – the earlier German anti-Polish land campaigns of the 1890s. They differed substantially in how they saw this precedent, of course, as in their policies and treatment of those already on the land. But precisely because comparisons can bring out these differences, there seems no reason to allow political correctness to trump scholarly enquiry.

Vigilance can be carried too far. Having denounced American academics for supposedly making anti-semitic statements, the Anti-Defamation League last year levelled a similar charge at faculty in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. There is something peculiarly Kafkaesque about the idea of an American Jewish watchdog monitoring Israel for anti-semitism, yet once the mechanism and mindset exist, this is where the logic of vigilance leads: anti-semitism may be found anywhere. In fact, the intellectual climate in Israel is tougher-minded than in the US and the authorities at the Hebrew University simply took no notice. But brandishing the big stick of anti-semitism against all and sundry helps no one: it lumps together serious critique with crackpot ravings, does a signal disservice to those who really suffered from it in the past and stifles a badly needed debate within the US. There is no reason why the partnership between the US and Israel should not be susceptible to the same kind of cost-benefit analysis as any other area of policy. After all, no special relationship lasts forever: ask the Brits.

The writer is professor of history at Columbia University and author of Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950 (Knopf)

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is not anti-semitism. what a smokescreen they are using to capitalize on the horror they are committing to an entire nation of people.

if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck.

if the actions that the zionist government of israel is carrying out against the palestinian people directly parallel that of what hitler did to the jewish in war time nazi germany, then that is what i am going to say.

no one can deny the slums that the zionist government is forcing the palestinians to live in. no one can deny the bombing of innocent people. no one can deny the outright shootings of school children as they walk to school. no one can deny the deliberate starving imposed upon the people when they cannot leave an area to get food.

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great points people.

Was gone for a while, but glad to see people are making some valid points.

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I have the "anti-semite" brigade up my arse again.  They are trying to guilt freediver into taking me off as host in Ethics in Progressivism.  The ringleaders, and so far the only ones who are posting in this way, are Dov and Ket.  Surprise, surprise.

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join the club. . .

anti-semitism my ass!

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I want to reiterate my personal stance against violence of any kind and desire for peaceful solutions as a pacifist. But that does not mean that I cannot empathize with the rage, frustration, and desperation that drives some Palestinians to become suicide bombers. I know that there are corrupt Palestinian leaders and ideologes among the Palestinians that take advantage of these feelings and the faith and vulnerability of young Palestinians and I oppose many of their tactics. The film, "Paradise Now" was a revelation of the many ambiguities that face these young Palestinians in a desperate situation. Still, the Palestinians were not the original authors or perpetrators of the situation as it stands today, so it is the most obnoxious manefestation of progressive "political correctness" to take a position that there are wrongs and atrocities on both sides as if it were truly simply a "tit for tat" situation when you have the history and truth on the side of the Palestinians and the overwhelming force, military and economic superiority of Israel and the U.S. against the palestinians who are in what is basically a concentration camp that often they can only resort to throwing rocks as their only weapons in self-defense.

"I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight." - Malcolm X

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If the U.S. has a representative government and its population is anti-Jewish, then it cannot expend its resources to prop up a Jewish state.

If the U.S. population is anti-Jewish and the U.S. government is propping up a Jewish state, then the U.S. government must not represent the U.S. population.

If the U.S. population is anti-Jewish, then why is the U.S. government propping up a Jewish state?

Since the U.S. government is killing Muslims and occupying their lands while protecting a Jewish state, wouldn't it make sense to be talking about anti-Muslim sentiments rather than anti-Jewish sentiments?

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there is nothing logical about any of the violence that is being perpetrated against the palestinian people.

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I have hopefully made peace with those two.  I have apologised for inappropriate word usage and truly believe that they might have found my remarks anti-semitic.  Sometimes we need to be careful how we post something.

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Thomas, that is exactly what i believe all of the hosts of this group are after---a peaceful ending to an endless problem.

Also, there is a big disproportion when it comes to people worried about anti-semitism and rthose worried about anti-Arabism.

It's funny how Palestinians, like Iranians, are not Arab.  And how religious were the Palestinians when they were independent?

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Che, I don't understand the last sentence of your last post. Because (1) the Palestinian people are DEFINITELY Arabs, unlike the majority of Iranians. There are Arabs living in Iran, mostly in Khuzestan province in the southwest, but the largest ethnic group in Iran is the Persian people. (2) Palestine has never been independent in modern history. The notion of independent "countries" was quite foreign in the Dar al-Islam, so an independent Palestine would have made little sense. From the 1300s until after World War I, Palestine was a province of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire, and of course it was the imperialist machinations immediately prior to, during, and following that war that led to the current state of war that exists today.

Traditionally, Islam is a complete way of life, governing aspects of society that we in the West would consider the domain of the secular state. It is a completely different notion of religion than prevails in our part of the world, but in all fairness it must be said that it required a Reformation and over a century of horrific violence (some of which has not ended, as in Northern Ireland) in order for our different notion to prevail. In Palestine, however, it must also be remembered that a significant minority of the people there has always been Christian, and that community was always allowed to be for the most part autonomous unto itself through the centuries.

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Sorry for the lack of clarity.  I meant that Palestine was independent to do as they wished.  I didn't mean they were a country.  I also heard that they were not very religious.

Many Palestinians have told me that they don't consider themselves Arab.  Sorry if it was inaccurate.

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more anti-semitism. . .

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As individuals Palestinian Arabs cannot be generalized any more than North Americans or anyone else. A couple of things, however: their language is Arabic, and their dialect is hardly distinguishable from that spoken in Syria, Lebanon, or Jordan. Prior to World War I, religious institutions were the primary authorities that most individuals had in their lives. Under the Ottoman system, the religious communities: Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and the different subgroupings thereof, were completely autonomous when it came to issues within their communities. The government itself only intervened when a dispute arose between, say, a Muslim and a Christian. This all began to break down when the Young Turks (early 20th century) attempted to transform the empire into a Western-style nation-state. This had disastrous results (another discussion). What this means is: however religious any individual might be, society as a whole was dominated by religious institutions. This has been the reality of Middle Eastern society until the twentieth century leaders' attempts to secularize it, from Atatürk (Turkey) to Reza Shah (Iran) to Nasser (Egypt) to Arafat (Palestine) to Najibullah (Afghanistan). What we are seeing today is a violent reaction to those attempts, in many cases encouraged by the United States and Israel (such as Israel's fostering of the early Hamas in the 1980s and the U.S.'s support to the fledgling al-Qa'ideh also in the 1980s).

I think that the discussion of secularism in the Middle Eastern context deserves a thread of its own and would be rich and educational for all who participate.

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Greetings, everyone!! I have just joined this group, and look forward to participating in the discussions when time permits (a lot of my time recently, has been taken up dealing with remarks from Ket and Dov, neither of whom has branded me anti-semitic - yet!!).

Right at the start, someone asked what the definition of 'anti-semitic' was. Please allow me to try to answer that now.

The word 'Semite' is derived from the Greek word for Shem, one of Noah's three sons (the other two: Ham and Jeptha). The descendants of Shem are traditionally taken to be the Jews, Arabs, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the Phoenicians. This is why the Semitic languages are primarily Hewbrew and Arabic.

From this it follows that the Palestinians are just as much a Semitic people as the Jews. So, when the Zionists, or anyone else, for that matter, is being hateful or rascist, with respect to the Palestinians, they are being, ipso facto, anti-semitic!

I do not know how the recent suppression of anti-semitism law in the US is worded, but it is totally fatuous, and pointless, of it does not take into account the proper meaning of the term 'anti-semitic'.

On the question of the currency of anti-semitism in the US, I would only point out that for fundamentalist christians, in particular, the Old Testament is taken to be literally true. Thus OT prophesy concerning the Jews and The Promised Land means that they implicitly support Israel, even to the point where Israel can do no wrong, in spite of the facts. On the other hand, they also believe that the Messiah has come, in the person of the Jesus (who was, himself, a Jew), and here all Christians part company from the Jews, of course.

If a map of ancient Palestine is consulted, you will find that Palestine is composed of three territories: Judea, Samaria, Galilee. In biblical times, the ten tribes of the Israelites, plus various sects, were mostly nomadic, but their holy place was the Temple at Jerusalem. There was no land of Israel, this was just a pipe dream, something to be desired, as promised in the Mosaic mythology of the Chosen People. This 'promise' has been the bedrock of Jewish aspirations ever since. But it was not until the aftermath of WWII that the reality of a separate Jewish state became a possibility. Note, 'separate Jewish state', not a desire to share land with the Palestinians. Having learned the lessons of 'otherness' from the Nazis, the Zionists set about ethnic cleansing, and are still appropriating Palestinian land to this day, as they dispossess and drive out the rightful owners of that land. Then they have the gall to claim to be persecuted and terrorised by the Palestinians, whom they see as nothing but dung on the soles of their shoes!!

I am no historian, but I can recognise injustice when I see it, and all I ask of the pro-Israel lobby is to put themselves in the shoes of people who have had, and are still having, their own land/territory forcibly annexed by a neighbour.

I will end now, with the hope that some of the previous contributors will take the time to look into the history of Palestine, and see for themselves the root causes of the turmoil in the Middle East today, who supports it, and who benifits from it.

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1. To show that Israel is a semitic nation -while it consist of european and american jews mainly.
   
2. It is used against anyone who defends the rights of the Palestinians.
   

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As usual I have learned- I am quite silent but always interested I just have much to learn and read! Thank you both for more info. Thnka you all, great topic and difficult to discuss.

One comment though- The American government doesn´t represent the American people in view of Israel or Palestine- I cannot remember who posted in regards to this, but there you have it.

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read this article and the ones people posted below all by Jews/Rabbi's etc. and also goes back to WW1, sorry I not able to c/p them all here too much/hard for me right now

http://www.care2.com/news/member/956805373/408731

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No, Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism | Israel and the Middle East | Guardian Unlimited World  (tags: israel, anti-semitism, middle-east, government )

Sunshine
- 3 days ago - guardian.co.uk

As an idea, a Jewish homeland was always controversial. As a reality, Israel still is - and it is not anti-Jewish to say so

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