"It seems like the attacks on Palestinian rights advocacy as a form of anti-Semitism just keep increasing. At my institution – University of Massachusetts Amherst – we had the lawsuit and political campaign to stop the event “Not Backing Down”. Ironically, this event, intended as a response to charges of anti-Semitism, was itself smeared as anti-Semitic. Recently the House overwhelmingly passed HR 246, the anti-BDS bill. (Even one member of “the Squad” voted for it, not to mention most (but not all) of the other progressive Democrats.) We are now facing a worse bill, the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which would direct the Department of Education to use the infamous IHRA definition of anti-Semitism when investigating complaints of anti-Semitism on campuses. That definition explicitly makes opposition to Zionism and the notion of a Jewish state a form of anti-Semitism.

What I find so fascinating – and disturbing – about all this activity is that if you seek a clear, fully articulated argument for characterizing anti-Zionism and Palestinian advocacy as forms of anti-Semitism, you won’t find one. Mostly it’s just name calling, with liberal use of the term “delegitimizing”."