I am going to take my leave from DU for a time:

[sufrommich]

64. It's been horrific to watch and sickening.

There was a good article at HuffPo about this and it's so spot on:

"Internalized anti-Semitism encourages ferocious rage against Israel and Israelis, a level of rage expressed against no other people. It permits the viewing of Israel as uniquely racist and oppressive and evil, instead of being seen as ordinary or all too human. Even what I would call "soft" or "positive" anti-Semitism encourages double standards and unfairly heightened expectations for Israel which faces extraordinary challenges from an enemy lacking morality.

Internalized anti-Semitism also makes it easy for people to believe numerous fantastic modern day Blood Libels about Israel, such as the charge I have seen repeatedly (against all evidence) that Israel is committing genocide. This is no different than when people actually believed that Jews murdered God in the form of Jesus, drank the blood of Christian children, and caused the bubonic plague. Anti-Zionist movements have made this further acceptable by attempting to intellectually separate Jews outside of Israel from those within Israel, in effect saying it's okay to hate these Jews over here or Jews who support them, i.e. Zionists. At a minimum, to repeat such modern Blood Libels as gospel truth is to recklessly support those calling for the genocide of the Jews, for who is more worthy of killing than a people who is "guilty" of committing genocide.

Empathizing with civilians in Gaza, promoting the creation of a Palestinian State, criticizing Israel's settlement policy, its mistakes in war and peace, and its flaws as a society is not anti-Semitic. But, if you do the foregoing without learning about the history and context of Israel's actions and those of its enemies, if you only question the right of the Jewish people to self-determination or endlessly seek to re-litigate the creation of the modern State of Israel, if you support an economic, academic, or other boycott of Israel but not of other countries you believe are violating human rights, if you seek moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas (a terrorist group whose stated purpose is the destruction of Israel and all Jews), if you presume Israel guilty of war crimes before investigations are made, if you believe Israel is uniquely evil or the root of all problems in the Middle East, if you believe in Israel's self-defense theoretically but not in actuality, if you view this current war in Gaza as different from all other wars and the civilian casualties as different from other civilian casualties in war, you must ask yourself why."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ariel-chesler/the-antisemite-inside-you_b_5639393.html