Anti-Zionist Jews can’t have it both ways

Let's get this out of the way right at the top: Criticizing Israel and disagreeing with the whims of its government doesn't automatically make you an anti-Zionist or an anti-Semite.

And far be it from us to tell people what they're entitled to think. Both here and in the Jewish state, anti-Zionists are free to speak their minds — just as we are to speak ours and say they're wrong. So that's what we're going to do.

At the Sunday, July 23 Israel Solidarity Rally in San Francisco, a few dozen anti-Zionist Jews — self-proclaimed anti-Zionist Jews with cardboard placards to prove it — were on the scene.

Jews criticizing the very existence of Jewish state are making a calculated statement. Their Jewishness is intended to provide some sort of moral authority.

Again, that is their right, even if we vehemently disagree with them. But at this rally, any cloak of moral authority the anti-Zionist Jews were wrapping themselves in unraveled in short order.

Just an arm's length from the troupe of extreme Jewish critics of Israel, a group of youthful Arabs bedecked in kaffyehs and red, green and white Palestinian accoutrements chanted their support for Hezbollah and showered the pro-Israel crowd with Hitlerian salutes while shouting "Seig Heil," cupping their hands to their faces to imitate hooknoses and shouting about how Jews supposedly smelled like excrement.

It's a bit of a tautology, but anti-Semitic bigots do anti-Semitic, bigoted things. It's sad, it's maddening, but it's no surprise.

What was surprising was that, as far as we could see, none of their Jewish brothers-in-arms stepped in and did a damn thing about it or made any effort to disassociate themselves from a textbook display of Jew hatred.

You can't have it both ways.

If you're going to flaunt your Judaism to swath yourself in credibility when you slam Israel, you've also got to step up when someone invokes or even praises Nazi behavior. Otherwise your Judaism is a charade, a hammer in the hands of anti-Israel extremists and you are nothing more than what Lenin apocryphally labeled a "useful idiot."

Jews who deny Israel's right to exist or espouse a one-state solution that would, in essence, destroy the Jewish state are free to stand on every street corner and shout their views to the heavens. But in failing to confront or even distance themselves from the Jew-hating behavior — and agendas — of their fellow protesters is cowardly and hypocritical.

And, dare we say it — wrong.