I’ve been to Bethlehem. You’re probably the only Christian from there (however long you lived there) who doesn’t have an issue with the fact that Muslim Arabs, through sheer population explosion, have all but stolen the city from the Christians.

But you’re right that criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. There’s a saying that goes, “No one criticizes Israel more than Israelis.” I criticized Ehud Olmert for being involved in that scandal 2 years ago. My friends criticize Avigdor Lieberman for his unusually strong rhetoric. The same way I criticize Obama for his foreign policy, or the US army whenever their soldiers unnecessarily kill civilians. But I don’t call for the destruction and international condemnation of the US, because that takes it beyond criticism.

What you and your fellow anti-Zionists term “criticism” is, by textbook definition, nothing more than double-standards and hostile delegitimization. Calling Israel a Nazi, apartheid, racist, or evil state is not criticism; saying Israel oppresses the Palestinians and Arabs and pretending that many of the latter do not attack the former on a daily basis is not criticism; demonizing Israel for the Flotilla Fiasco without looking at the situation from Israel’s side, or taking into account the US blockade on Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis is not critcism.

It’s all double-standards, hatred, and ignorance.

And if you’ve bothered to study Judaism at all, you’d know that the Torah mentions Jerusalem over 800 times. That’s eight hundred, with two zeros. Which is nothing to say of how many times it mentions Israel. So your claim that Zionism is not part of Judaism is wrong at best, the butt of many jokes at worst.

The Qur’an mentions Jerusalem only once or twice, and in at least one of those passages, it’s about Allah describing the Jews as “children of Jerusalem”.

Seeking out willful ignorance wherever it lurks,
~A

Criticizing Israel is NOT anti-semitic. Just like criticizing Saudi Arabia is NOT anti-Muslim.

I hope the students at UC Irvine continue to bring to light Israel’s crimes against humanity. And I hope these so called professors stop trying to justify Israel’s crimes by hiding being the anti-semitism argument.