In a valiant effort to keep from becoming the perpetual ‘Gun Channel’ of the Blogoverse, I went to Barry’s reply to my post on calling Jews ‘Nazis’.
My points included:

The issue is that insult derives from context and intention.
To call me a ‘Nazi’ because I’m obsessed with and rigid about safety, or a women a ‘Nazi’ because she is obsessed with or rigid about feminism, or an ecologist a ‘Nazi’ because they are obsessed with or rigid about ecology is a different thing than to call someone by the name of the enemy who specifically targeted them out and attempted to exterminate them.

and:

The issue in criticizing Israel’s sometimes misguided policies is to distinguish one key fact: do you support Israel’s right to exist? As a Western and predominantly Jewish state? Because while I have been and will continue to be critical of many of their loonier policies, their right to exist trumps a whole range of other issues for me, and their opponents refusal to meaningfully agree to their right to exist and to take concrete steps to back up that agreement devalue their claims almost to zero.

In reply, Barry takes me to task for being dismissive of ‘feminazi’ as an insult, giving it roots in Rush Limbaugh’s overheated prose and pointing out in addition it is more hurtful in that most feminists are Jewish. I’ve never listened to Rush (really!), and the term may have a more overtly political history than I’ve granted it; I’ll take that under advisement.
But then he jumps the shark, as we say here in L.A. He explains that I missed his main point:

Unfortunately, none of the folks who responded to me explained how someone saying “I favor divestment from Israel to pressure the Israeli government to remove settlements” is anti-Semitism. Instead, people responded to me about the word “feminazi.”

I thought my second point address this, but he goes on. I’d like to collapse his argument, but it’s tough to do, so I’ll just quote extensively:

It’s not Cathy Young’s opinion; it’s not Larry Summers’ opinion; and I presume it’s not the opinion of anyone who agreed with Summers’ speech. Why? Because Summers’s speech presented a radical new idea of anti-Semitism: anti-Semitism in effect, even when there isn’t anti-Semitic intent. In this new version of anti-Semitism, an anti-Semitic action is one that hurts Jews, whether or not prejudice against Jews – “intent” – is involved. (Say, if an earthquake levels a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, is that anti-Semitism?).
But here’s my problem with Israel’s paritsans – they want to have it both ways. When it comes to criticizing liberals, they use the broadest definition of anti-Semitism imaginable, so that even a purely political action against the government of Israel, conducted by folks who have never shown any sign of anti-Jewish prejudice, is
anti-Semitism.

Here he makes the leap from Point A: I’m dismissive of a (potentially insulting) term that he argues is anti-Semitic (‘feminazi’); to Point B: I’m opposed to divestment and while divestment may harm the State of Israel, it has nothing to do with Jews – and therefore I’m a hypocrite, because I embrace a ‘tight’ standard in one case, and a ‘loose’ standard in another.
First, let me plant a flag on the hypocrisy issue. Lacking other values, it seems that the only meaningful criticism available to Bad Philosophers is internal inconsistency. The reality is that human thought and behavior is complex and ambiguous. Consistency is valued, but it isn’t the only value, nor, in my mind, the highest. I’m sure we’ll be talking about this later.
Next, in my original post, I concluded with the demand that Israel’s critics take a clear position on the survival of Israel, and it’s survival ‘as a Western and predominantly Jewish state’. My issue with Barry’s defense of the divestment petition and other criticisms of Israel’s actions – or one criticism, because as Meryl points out there are a host of others – is that they fail to either a) take a stand that says ‘Israel is an illegitimate country and needs to be dismantled,’ or b) ‘Israel has a right to exist in the face of outside attacks and here is a plan whereby it can do so.’
Because last time I looked, ‘Palestine from the river to the sea’ was still the rallying cry.
When ‘peace’ activists propose a plan in which they act as human shields in Israeli restaurants and schools, instead of for terrorist leaders, I’ll take the quotes off their label.
Meanwhile, I’m unconvinced, and I’m afraid Barry and I will have to agree to disagree for a while. I’ll think about the feminazi thing though (although it’s never been a term I’ve used, it has been one I’ve tolerated use of in my presence…I’ll think about that).
There’s more, and some of it even includes criticism of Israeli politics that have helped create the situation, and an interesting questions raised by correspondent Evan Weisberg:

Third — although this is less a point than a question — what does it mean for Israel to have a “right” to remain a “Western” state? What does it mean for it to have a “right” to remain a “predominantly Jewish” state? Does Australia have a right to remain Western? Does Armenia have a right to remain predominantly Christian?

This will serve as fodder for some interesting talk later, I’ll bet.