New York Councilman destroys argument that "It's Israel we hate. Not Jews. Honest."

I think he's rightly isolated the people who unfurled the flag. In theory, however, it's entirely possible to be anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish.

True. Increasingly though we're seeing that what lies beneath many if not all anti-Israel obsessives, is anti-semitism.

Israel is probably the most obsessed about state in the world. Particularly by the left wing and Muslims.

Is this because Israel has killed more people than any other nation? no. Turkey for example has killed twice as many Kurds in 35 years than Israel has killed Arabs in 45 years. Britain has killed more Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq than Israel could ever kill.

Is it because it's the only country to live on disputed land? of course not, dozens of such incidents occur all over the world including Turkey in Northern Cyprus.

So one has to ask what makes Israel elicit such strong emotions from leftists and Islamists?

Most raging anti-Israelis are exposed eventually. Such as one of the leaders of the boycott movement whose private facebook message was accidentally made private. In it she says that Jews were behind the Holocaust. She too was only "anti-Israel" until the message was exposed.

Brits killing afghans? You should do some reading up on it. The insurgents killed more afghan civilians than ISAF.

The United nations estimate 75% of casulaties are insurgent related.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001–14%29

Did you know that iraqis killed more iraqis in Iraq than US.

I'm not having a dig at the UK or US.

One could argue that by going into these countries we created the situation of the bloodshed, even if most of it was caused by Muslim on Muslim violence.

My point being that the UK traveled thousands of miles to attack nations that had not attacked the UK - killing untold thousands in the process.

Israel has not flown troops to other continents to fight wars. Israel is dealing with local issues and as such it becomes even more unfathomable how Israel elicits so much hatred when in the grand scheme of things, its conflict pales in significance to others.

One must always look at ulterior motives.

If Israel was the only nation on earth with black people and was exposed to such a ferocious hatred by those who had persecuted black people for millennia, I think in that context you'd be able to see a clear motive behind the hatred.

This is what I call the ultra zionist. This loon was probably with these guys celebrating.

Brits killing afghans? You should do some reading up on it. The insurgents killed more afghan civilians than ISAF.

The United nations estimate 75% of casulaties are insurgent related.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_War_in_Afghanistan_%282001–14%29

Did you know that iraqis killed more iraqis in Iraq than US.

"I'm not anti-Semitic, I'm anti-Zionist" is just the left wing equivalent of "I'm not racist but".

How's that? Many people are anti-Israel/anti-Zionist but have little or no problem with Jews or Judaism at all. I think Greenfield is wrong to say the two terms are indistinguishable.

Israel isn't going anywhere. It's neighbours finally got around to understanding that some time ago. Unfortunately, the arab spring seems to have reinvigorated the non too bright in the region who seem to think pandering to a minority group of refugees who destabilise the host nation may be a political winner for them.

Ironically enough, it was the Arabs who, by attacking Israel in 1948 and provoking it into war in 1967, gave it an opportunity to expand into sustainable / defensible borders.

And by doing everything they could to isolate Israel, the Arabs encouraged it to become economically self-sufficient and develop some really clever, innovative high-tech industries

Its contextual. Clearly in this context there is anti-Semitic undertones, it was wrong to use the Holocaust as a political prop - the comparison was made directly. However, anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is not the same thing. One should be able to criticise the actions of a nation-state - Israel without facing the charge of anti-Semitism. This is coming from a Jew.

Zionism is the belief that Jews should have a home of their own.

Being anti-Zionism is inherently anti-semitic and a court in Germany recently convicted an Islamic extremist for calling to murder all Zionists.

The judge correctly stated that he was using "Zionists" as cover for Jews and that this is a tactic used by many anti-semites.

I believe that Israel elicits hatred beyond what can be described as for solely political reasons. For example Iran doesn't garner anywhere near the hatred despite routinely hanging homosexuals, people of the Baha'i faith and other minorities.