Imagine that Italian fascists argued that anti-fascism is anti-Italian prejudice? That is what Zionists do in the name of Judaism. No other political interest group regularly demands, through bullying, social and professional slander, and orchestrated campaigns of ostracism, that we accept their particular ideology as per se legitimate and lovable.

As long as we accept the blithe use of terms like “terrorist” to refer to Palestinians fighting for basic dignity or accept the matter-of-fact description of Israel as a “democracy”, we lose the game. Those terms have been carefully designed to leave no room for a true dialogue of ideas. We need to stop expending our energies on arguments within their parameters of thinkable thought.

The Boston Globe enables Alan Dershowitz in his abuse of terms like “anti-Semitism” and “blood libel” to control the parameters of discussion for Black Lives Matter. These are old tactics that gave him notoriety but are at last wearing thin.

Israel supporters condemn the “delegitimizing” efforts of the BDS movement, but it is not as if delegitmization is a new tactic to Zionism. Indeed, a strong case could be made that it has been perhaps the single most ubiquitous and effective tool of the movement in the US and elsewhere over much of the last century.