That is certainly the impression you would get from some people in the hyper pro-Israel crowd.
A couple of days ago Peter Beinart editor of Zion square and author of the upcoming book The Crisis of Zionism made a rather reasonable proposal:
Instead, we should call the West Bank “nondemocratic Israel.” The phrase suggests that there are today two Israels: a flawed but genuine democracy within the green line and an ethnically-based nondemocracy beyond it. It counters efforts by Israel’s leaders to use the legitimacy of democratic Israel to legitimize the occupation and by Israel’s adversaries to use the illegitimacy of the occupation to delegitimize democratic Israel.
Having made that rhetorical distinction, American Jews should seek every opportunity to reinforce it. We should lobby to exclude settler-produced goods from America’s free-trade deal with Israel. We should push to end Internal Revenue Service policies that allow Americans to make tax-deductible gifts to settler charities. Every time an American newspaper calls Israel a democracy, we should urge it to include the caveat: only within the green line.
But a settlement boycott is not enough. It must be paired with an equally vigorous embrace of democratic Israel. We should spend money we’re not spending on settler goods on those produced within the green line. We should oppose efforts to divest from all Israeli companies with the same intensity with which we support efforts to divest from companies in the settlements: call it Zionist B.D.S.
So Beinart is calling for a boycott of the settlers and for the support of Israeli companies in the legal boundaries of Israel. Pretty reasonable right? Wrong. The hyper pro-Israel crowd was apoplectic that anyone would even consider opposing the extremists in the West Bank. They consider a campaign against any group of Israelis - no matter how extreme and hateful they are - to be an assault on all of Judaism.
Israeli ambassador Michael Oren attempted to marginalize Beinart the very same day his article was published:
Peter Beinart's call ("To Save Israel, Boycott the Settlements," New York Times, 3.19.12) places him well beyond the Israeli mainstream, the moderate left, and the vast majority of Israelis who care about peace. The call for boycotting all products made by Israeli communities outside of Jerusalem and beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines is supported only by a marginal and highly radical fringe. Beinart's position, moreover, absolves the Palestinians of any responsibility for the current situation, including their rejection of previous peace offers, their support for terror, and their refusal to negotiate with Israel for the past three years. By reducing the Palestinians to two-dimensional props in an Israeli drama, Beinart deprives them of agency and indeed undermines his own thesis. Without an active Palestinian commitment to a two-state solution--irrespective of boycotts--the peace Beinart seeks cannot be achieved.
Hear that Beinart? You are aiding and abetting terrorism. So says the Israeli ambassador.
David Frum also issued a non-sensical response.
The solution Peter offers to this dilemma: punish Israelis in order to change the Palestinians...
The spread of Jewish settlements in the West Bank is not a cause of Palestinian rejectionism. It is a consequence of Palestinian rejectionism...
No, punish the SETTLERS to change the SETTLERS. Frum like many others in the extreme pro-Israel crowd conflate the settlers with the rest of Israel to give them cover: if you attack the settlers you attack all of Israel. Then he goes on to blame the settlements on... the Palestinians. The settlers didn't want to colonize the West Bank, but the Palestinians made them do it! That logic is about as bizarre and dense as it gets. Oddly, enough Frum charged that Beinart had poor "acumen."
Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic notes that a boycott "targeting Jews" (notice how he didn't say settlers) is distasteful for "historical reasons." Oh really? What parts of history is Beinart's boycott of settlers reminiscent of? Is Goldberg really comparing Beinart's actions to that of anti-Semites of the past?
The most hateful and ignorant response came from American Likudnik Ronn Torossian. Torossian who owns one of the 25 largest PR firms in America made a name for himself defending some of the most nasty dregs of society:
Torossian brings similar combativeness to client crises. When Trinity Broadcasting Network President Paul Crouch was battling allegations of a homosexual tryst with a former employee (who had earlier received a settlement), Torossian publicly told Crouch's accuser he should keep his mouth shut. And when a Florida judge ordered Girls Gone Wild boss Joe Francis to surrender to U.S. marshals earlier this year on contempt charges (he's now in a Nevada jail, awaiting trial on tax evasion charges), Torossian was quoted calling the order an example of "judges gone wild."
Torossian
true to form unleashed his ignorant hate on Beinart:
Beinart is a shame to the Jewish community – a self-hating Jew. Beinart doesn’t represent the Jewish community any more than a black member of the KKK would represent African-Americans.
So if you are a Jew who criticizes the Settlements then you are no better than this:
Glad we got that cleared up.