Since you won't tell me how I can criticize AIPAC without being anti-semitic, or offering encouragement to anti-semites, perhaps you could tell if it is possible at all to criticize AIPAC without being guilty of anti-semitism and, if so, what is the nature of such permitted criticism?

I can only tell you that embedded within this question is the delegitimization of anti-Semitism itself. Because under your "I just want to criticize AIPAC" will scurry the true anti-Semites like David Duke.

If you're unwilling to parse the important differences between legit criticisms and those that seek to build the Grand Zionist Conspiracy Myth that was used in about 14 countries to slaughter millions of people, then you're part of the problem.

Of course there's legit criticism of AIPAC. There are also anti-Semitic narratives that will use AIPAC to support the pre-existing paranoid Jewish demonizing narrative of hidden "cabal" at work controlling world governments.

You want hard and fast guidelines?

There are none.

As with any racism, you have to examine the intellectual validity of the claim and contrast it with agenda and/or motivation.

David Duke uses legitimate facts to build an illegitimate argument. This is the danger on those who freak out that Lieberman and AIPAC are part of some "evidence" of hidden Israeli control of America. It's pathetic.

So to answer your question, I can't tell you "how" to criticize AIPAC. It's up to you to think your criticisms through critically and make sure you're using facts and not slipping into age old canards that imply Jews are secretly at work tearing down the fabric of society as part of their tribal "otherness." This shit's been around forever.

Do your due dilligence. But do not shrug off the fact that others WILL use AIPAC, Joe Lieberman and whichever Jews they can cherrypick out of the republican party to prove some age old "cabal" myth of hidden power. This happens every day. It is repugnant and anti-Semitic.

To dismiss it or whine that poor old you can't figure out how to legitimately criticize AIPAC is to betray profound ignorance as to the presence of real and dangerous anti-Semitism at work today.

The burden's not on me to tell you how to avoid anti-Semitic tropes. The burden's on you not to be an anti-Semite, as it is on all of us not to perpetuate racism and propagate damaging mythic narratives.

As I understand it, you contend that any criticism of AIPAC effectively deligitimizes the notion that anti-Semitism exists.

Not even in the ballpark. Go back and reread and try again.

I'll say what I want about the ADL and AIPAC and I invite others to do the same, without worrying about what some scold with the vapors thinks is permissable.

Of course you will. This refusal to even acknowledge how AIPAC is often used by anti-Semites is why what you do is so damaging.

I heard this same pathetic justification when "The Bell Jar" was published in 1992. "It's only facts!" they whined. Black people really are less intelligent. If people resist it it's because they're overly sensitive to racism over the pursuit of truth.

It's the same nonsense. You want to peddle your criticisms in a vacuum. You want to be able to shout whatever you'd like without responsibility for feeding damaging historical narratives.

No.

You don't have that right, any more than wingnuts trumpeting their conflation of Saddam Hussein and 9/11 have the right to mix them up under the confusing narrative of "Moolems" who hate us.

Because Jewish financial conspiracies are a staple of so much damage, criticising AIPAC must be done in context with an awareness of this misuse and cover for real anti-Semites.

You cannot simply plunge recklessly into so damaging a discourse without education and awareness.

You are perpetuating a tool of the David Dukes of the world. You are lending legitimacy to Jew haters who will routinely claim Joe Lieberman isn't really an American and is secretly an Israeli (yet of course Dick Cheney and George Bush remain Americans).

You ignore the numerous non-Jewish war funders in the interests of privleging the Jewish ones as "proof" of hidden government control.

When you people angrily stomp your feet and demand the right to announce your grand Jewish financing conspiracy proof with AIPAC without any desire to consider how these narratives fuel anti-Semitism is when you become part of the problem.

And just because you don't feel racist, that doesn't mean you aren't. I'm sure some of your best friends are Jews and you cried when you read Anne Frank.

But I'm not going to sit idly by while you stumble into age-old paranoid conspiracy theories and let you get away with it. There have been ample expressions in this thread of the Jewish financing "cabal" myth to show you what happens when the AIPAC nonsense gets out of hand.

At its very core, there's this simple truth: Take AIPAC out of America. Make it disappear tomorrow.

Do Bush and the fundies still invade Iraq and try to bomb Iran?

Of course.

So why perpetuate stupid conspiracy theories under some silly rubric of "it's my right to say whatever I want, I'm being silenced, waaaa!!" You're not being silenced. You're being told how your incurious laziness contributes to the real anti-Semites.

You're too lazy to take a critical look at how you 're doing that? That's your problem. And you'll get called out every time.