The Antis

There are certain aspects of the political programme of the Scottish nationalists, specific sentiments even, which I will readily express my opposition to. That said, I am careful how I express that opposition. 

For example...

I try to stick to the issues, steering well clear of ad-hominem attacks on the Scots, specifically avoiding characterisations which they might find deeply demeaning. (For instance, suggesting that anyone in their 'camp' is somehow inhuman and monstrous.) 

I will not refer to my own position wholly in terms of a negative outcome for theirs (e.g. I don't call myself an Anti-Scottishist.)

I won't call for them all to be driven back where I imagine that they originally came from. (Ireland?) nor will I insist that instead of granting them autonomous statehood they ought to be purged entirely from the political map. 

And however much I may suspect that there are a bunch of Scottish nationalists who are card-carrying reprobates — as there are certainly some Russian nationalists one would not want to be stuck in a lift with — I do not discount the notion that it is possible to espouse a nationalist worldview in a largely benign fashion and that there are aspects of the associated cultural programme which are undoubtedly worth celebrating without caveats.

These are all important divergences of the kind we all need to bear in mind whenever we hear someone trot out the 'I am not antisemitic, I am anti-zionist' chestnut. 

Superficially there is indeed a clear de jure distinction between the two pathologies, but do those who claim this 'amendment' truly understand it, or are they simply disguising a bigoted worldview, or perhaps even dog-whistling an essentially hateful, racist project? 

Often enough they rumble themselves almost as soon as they open their mouths. One can almost immediately tell if the very idea of Jewish self-determination is abhorrent to them. 

And let's face it, any kind of 'anti-zionism' which holds that Zionism — the nationalist aspiration of some 80% of Jews worldwide —  is some sort of global Satanic conspiracy, is surely antisemitic by agreed definition.