Um..so apartheid is when you build a wall between you and people trying to blow you up so they have a harder time doing it? OK, good to know. I don't think that's what South African apartheid was, but live and learn.

Personally, I think Israel is doing some terrible things to the Palestinians and a constructive dialogue where both sides had their heads banged together and were made to compromise would be a good idea.

Israel has to do a lot towards giving liberty to the Palestinians in the West Bank. It should not be humiliating and denying rights to those average Palestinians who want nothing more than to live their lives in peace.

But on the other side, when you have a group like Hamas, that explicity calls for Israel's destruction in its founding Charter and doesn't recognize Israel's right to exist and continues to use indescrimiate violence whenever it gets the opportunity, there is plenty of blame to go around.

If you read the newspapers and follow the media and listen to what politicians of all stripes in our country are saying, or talk to people who aren't politicized on this issue, it's hard not to reach the conclusion that it's this "Israeli Apartheid" movement, and not Israel, that is losing its legitimacy.

What this movement is doing is counter-productive to a peace effort. It makes it easy to characterize those who want an independent Palestinian state to be seen as wanting the destruction and villification of Israel and this movement actually sounds self-agrandizing and in some cases even bigoted on the part of its proponents.

Villifying Israel while seeming to ignore the wrongdoings on the Palestinian side is as hypocritical as villifying the Palestinians and claiming that Israel hasn't denied rights to Palestinians in the Occupied territories for the last 43 years.

There are plenty of venues and people who are critical of Israel - try reading the Star where James Travers, Haroon Siddiqui, Antonia Zerbisias, Linda McQuaig or Rick Salutin's column in the Globe that's also here on Rabble shows there's no repression of criticism for Israel and support for the Israeli Apartheid movement in the media. So it doesn't come off as too credible screaming that there's some new "McCarthyism" happening when it clearly isn't.

How about trying to come up with some constructive ideas for making both sides feel secure enough to start trusting each other and work towards compromise, rather than find a self-defeating rallying point for the New Left.