Listen to the Today programme segment featuring Shalom Lappin and Steven Rose, here.

Steven Rose is a fluent, fast and effective media operator. So lets slow it all down a bit and think carefully about what exactly he said:

Interviewer Professor Rose, that boycott, was that in part responsible for this increase in antisemitism?

Rose No, the increase in antisemitism, which is clearly there, is primarily the result of the really criminal illegal actions of the Israeli government in the occupation in Palestine, exacerbated of course by what it’s been doing in the Lebanon.

Rose, unlike many anti-Zionists, accepts that there is a clear and present increase in antisemitism. This is, he says, "primarily the result of" the actions of Israel. His explanation for the increase in antisemitism globally does not focus on the antisemites but on the actions of Jews in the Middle East.

Interviewer But that is Israel, that is the country, the government of Israel, it’s not Jewish people.

Rose That is precisely the point but the problem is always that the Israel Lobby insists that Judaism and Zionism, Judaism and support of Israel, are identical and while they go on insisting that, and while they go on attacking those of us who actually oppose the policies of Israel as being antisemitic or being, in my case, a self-hating Jew, then they actually build this rod for their own backs...

Rose introduces the term "Israel Lobby" and he claims that it is responsible for this false identity between Judaism and "Zionism" (Rose translates "Zionism" as "support for Israel"). The term "Israel Lobby" was given a new lease of academic respectability this year by Mearsheimer and Walt, two eminent conservative international relations professors in the US. Here, Rose is broadening out the claim that antisemitism is the fault of Israel, into a claim that it is the fault of a global "Israel Lobby". Immediately he conflates the multiplicity of campaigns and individuals who oppose his anti-Zionism and his boycotts into one shadowy and undefined term. The "Lobby", argues Rose, insists on this identity between "Zionism" and Jews and it attacks those who "oppose the policies of Israel" as being antisemitic or self-haters.

So another shift: now it is not Rose's demonization and his boycotts that the "Lobby" wants to suppress with its trumped up charge, but it is actually criticism of Israeli policies.

Rose himself conflates "Israel Lobby" with "Jews" by arguing that "they" build a rod for thier own backs. The "Lobby" builds the rod but it is Jews in general ("their own backs") that get hit by it. So the "Lobby" has already become, in the way that Rose uses the term, a code-word for of Jews-in-general.

Rose does not think it important to discuss who is doing the hitting with this rod that "the lobby" has built for "their own backs". He is not interested in the responsibility of antisemites for antisemitism, or in the responsibility of Jews for opposing and confronting the antisemites.

Rose goes on We’ve received death threats for actually daring to discuss the idea of a boycott of a racist university system within Israel itself. And so in fact the rise in antisemitism is precisely because this equation of being Israeli and being Jewish. We don’t say that but the Israelis do.

Rose is clearly implying here that it is "the Israel Lobby" that sends out death threats to him and his colleagues. And he is right. Because his understanding of the term "Lobby" includes everyone from AIPAC, the ADL, the AJC, Campus Watch, Melanie Phillips, to the UJS, the Board of Deputies, the All Party Parliamentary Committee, to Engage, Workers' Liberty, Jonathan Freedland, David Aaronovitch, Meretz USA - to loony late night green-ink letter-writers who send death threats. All those who stand against Rose's characterisation of Israel as apartheid and illegitimate speak, in his paranoid imagination, with one voice, say one thing, adopt one tactic, have one politics. In other words, the "Lobby", in the way that Rose uses the term, is a global Jewish conspiracy. And it is huge. Nearly all newspapers, TV stations, websites, publishing houses, Hollywood itself, oppose his cranky and extremist focus on Israel as a uniquely racist centre of global imperialism. And Rose can't just be wrong, can he? People disagreeing with Rose can only be explained by the existence of a vast conspiracy.

Are Israeli universities racist? Well Rose gives the answer later on in the interveiw when he is trying to rebut the charge that he wants to boycott Israeli Jewish academics. "Remember that a considerable proportion of the Israeli academics are not necessarily Jewish they could be Palestinian" he says.

Lappin My point is that Steven Rose has actively collaborated in promoting demonization of Israel and this has spilled over into Stalinist and neo-Nazi style demonization of Jews.

Rose That is a grotesque argument. The reason why Israel is under criticism is because of the racist policies. The reason why there is a boycott of the universities is because the universities are complicit precisely in the apartheid and racist policies.

Lappin makes the charge clear for Rose. The problem is not "criticism of Israel" but is the demonization, which sometimes spills over into the demonization of Jews. Rose again raises his straw man argument because he doesn't want to address the central charge made against him.

Interviewer But you called for the boycott of individual Jewish lecturers.

Rose No Sir. No we didn’t. Remember that a considerable proportion of the Israeli academics are not necessarily Jewish they could be Palestinian. This is a boycott of Israeli institutions, certainly not Jews and certainly not individuals.

Jon Pike discusses the "institutional boycott" argument here. It is clear that the point of a boycott of Israeli universities is to exclude Israeli Jewish academics from conferences, journals, campuses - from the global academic community.

Shalom Lappin challenges Rose about his silence over other human rights abuses in the world, such as the current genocide that is happening in Darfur

Rose There is no point in trying to persuade us that because we are boycotting Israel we are uncritical of other policies, including those of our own government.

Again, Rose raises his straw man. He wants to boycott Israel and nowhere else. He wants to exclude Israeli Jewish academics and no other academics on the planet. He thinks that Israel is "apartheid" and "racist" and "imperialist" and uniquely illegitimate. His answer is that he also criticizes other human rights abuses.

He criticizes other human rights abuses. But he demonizes Israel.

David Hirsh

More on Steven Rose's pro-boycott argument here, here and here.

Read Normblog on Rose's performance.