Any criticism of Israel whether in the U.S., Europe or in the Arab world is always countered by an ad hominem attack on the critic—namely, that the critic is an anti-semite. It has gotten so out of hand that they're now labeling Israeli Jews as anti-semites.

Daniel Barenboim, world famous conductor of the Chicago Symphony and an Israeli citizen, has devoted considerable effort to the causes of peace and especially to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. As described on his website,

1) A Jew born during the Second World War - and an Israeli by nationality - he has worked closely over many years with three German orchestras - the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra - in an atmosphere of mutual affection and respect.

2) In the early 1990s, a chance meeting between Mr. Barenboim and the late Palestinian-born writer and Columbia University professor Edward Said in a London hotel lobby led to an intensive friendship that has had both political and musical repercussions. These two men, who should have been poles apart politically, discovered in that first meeting, which lasted for hours, that they had similar visions of Israeli/Palestinian possible future cooperation. They decided to continue their dialogue and to collaborate on musical events to further their shared vision of peaceful co-existence in the Middle East. This led to Mr. Barenboim's first concert on the West Bank, a piano recital at the Palestinian Birzeit University in February 1999, and to a workshop for young musicians from the Middle East that took place in Weimar, Germany, in August 1999.

The West-Eastern Divan Workshop took two years to organize and involved talented young musicians between the ages of 14 and 25 from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia and Israel. The idea was that they would come together to make music on neutral ground with the guidance of some of the world's best musicians.

So Barenboim was in Israel to launch a book he coauthored with Edward Said. An Israeli military reporter wanted to interview him, but he refused so long as she was in military uniform. And the result? Why, Barenboim is an anti-semite! According to the AP report by Ravi Nessman,

Israel's education minister described the conductor Daniel Barenboim as a "real anti-Semite" yesterday after the musician refused to grant an interview to an Israel Army Radio reporter because she wore a military uniform to the launch of a book he co-wrote with a Palestinian.
....

The education minister, Limor Livnat, was outraged by the incident and said the conductor was "a real Jew-hater, a real anti-Semite."

Mr Barenboim, who was born in Argentina and raised in Israel, has had frequent spats with Israel's government. Last year, he angered Israeli officials when he criticised the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

The conductor, in a telephone interview with Army Radio yesterday, did not deny the incident and defended his actions.

"Anti-Semitic? What is anti-Semitic about it? When I say a uniform should be worn to the right places and not to the wrong ones, there is nothing anti-Semitic about it, there is no logic to this," Mr Barenboim said. "I just thought that in this place, discussing a book written together with a Palestinian, it shows lack of sensitivity."

Oh, and have I ever mentioned the cooperation of the Israeli government in denying the Armenian holocaust?