Some time ago, I was doing what I loved to do: shooting off my mouth at the lunch table. I was condemning the government response to the Branch Davidians at Waco, where 84 people were killed, including 26 minors who were by definition innocent hostages. Think about it. 84 members of an unpopular religious group, who observed the Sabbath on Saturday and did not eat pork, were gassed and burned to death. Remind you of anything?

But as I criticized the feds actions at Waco, a colleague I knew as a kindly, intelligent man asked me, “What about how Israel treats the Palestinians?”

I wanted to say, “What the bleep does that have to do with me?” Instead I said, “What the Israeli government does in the name of Israelis is their problem. What the U.S. government does in my name is my problem.” I believe my colleague (I can’t say my friend) understood my rebuke:

Just because I’m a Jew, what gives you the right to blame me for what other Jews are doing without my permission thousands of miles away? Isn’t Racial Guilt the essence of anti-Semitism?

Same question here:

By what twisted logic are Jewish students at Columbia or UCLA responsible for the actions of the Israeli government, with which they have nothing to do? Stop acting like a racist and let us go back to class.