I disagree with Professor Joseph Massad's argument that is possible to be anti-Israel or anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish. In his article for Al Ahram, Professor Massad argues that the "real" victims of "anti-Semitism" today are Arabs and Muslims and not Jews. The crude assumption underlying his nuanced description of the various meanings of the word "anti-Semitism" is that the the Israeli/Palestinian conflict can be reduced to a simplistic dichotomy between colonizing Eastern European Jews and indigenous Arab victims. As a result, Arab hatred of Jews and Israel is merely "political" and not "racist."
Professor Massad is without doubt right that Muslims and Arabs are widespread victims of prejudice in the largely Christian United States and Europe. However, Massad caricatures arguments for the legitimacy of the Israeli state when he implies that the Holocaust is the sole justification for a Jewish state in Israel, and he glosses over the fact that the conflict in the Middle East has been characterized by copious bloodshed on all sides. Moreover, Professor Massad's argument begs the question of exactly where he thinks the Jews should go (having fled Europe, where they were massacred, and the Arab world, where they were oppressed).
The sins of Western Europe and America do not excuse the anti-Jewish prejudice of the Arab world, most of whose Jewish residents have long since departed for Israel. Professor Massad ends up catering to the very prejudice he purports to debunk, and his facile distinctions based on who is a "Zionist" and who is a "Semite," are as unpersuasive as his argument that Arab prejudice against Jews is "political" and not "racist." (By that logic, Professor Massad would have to concede that prejudice against Arabs in the United States, based on concentration of oil resources and the attack of 9/11, is all "poltical" and not "racist," a concession that I hardly think he is ready to make. The gravamen of his argument is that Arabs, not Jews, are the real victims of prejudice today, and that is an argument that is only half true.
N.B. While I find much to dislike and disagree with in Professor Massad's views, I believe absolutely that he should be free to express them, and that neither his job nor his other rights should be in jeopardy as a result of his opinions. At the same time, those who oppose his views have every right to subject him and his views to vigorous, even harsh, criticism.