Anti-Semitic or anti-Palestinian?

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I might think The Globe and Mail was orchestrating a campaign against CUPE's and the United Church's boycotts of Israeli goods. But I'm not and I don't. Nonetheless, attacks on the two institutions have been appearing with suspicious frequency: articles by Margaret Wente, Rex Murphy and anonymous editorial writers, and on Monday Lysian Gagnon joined the chorus. Gagnon's effort was particularly nasty, associating the two institutions' actions with a notoriously anti-Semitic French comic. Yellow journalism indeed.

What is odd about Gagnon's piece is that it appears just as Israel is waging a campaign of mass terror against 1.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, an atrocity of biblical proportion and reminiscence. This alone would justify a boycott. Like the other writers, Gagnon seems curiously indifferent to Palestinian suffering; they appear to treat it as nothing more than an opportunity to flaunt their pro-Semitic credentials. European guilt runs deep indeed.