There is a very narrow framework that we're allowed to use to engage in conversations about

the question of Israel and Palestine. But do I stand by? What I say? Absolutely. I think I was right.

Welcome to Deconstructed, I'm Mairi Hassan. Today, the debate over Israel and its occupation.

Why is it so difficult in the United States to criticize Israel and are defenders of the world

only Jewish state? Correct to suggest that much of the opposition to Israel stems from anti-Semitism.

The idea that BDS isn't anti-Semitic is to me almost self-evident. Having a boycott

that investment sanction movement against a particular nation state is not anti-Semitic. It's a critique

and it's a response to Israeli policy. That was Mark Lamont Hill who was fired by CNN for supposedly

crossing a line in terms of his criticism of Israel, just the latest public figure to run a foul

of the unwritten codes that govern discourse on this contentious subject here in the United States.

But whatever happened to free speech and the right to offend. I'm delighted to say that Mark's

my guest on the show today as is Laura Friedman, president of the foundation for Middle East peace,

and a friend of Israel, though a critical friend. Let's examine what they're saying. It's anti-Semitic

to say that some people are not having democracy and that they should. That's actually holding

Israel to a lower standard. So this week on Deconstructed, what can't we say about Israel?

In a world in which it often seems like we can never run out of hot takes and

insta-comments, Michelle Alexander's op-ed in The New York Times this past weekend surely merits

the title of Must Read Stand Out comment piece of 2019 so far. If you don't know who Michelle

Alexander is, number one, shame on you, and number two, she's an academic activist lawyer and of

course author of the acclaimed and searing 2010 book The New Jim Crow, mass incarceration in the age

of color blindness. She was hired by The New York Times to be an opinion columnist last summer,

the first woman of color to make it onto the op-ed pages of the Times, and it's pretty shameful.

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