Hi Michael,
      You wrote, commenting on Jonathan Campbell's criticism of the Israeli
government,
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Meaner and stupider than the US government? the French government?  
the Russian government? the Sudanese government? the Chinese government?
the Saudi government? the Pakistani government? the Mexican  
government? the Serbian government? the Iranian government?

I could go on, but you get my point.

I think this is slightly veiled anti-semitism. If not, how can you  
justify it? Why single out this particular government, for all its  
despicable actions, to be especially mean and stupid in comparison  
with so many despicable governments?
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      I think it's a mistake to read "veiled anti-semitism" into criticism
of the nation-state that calls itself Israel. I agree with your first two
paragraphs, essentially lumping all nation-states into the same barrel. But
when criticizing a particular state, there's no reason to write an
encyclopedic treatise mentioning the crimes of all to be free of "guilt" for
"singling out" one of them. Whether Jonathan is anti-semitic or not is
completely irrelevant to judging the validity of his criticism of the state
of Israel. I haven't been following this entire discussion of the science
and technology of death using radioactive materials, because I see it as
niggling over definitions by a bunch of privileged intellectuals, mostly
middle class white people, arguing about make-believe issues. Obviously,
though not to my brother who is in the Israel-ueber-alles verein, Israel's
behavior is despicable, and fully deserves to be exposed and opposed. I
happen to believe the same is true for practically all nation-states, but
that's not necessary to say in order to justify criticizing Israel.