But to believe this one would surely need evidence of some underlying sympathy from the critics for the cultural, intellectual and, if I might use the term, “soft” side of Israel as opposed to its inevitably harder e.g. military face. Also acknowledgment of Israel’s democracy and liberalism. Yet a mere moment’s thought would disabuse one of such ideas. The BDS movement for example makes no distinction between a dance company and a speech say, by an Israeli military figure, whilst the epithets often launched at Israel are to the effect that it is anything but a liberal democracy and rather a “Zionazi” “Apartheid” state.