You're right that there is a huge amount of conflation between being anti-Israeli policy (which, for the record, I am - and strongly so) and being anti-Semitic. in my reading I felt, however, that the anon in that thread was attacking everything about Israel, including the racial & religious makeup of its citizens, which is why I stated that I felt s/he/it had gone over the line from rational criticism to out and out anti-Semitism. if one feels that Israel's actions and policies with regard to its "settlement" areas and the Palestinian people are abhorrent that can be easily expressed without wishing death (as that anon did) on Israel's people.

part of the trouble is because Israel functions on a theocratic basis as well as a democratic one - the establishment of Israel and its annexation of neighboring lands cannot be viewed solely through a political lens. Zionism is a religiously motivated philosophy - Zionists do not believe the land is theirs because of treaties and accords, but because God promised it to Moses. that's what the word means. this fact creates a very gray area for people who dispute the settlement policies, and we must examine our motivations in ourselves.