I have to give up my HC gimmick for a moment because Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a great post that needs to be praised. I’ve criticized Goldberg, in the most assholic possible terms I know how to use, but this is just a great, great sentiment, and if I can’t recognize that, then I’m the asshole.

But what you have in this debate over self-hating Jews — remember, there’s a report out that Bibi himself has called Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod self-hating Jews — is the hijacking of Judaism by a group of extremists who have conflated support for the settlement project with love for Israel and the Jewish people.

In the Shtetl, we often have a bad habit of arguing by association — wait, someone from J Street/AIPAC/APN/whatever likes it? Then I hate it! — and so I only hope that my praise won’t send Goldberg into the hands of these same extremists.

Hardcore day will return.