Clear distinction

In your report about e-mails to and from Hillary Clinton (8 August) you refer to an attempt by an American “entertainment lawyer” and ex-president of the American Jewish Committee to bring political pressure to 
bear upon the decision of the 
director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival regarding an Israeli artist, branding his decision as “inherent anti-Semitism”.

I would have thought that any intelligent follower of Jewry, or a lawyer, to say nothing of an Israeli, would long ago have 
distinguished between the respected tenets of Jewish religion and the somewhat doubtful current machinations of the Israeli state.

The label of “anti-Semitism” surely cannot be applied to any rational criticism of the Israeli state, otherwise no distinguishing or opposing view can ever be made of that state.

There is another word for such a stance.

C Badenoch

Abbotsford Grove

Kelso, Roxburghshire