Why is it that an article about Israel, regardless of its content or perspective, summons forth every Jew-hating crazy on the internet?

There is some really vile shit in these comments. I just sincerely hope that these people are not representative of Slate's readership and, frankly, I don't think they are. Haters are always more vocal than the rest of us.

"Why is it that an article about Israel, regardless of its content or perspective, summons forth every Jew-hating crazy on the internet?"

I haven't analyzed every article that Slate has ever posted about Israel, but my sense is that most articles about Israel on this site deal with Israel's interactions with the Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and surrounding Arab neighbors.

Slate likes these types of articles because they are set ups for arguments between two ardent camps who won't shut up. So the articles generate a lot of hits and Fray traffic. These types of articles are gifts that keep on giving to Slate.

(Partisan political stories where one gets to rail on about the "Dumb-o-crats" or "Repugna-cans" and stories about race are other examples of these types of articles.)

So articles that highlight Zionists/Jews vs. Arabs/Terrorists sort of set some people up to make stupid arguments: arguing against Jews instead of the ideology of Zionism or against specific Israeli policies; conflating Arab civilian populations with various militant groups; etc.

Of course there are some genuine anti-Semites and other bigots in here too. But it's all good because outrageous statements generate outraged responses, which people love to read.

It's true, but I'm sure these two guys are not ant-Semitic:

"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."
Albert Einstein

"...If we had invested in the Arab problem one tenth of the energy, the passion, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness
which we developed in order to gain the support of Britain, France, the US and Weimar Germany, our destiny in the development of Israel may have been quite different... We were not ready for compromises; we did not make sufficient efforts to get, if not the full agreement of the Arabs, at least their acquiescence to a Jewish state, which I think would have been possible. That was the original sin."
Dr. Nahum Goldmann
President of the World Jewish Congress
writing in the New Outlook,
November-December 1974

See! A great example of what I was talking about.

We were having a perfectly rational discussion and then Phil jumps in with his usual dose of mindless, hate-filled rhetoric!

Hey Phil, why can't you think rationally, perhaps like these guys:

"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."
Albert Einstein

"...If we had invested in the Arab problem one tenth of the energy, the passion, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness
which we developed in order to gain the support of Britain, France, the US and Weimar Germany, our destiny in the development of Israel may have been quite different... We were not ready for compromises; we did not make sufficient efforts to get, if not the full agreement of the Arabs, at least their acquiescence to a Jewish state, which I think would have been possible. That was the original sin."
Dr. Nahum Goldmann
President of the World Jewish Congress
writing in the New Outlook,
November-December 1974

Or maybe these guys:

"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."
Albert Einstein

"...If we had invested in the Arab problem one tenth of the energy, the passion, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness
which we developed in order to gain the support of Britain, France, the US and Weimar Germany, our destiny in the development of Israel may have been quite different... We were not ready for compromises; we did not make sufficient efforts to get, if not the full agreement of the Arabs, at least their acquiescence to a Jewish state, which I think would have been possible. That was the original sin."
Dr. Nahum Goldmann
President of the World Jewish Congress
writing in the New Outlook,
November-December 1974

Let me just leave you with some shrewd observations from two other very smart people:

"Should we be unable to find a way to honest cooperation and honest pacts with the Arabs, then we have learned absolutely nothing during our 2,000 years of suffering and deserve all that will come to us."
Albert Einstein

"...If we had invested in the Arab problem one tenth of the energy, the passion, the ingenuity, the resourcefulness
which we developed in order to gain the support of Britain, France, the US and Weimar Germany, our destiny in the development of Israel may have been quite different... We were not ready for compromises; we did not make sufficient efforts to get, if not the full agreement of the Arabs, at least their acquiescence to a Jewish state, which I think would have been possible. That was the original sin."
Dr. Nahum Goldmann
President of the World Jewish Congress
writing in the New Outlook,
November-December 1974

I love how Phil has a slightly different lead-in on every thread! Priceless.

By the way, I agree completely with your assessment of Slate's motivation. Sure enough, heated discussion is to be expected. I just did not expect that most of the fray posts would come from zombie Rachel Corrie.

. . . and find out if that's the case. Personally, I find never-ending rounds of name-calling and accusing each other of everything but humanity gets OLD. QUICKLY.

...are here reading the Fray connected to an article on the Israelis and Palestinians. What did you expect to find? You knew what you'd find.

It's idiots like sasha who truly make one nauseas to consider Slate's readership.

He/she would like others to believe that the Israel Palestinian problem is driven by so-called anti-semitism and not legitimate concern for the fanatical and wealthy Israel lobby who not only insure incredible amounts of tax dollars go to fund Israeli fascism( i.e Lebanon, ethnic cleansing, race -based socialist nationalism, unprovoked attacks on neighbours, Syria's 'nuclear site') but conspire to drive our nation to attack Israel's 'enemies'.

Observe how Israel drives the political debate in a completely superficial way during an election season during a time of almost unprecendented crisis in America's history.

It has to change.

So save the tired horsecrap anti-semetic argument - and get busy trying to do something concrete to change people's minds because I, for on, don't see you lot trying to do that....