[wnoise]

That likely would have spared them comparison to Apartheid, yes, but would instead have been an ethnic cleansing.

The unfortunate matter is that the Arab states were not criticized harshly enough. And that is almost certainly due to a combination of antisemitism and realpolitik over their oil resources. And this relative lack of criticism continues to this day.

Nonetheless, it's still not a responsive defense to bad behavior to point out other bad behavior that is less criticized. By all means do what you can criticize these states and surface their bad behavior (and do so individually; they're not a monolith). But a thread talking about Israel isn't the place to do it. First of all, it's ineffective, second of all it's derailing to the thread.

[nayaketo]

When rules are applied selectively and one nation is singled out for bulk of the vitriol, it's 100% valid to ask why someone else wasn't penalized for doing something much much worse. And you're right, most of Israel bashing is antisemitism.