Supporters of Israel’s anti-Hamas offensive are attempting to shut down debate by calling opponents of the campaign “anti-Israel” — the same sort of tactic used here after 9/11 to try to shut down debate about the war on terror. It’s disturbingly familiar stuff.

That said, however, there is an interesting reversal in assumptions between the debate over dissent and the debate over the war itself. As usual, dissenters against Israel and their supporters stress the purity of their motives while critics accuse dissent of having the effect of aiding the enemy. But in the case of the war, supporters of Israel focus on the purity of its motives in trying to avoid harm to civilians while critics like Ezra Klein are stressing the all-too-predictable toll of the war on civilians in Gaza.