The most troubling effect of the Chas Freeman affair is that it has served to take the Israel lobby canard out of the more paranoid halls of academia and hateful online communities and insert it subtly into mainstream political discourse.

Today, Ben Smith writes of the Chas Freeman pick, “But the most heated opposition came from supporters of Israel . . .” Because we’ve been inured to the rantings of Freeman’s defenders in the government and the media, people now think a declaration like that actually means something.

What constitutes a “supporter of Israel”? I thought America, on the whole, was full of supporters of Israel. Are those who didn’t speak out against Freeman not supporters of Israel? As Jonathan Tobin pointed out in an earlier post, many self-proclaimed Zionists went on record to defend Freeman. Are the Chinese humanitarian groups who did speak out against Freeman automatically supporters of Israel? This is how linguistic code works its miserable way into the culture. Now, “supporters of Israel” has joined the list of terms, like “neo-con” and “cabal,” that are indiscriminately tossed about without definition or elucidation, because — wink-wink — we really know who we’re talking about.

This is not only worrisome for Jews, but for anyone who fights for human rights. People like Freeman rarely have just one unsavory connection. It’s not a coincidence that he supports Chinese oppression and the Saudi oligarchy (just as Jimmy Carter was partial to Yasser Arafat and Robert Mugabe). This time around a handful of big-time bloggers took a few days to weigh in on the “American Likudniks” who doomed Freeman. This gave outlets like the Politico license to write meaninglessly about “supporters of Israel.” See how fast this line of “criticism” kicks in from all quarters the next time, say, Joe Lieberman raises questions about someone’s record. With Chas Freeman’s nomination — aborted though it was — hate took a step forward.