Paulin did not make an argument. He simply expressed his outrage at the settlers, using some very harsh words. He hasn't endorsed the murder of children, as Israel's apologist, Nat Hentoff, for example, insinuated. Support for violent struggle isn't support for any and all violence. But the vitriolic detractors of Paulin reveal no interest in intelligent debate about legitimate vs. illegitimate violence. At the core of Paulin's outrage, there is a simple moral intuition: that Palestinians have a right to shoot at people who cross the ocean in order to destroy their houses and livelihood, expel and kill them. This moral intuition could be rejected. Some pacifists, for example, will reject it because they reject all violence, even in self-defense. We have to respect this position. But the chorus that assaulted Paulin is far from endorsing pacifism. Take Larry Summers, for example. Harvard's president has expressed his displeasure at inviting Paulin to speak at Harvard. Summers doesn't stop at Paulin; he accused of anti-Semitism even people who support divestment from Israel.

But when Summers worked in the Clinton administration, his colleague, Madeleine Albright, told an interviewer that the death of half a million Iraqi children was "worth it," (see FAIR's article). Unlike Paulin, Albright did justify the killing of a mind-blowing number of children. Summers did not resign in protest. He didn't say anything at all. Equally silent was the whole U.S. official media. One wonders what the reaction would have been had Albright said the death of half a million Jewish children was "worth it."