Israel and taking things personally

Just today a friend of mine (not in the sense of being a close friend but in a sense of being a person from the same social circle whom I occasionally see and generally like) said a really nasty thing about Israel that I don't care to repeat here, at least not without his permission, which I don't currently feel like asking. But never mind the content and the person...

I found it difficult not to take it personally. It does not bother me in general that people hold an opinion of Israel that is different from mine (perfectly nice people can still be wrong, after all :) ). But anyway: even if one chooses to consider Israel a bad guy, or even the only bad guy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (that is, if one chooses to consider everything that happens in the area Israel's fault, which it isn't), as bad guys go Israel is fairly tame. Which always makes me wonder about the motives of the people who say extremely venomous things about it. Especially ones who say them even out of the context of a political discussion. I don't consider opposition to Israel's policies to be anti-semitism, but in my experience most of the people who express such opposition unusually strongly tend to be anti-semites and at some point move from talking about Israel to talking about Jews in general.

This particular person, however, is generally nice and sensible and in every way deserving of the benefit of doubt.