While your attention was diverted to America’s elections, a fierce debate was underway among Israel-bashers. The debate is over the precise parameters of the obviously essential boycott of Israel. And it took place, quite properly, in the pages of The New York Review of Books, where just how much to bash and boycott Israel is the only debate worth having.

First came a group of about 300 intellectuals, professors, and others that includes people who want to be known as Israel lovers, such as Peter Beinart, Daniel Ellsberg, Todd Gitlin, and Michael Kazin. Their full text follows: