Interview with Professor Victor Davis Hanson:
http://www.michaeltotten.com/2010/06/war-and-history-ancient-and-modern....
(selected quotes)
VDH: Yet people who are anti-Israel can stay and live in Israel. I think deep down inside these Westerners do understand that there's a level of criticism that Israel can accept and that its enemies can't.
MJT: Sure. You can say anything you want in Israel.
VDH: It's like the Mohammad cartoons. People who mock Christianity or Buddhism aren't courageous.
MJT: There's no risk.
VDH: Israel poses no risk. If you go to an academic conference and say the Zionists are doing this or that, people applaud you. If you say fundamentalist Muslims are doing this or that, you can get into trouble.
MJT: Christopher Hitchens said something critical of Islam and the Koran at a talk in Beirut and got applause. I don't remember what he said exactly, but he couldn't have done it in the Hezbollah parts of the country, nor anywhere else in the Arab world.