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if the flotilla sets sail does not seem far-fetched, despite the organizers’ vows to the contrary. So the flotilla has virtually no support in Israel. Still, some are uncomfortable with the way the project has been criticized as an attack on Israel itself. Shlomo Avineri, a historian and onetime director general of Israel’s foreign ministry, wrote in the Haaretz newspaper last week that when the flotilla is described as aimed at delegitimizing Israel, he recalls the Soviet Union’s reaction to any criticism as an assault on its right to exist. Opposition to Israeli policy is not the same as an attack on its existence, he said, and the government’s approach damages Israel. His argument about the flotilla points to the larger dynamic: the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is increasingly disintegrating from a debate over borders and security into a battle between those claiming that Israel is a genocidal machine and those who dismiss every attack on its policy as an assault on its essence. Ethan Bronner is the Jerusalem bureau chief of The New York Times. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029936