In his post below, Brad writes:

I'm also curious to know why it's always and everywhere considered "pro-Israel" to support military strikes that won't, in all likelihood, destroy Iran's nuclear program, but will, in all likelihood, destroy international support for sanctions on the country, entrench the more radical factions in Tehran, and make future conflicts in the Middle East more, rather than less, likely. As if opponents of such a thing are "anti-Israel."

What does it actually mean to be pro or anti a country? We can safely say that Bin Laden types are anti-American because they want to see harm come to the United States. But beyond that, do these terms have any meaning whatsoever? One possible definition would state that to be pro-country X you would have to support the policies of X's incumbent government. If this is the case, however, then right-wingers who opposed Israel's 1990s peace overtures were in fact anti-Israel. And moreover, this categorization is prone to too much change: pro-X one minute, anti-X the next. The only credible way of defining the terms is to say that you're pro-X if you believe you have X's best interest at heart. And this definition would seem to include, Jonah Goldberg, Matt Yglesias, Wesley Clark, AIPAC, etc. Of course only some of these people/groups can actually be correct in their beliefs about what is right for X. But it seems fishy to say they are anti-X just because they've made an incorrect calculation about X's best interest. Anyway, we're back where we started, and I think it's time to put all the pro/anti talk to rest, short of extreme circumstances. That being said if someone more schooled in either philosophy or language has a better definition, by all means do tell. --Isaac Chotiner