Anti-Israel activists have been conducting a surge of their own - across the Western world, and lately, in Boston. American support for Israel is at a high point, but for radical leftists, the "Revolution" has morphed into an "Anti-Zionist International."

In Brookline, on Jan. 22, Joel Kovel of Bard College came to the Coolidge Corner Theater to lecture on his charmingly titled book, "Overcoming Zionism," published in England by Pluto Press - the former printing arm of the Socialist Workers Party - and in the U.S. by the University of Michigan. Fortunately, an outcry in Michigan is causing the university to reconsider the arrangement whereby they distribute agitprop in the U.S.

As reported by Boston's intrepid Hillel Stavis and the Hub's invaluable blog, Solomonia, Kovel explained that Israel is a "racist, imperialist, colonialist-settler state that practices apartheid." Therefore, it must be destroyed and replaced by a democratic, preferably socialist state, where the Jews would be the minority. Socialists, it seems, saw the "workers of the world" go lusting after capitalist goods, so they invented a new proletariat: Voila, the Palestinians!

The theater was packed with City of Cambridge Peace Commission peaceniks and their ilk, just returned from their trip to Hebron [sic, Bethlehem] - where they saw the colorful natives engaged in their peaceful crafts like weaving and olive picking. Meanwhile, stalwarts from Christian and Jews United for Israel leafleted, exposing Kovel's faked quotes from Golda Meir and Martin Luther King, Jr.

A day later, outside Boston's Israeli Consulate, Jews for Human Rights in Gaza (great name; anybody remember the Fair Play for Cuba Committee?) and Jewish Voice for Peace joined the Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights to protest Israel's closure of Gaza. They didn't come out to celebrate Gaza's opening to Egypt, reported to ease Palestinian hardships. Hating Israel always trumps actually caring for Palestinian people. Days later the bandwagon moved to Harvard Square.

See how the "Anti-Zionist International" works at EndGazaSiege.net. There were January protests in Boston, Israel, New York, London, Cape Town, Italy and Australia. And Kovel is scheduled to tour England, Scotland, Ireland and Denmark.

Back in Boston the Globe joined the Gaza campaign, piling on with a column co-authored by Sara Roy. Roy, a Harvard "scholar" and a child of Holocaust survivors, has become an apologist for anti-Israel terrorism. With such credentials, why would anyone check her facts? So Globe readers learned that Israel cut the 680,000 tons of flour per day that Gazans need to a mere 90 tons. All of Boston now knows of this brutal Zionist starvation tactic. Except 24 hours later, a blogger calculated that for Gaza's 1.5 million people to consume 680,000 tons of flour each day, every Arab would have to eat half a ton of bread by midnight. But so what? They got the theme right: "Israel bad; Palestinians innocent." Is there a problem over at the Globe?

That so many educated people around the world are dedicating their lives to hating Israel should be a concern to us all. In Boston, the Jews need a plan.