Bilbo Baggins is the main character in Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, but contrary to what you’d think, the movie isn’t really about him.

When public figures of the status of multiculturalism and immigration minister Jason Kenney and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff deem it prudent to attack Israeli Apartheid Week, a grassroots series of events organized every March on university campuses by a constellation of rag-tag student groups, we can say with fair certainty that the Palestine solidarity movement has arrived at the “fight” stage.

When the big guns are shooting at you, nervous airmen have observed, you’re probably flying right over the target. Consider the fact that top-level politicians are now taking time to remind us about things that used to be received as wisdom in these parts (Israel is good, Palestine activists are anti-Semitic kooks). Call me a nut, but our movement may be having an impact.