You know the classic definition of chutzpa: A man who murders his mother and father begs for mercy because he is an orphan.

Here’s a 21st-century version: A Jewish activist who has spent the past few years questioning the wisdom and actions of Israel’s government demands that another Jewish critic of Israel be silenced for being, well, critical of Israel.

That’s the gist of a dispute between the Zionist Organization of America and the Union for Progressive Zionists. The ZOA, you’ll recall, has been one of the harshest public critics of both the Sharon and Olmert governments, issuing blistering news releases that question Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, its cease-fire during the Lebanon War, and its “lack of response to Palestinian terror.”

Never shy about telling Israel its faults, the ZOA is upset that the UPZ has been hosting visits to college campuses by disenchanted Israeli army veterans who feel Israel’s actions in the West Bank and Gaza “have distorted and harmed the moral values” on which they’ve grown up. Last month, a Jewish group and a pro-Palestinian group hosted a talk by one of these dissident soldiers at Princeton University.

The ZOA wants the leftist group to be expelled from the Israel on Campus Coalition, a pro-Israel consortium, telling the JTA that the group “promotes outright falsehoods” and is at odds with the coalition’s mission of promoting a positive image of Israel on college campuses.

“Israel is condemned every day in newspapers around the world, by Arab groups around the world, by left-wing groups around the world,” ZOA president Morton Klein told JTA. UPZ and its supporters are “implying that it’s not happening and this is a new breakthrough. But they’re just adding to the already loud chorus of condemnation of Israel that we’ve been experiencing for many, many years.”

The UPZ defends the soldiers’ visits by saying they balance efforts to portray Israel as a moral exemplar — and that it is their love of Israel that compels them to explain how Israeli actions in the territories hurt both Palestinians and Israel itself.

In short, it is a defense that could very well have been written by the ZOA, which too has been called to task to explain how a defender of Israel could expend so much of its organizational capital in telling the world about the failures of the Israeli government.

The lesson here is to beware of those who would set limits on what a Jewish institution should and shouldn’t say about Israel. If you believe that your side should be heard in the communal debate, then you should extend the courtesy to the other side. But if you are going to insist that there is only one right way to talk about Israel — well, that’s just chutzpa.