Anti-semitic word games
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes the word ‘Semite’ as defining: “a member or descendant of ancient south-western Asian people including: Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arabs. Accordingly, a Semite is any person whose native language is one of Semitic origin.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica informs us that the most important Semitic language, in terms of the number of speakers, is Arabic. Standard Arabic is spoken as a first language by more than 200 million people living in a broad area, stretching from the Atlantic coast of northern Africa to western Iran. Because the various Semitic-speaking peoples are so culturally different from each other, they cannot be considered as a race. Indeed, Encyclopaedia Britannica regards such use of the term as “pseudoscientific”.
So why do Israel and its pro-Zionist allies almost never use the term ‘anti-Jewish’ to describe criticism of Israel. The answer is that, just as Zionism aims to remove the Palestinian people from their land, the ideology desperately needs to foster a concept that totally removes Palestinians from the real meaning of the term Semitic. Many Zionists deny the existence of the Palestinian people and Israel is incrementally seizing more and more of their homeland.
Anti-Zionists are defending a Semitic-language speaking people’s right to live in peace, free from contemptuous foreign military occupation. Anti-Zionist Jews tell Israel: “not in our name”. So should we all!
It’s a bit like anti-colonialism or anti-imperialism as a reference to a relationship between Europe and the rest of the world in the 19th and 20th C.
Such is anti-semitism. It refers to the relationship between Europeans and Jews within Europe, based first on Christian supremacism and then on national state identity as per a foreigners/of a Semite people (ethnic group/religion/culture) living in Europe.
Ironically Jews then got called agents of European colonial/imperialism by moving to a foreign land, one where Jews had lived before moving to Europe.
Of course it could refer to those of Arab language/culture in Europe. Arab religion is more tenuous – given some are Christian (as are many Europeans) and some Moslem.
Thus to refer to Arabs as anti-semitic is wrong. Many are however anti-Zionist. And near all are anti an eretz Israel border Zionist state.
Golda Meir: “I don’t say there are no Palestinians, but I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people”.
Er no, when the Jews sought a homeland in Palestine they created an area of land where local Arabs would become Palestinians – so Zionism created the Palestinian Arabs into a nation and thus a branch of the Arab people of that name.
It is an irony, that some Jews have tried to be the only people in Palestine with a homeland in Palestine and refer to others as Arabs who could live elsewhere (and some do, as do many Jews).
1. the original Balfour Declaration said without prejudice of the rights of another people in Palestine
2. the UN created two states where each would be a majority and a minority so that they could learn to live together respecting each others rights.
I always say “anti-semitic is anti-semantic, so go fuck yourselves supporters of killers of babies and children”.