Using antisemitic to mean hatred of speakers of semitic languages doesn’t make sense because no one groups all speakers of semitic languages together. Hatred of jews and hatred of arabs are two very different phenomena with vastly different sets of prejudices and stereotypes, each deserving of their own term.
The point is to remove the air from the sails of the word “antisemitism”. Much like many groups who have adopted slurs against them, and turned their meanings around.
We can have a new word for hatred of the jewish people that doesn’t connotate back to the incidences of WWII that Israel uses to shield against criticism every single time.
If you want one for Arabs, or whatever other division of people you go ahead and do that.
But including semitic speaking people under the umbrella of antisemitism serves to relinquish the power it has over people when Israel uses it as a mallet to deflect criticism. Quite literally, nothing you say will cause me to change my viewpoint on this.
I am not arguing this to discuss and enlighten my viewpoint. My viewpoint is already the enlightened one in my eyes. Call me wrong, call me whatever you will - but I’m going to continue to push the term antisemitism to include the cultures which speak semitic languages.
The state of israel is already doing more than enough to "remove the air from the sails of the word “antisemitism”.
Antisemitism is real and a real threat and it deserves a term that reflects the level of horror that it has inflicted. Minimizing the horrors of the holocaust against the jews does nothing to combat the holocaust israel is conducting. You can’t draw attention to a genocide by minimizing a different genocide. That’s not how horror at human barbary works.
No one is happy that israel is abusing the term antisemitism but the solution is to point that out. Or just laugh at israel when they make obviously untrue claims, as most people do.
We both know why the definition is being muddied. I completely agree with you. It’s a pretty common tactic. It’s just like DEI and CRT actually encompassing many things, but now only being used as a way to claim “reverse racism.”
Only a “certain type” of person can be a victim. The others are just too brown and oooobvioisly deserve all the hate they get!
Using antisemitic to mean hatred of speakers of semitic languages doesn’t make sense because no one groups all speakers of semitic languages together. Hatred of jews and hatred of arabs are two very different phenomena with vastly different sets of prejudices and stereotypes, each deserving of their own term.
The point is to remove the air from the sails of the word “antisemitism”. Much like many groups who have adopted slurs against them, and turned their meanings around.
We can have a new word for hatred of the jewish people that doesn’t connotate back to the incidences of WWII that Israel uses to shield against criticism every single time.
If you want one for Arabs, or whatever other division of people you go ahead and do that.
But including semitic speaking people under the umbrella of antisemitism serves to relinquish the power it has over people when Israel uses it as a mallet to deflect criticism. Quite literally, nothing you say will cause me to change my viewpoint on this.
I am not arguing this to discuss and enlighten my viewpoint. My viewpoint is already the enlightened one in my eyes. Call me wrong, call me whatever you will - but I’m going to continue to push the term antisemitism to include the cultures which speak semitic languages.
The state of israel is already doing more than enough to "remove the air from the sails of the word “antisemitism”.
Antisemitism is real and a real threat and it deserves a term that reflects the level of horror that it has inflicted. Minimizing the horrors of the holocaust against the jews does nothing to combat the holocaust israel is conducting. You can’t draw attention to a genocide by minimizing a different genocide. That’s not how horror at human barbary works.
No one is happy that israel is abusing the term antisemitism but the solution is to point that out. Or just laugh at israel when they make obviously untrue claims, as most people do.
We both know why the definition is being muddied. I completely agree with you. It’s a pretty common tactic. It’s just like DEI and CRT actually encompassing many things, but now only being used as a way to claim “reverse racism.”
Only a “certain type” of person can be a victim. The others are just too brown and oooobvioisly deserve all the hate they get!