Re: CHAT: Anti-Semitism

On Apr 12, 2004, at 5:16 AM, Mark J. Reed wrote:
> The term "anti-Semitism" has relatively little to do with one's
> opinion of the
> policies of the state of Israel.  It is analogous to "racism" - it is
> a bias against the Semitic people - more narrowly, the Jews, although
> I have seen it used to refer to the anti-Arab paranoia distressingly
> commonplace in the US since 2001-09-11.
> To be sure it is - like all such emotionally loaded terms - sometimes
> used as
> you indicated, to discredit one's opponent in an argument.  ("He blames
> Israel for the incident, but that's just because he's an anti-Semite.")
> However, this use should not be taken as an indication that genuine
> anti-Semitism - simple dislike of, even hatred toward, the Jews, simply
> because they're Jewish - doesn't still exist.  Homophobia may be
> getting
> all the press these days, but good old-fashioned bigotries like racism,
> sexism, and anti-Semitism are still alive and well even within our
> modern supposedly enlightened societies.
> -Mark

Of course, although not all people who criticize the Israeli government
are antisemitic, not all people who criticize the Israeli government
aren't antisemitic either.  Sometimes it's easy to notice the
antisemitic ones - they have a habit of slipping up and using the terms
"Israel"/"the Israeli government"/etc. and "The Jews" interchangeably.
But anyway, like all words in all languages, the exact etymology of a
term doesn't really count - it's how people use it that determines what
it means.


-Stephen (Steg)
  "whoever makes up lots of crazy s---
   about the big breaking-out from egypt
   gets mad props, yo."
      ~ 'free modern colloquial translation' of the passover haggada