Call It What It Is
Eliminate the Argument With the Facts and They Can't Sweep the Conversation Aside
Let’s start out with defining the problem I’m here to solve. Actually, let’s clear the floor for Bassem Dabour over at Medium and he’ll do it for us:
“If anti-Zionists are anti-Semitic, then anti-Palestinians are anti-Semitic as well, yes it is not new information, and yet it is shocking and surprising right!. So no more bullshit.What is Semitic and who are the Semitic people?”
and then further down in the same article:
“If anti-Zionists are anti-Semitic, then anti-Palestinians are anti-Semitic as well, yes it is not new information, and yet it is shocking and surprising right!.” (sic)
Now, part of this is purest bullshit in and of itself: Israel has a right to exist. They won the war. Actually, they’ve won a few. There can be no two-state solution as long as one state would seek to destroy the other one. Therefore, opposing a Palestinian state is not anti-Palestinian, it is simply a sign of respect for the lives and culture of Israelis. But that’s another story for another post.
No, the problem is with the terms “anti-Semite” or “anti-Semitic” itself. The other side knows what we mean, but they try to twist things around with crap like this:
In ancient history, the term “Semite” included Arabs, Assyrians, the Akkadians of Babylonia, the Canaanites, Aramean tribes, certain groups in Ethiopia, and the Hebrew tribes. Most Semitic groups were nomadic and traveled throughout the Arabic peninsula. By 2,500 BC they had migrated as far as Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Mediterranean coastline. Contemporary Semitic people are primarily Hebrews and Arabs. [source]
By 1855, the French scholar Ernest Renan, one of the pioneers of Semitic philology, wrote complaining: “We can now see what an unhappy idea Eichhorn [sic; should be Schlozer apud Eichhorn] had when he gave the name of Semitic to the family of Syro-Arab languages. This name, which usage obliges us to retain, has been and will long remain the cause of a multitude of confusions.
“I repeat again that the name Semite here [Renan is referring to his pioneer study on Semitic philology] has only a purely conventional meaning: it designates the peoples who have spoken Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic or some neighboring dialect, and in no sense the people who are listed in the tenth chapter of Genesis as the descendants of Shem, who are, or at least half of them, of Aryan origin.”. [source]
So, by that logic, Palestinians are a Semitic people and supporting the Palestinians in their quest to slaughter every Jew “From the River to the Sea” is actually a work supporting Semitic people. Given that definition, they may just be right. I mean, Palestinians do speak Arabic. That doesn’t change the fact that those who want to see the Palestinian people complete Hitler’s work for him hate Jews. So what’s an ally of the Jewish people to do?
Call it what it is: They’re Jew Haters. Or maybe we should use the terms “Judeophobes” and “Judeophobic”. It’s the truth. The term “anti-Semitic” has always meant Jew hating anyway. We’re not really changing anything. We’re just taking control of the debate back from the other side and that’s the only way we’re going to defeat them.
And yes, I said defeat. I don’t seek compromise. I seek victory both in making the State of Israel safe and in American politics. While there are definitely some rightist asshat Judeophobes, the largest concentration of Judeophobic behavior is found in Leftist circles. Anyone calling Israel and oppressor because she refuses to see her people slaughtered, raped and kidnapped has an obvious racial bias.
So there it is. They’re not anti-Semites. They’re Judeophobes. They can’t change the subject on that one.