Considering that Ethnic Palestinians are the original Semites, and most of the Zionist are “repatriated” jewish people from all around the world, I find it ironic that they claim any sleight against them to be antisemitic.
Full disclosure, I am Jewish myself, and sorry for the book… try not to knee-jerk react to it.
I hate to partake in this genetic essentialism garbage, but Ashkenazis by and large share their paternal heritage with Sephardic Jews and other Semites, although that Semitic heritage has become somewhat diluted over time by converts in the maternal line and their descendants. My point in saying that is not to say that Zionists have any legitimate claim to Palestine - they absolutely don’t. It’s just “Ashkenazi Jews aren’t Semites” is a highly debatable and fraught claim that has the potential to lead one down a rabbit hole into actual racism, and incidentally has absolutely nothing to do with the crimes of Zionism. When I hear that implication, my mind is drawn to the adoption by antisemites (most recently Black Hebrew Israelites) of the now disproven myth that the original Semitic Jews died out and were replaced by Khazars.
I’m stopping short of calling what you said, specifically, antisemitism, but in another context a similar statement might be called a dog whistle. People can say these things unintentionally when they just don’t understand the implications. This kind of reckless use of language and ideas is at least part of why we have Jewish students on college campuses claiming they don’t feel safe. We Jews have grown up being implicitly taught to keep our ear to the ground when it comes to rising intolerance, and yes in a lot of cases that has resulted in a massive blind spot for our own intolerance, but it doesn’t mean we should ignore warning signs. Of course, as a Jew, and like you, I often scoff when I hear claims of antisemitism, and in fact I get angry about them when they conflate Jewishness with Israel & Zionism, which ironically IS antisemitism.
Now I mentioned the Khazar myth and Jewish students who don’t feel safe. The issue here is that they lack the self awareness to say, “maybe my hangups about certain things people say are a product of my own upbringing and sensitivities, rather than any intentional antisemitism on their part.” On the other hand, when people talk about Jews or Jew-adjacent issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, they should also have the self awareness to ask themselves “am I contributing to a climate that lets actual antisemitism fly under the radar and should I be more careful about the things I say?”
In any case, flinging accusations back and forth is unproductive. If my fellow Jews feel threatened by protestors and their words, I would recommend they approach those protestors with humility, and listen to their grievances before making assumptions about their intentions. Which is funny, because here I am Jew-splaining in response to a flippant remark in an internet comment section, but the reason is I just desperately want people to understand each other (and themselves) better.
I think most of it is just confusion inherent in the term “antisemitism”, which TBH is a bad term because it singles out a single Semitic people among many as the oppressed ones. That false focus then in turn causes a knee-jerk pendulum swing towards another extreme.
And who’s to blame? Again, Germans: The term was introduced to replace “Judenhass” (jew hatred) with something “more scientific sounding”, as recently as 1879. Damn that’s a lot of citations there. Maybe we should switch to “Jewphobia” or something.
Yeah I can definitely see how the argument about “original semites” is coming very close to outright hatred and antisemitism. We have to be more conscious of the language we use than that. We shouldn’t be making arguments in this vein but instead focusing on anti-colonial arguments. When discussing the colonialism of relocating European Jewish communities to Palestine there’s no reason to be using this kind of “race politics” language.
The relationship between Ashkenazi jews and the communities that were already present in Palestine is not something I understand very well, and more broadly the history of Ashkenazi jews as a whole is something I’m only familiar with as it relates to early 20th century European politics. It’s something I’d like to do my own research on from reliable sources to better understand how these kinds of arguments feed into genuine hatred of Jewish people.
I’m not as educated on the broader nature of antisemitic arguments as I should be. I appreciate you adding context to why some Jewish students feel unsafe with the discourse going on at the moment. Anti-Zionist action has an obligation to protect Jewish people as much as it has an obligation to protect Muslim people and ethnic Palestinians. Our goals ought to be to separate ourselves from race hierarchy and protect human rights for all. It’s critically important that in advocating against the Israeli government and the IDF that we do not tolerate anti-semitism in any form and that we reject the support of ant-semitic people wherever it appears.
I appreciate you adding context to why some Jewish students feel unsafe with the discourse going on at the moment.
I feel like a dick talking about it with what’s going on, but it’s still important. And to be clear, we Jews who are inculcated with Zionism and the generational trauma of the Holocaust from a young age have to zealously interrogate our unconscious fears and biases. The protests provide the perfect opportunity to confront it head on if you can swallow your pride and just listen. My Arab & Muslim friends are some of the most thoughtful people I know, with strong opinions and moral convictions that come right from the deepest parts of their being. I feel as at home with them as I did in the Synagogue growing up, and I have no doubt if I were to attend a peace protest that I would find many more like them. They’re an absolute gift; I was never a supporter of Israel, but their friendship has thrown the whole thing into even sharper focus since October 7th. I hope one day the Zionists can be defeated, and from the river to the sea, all good people will finally be free.
To be sure. This sort of argument is as productive as saying the Palestinians don’t belong there because they’re actually Arabs. Neither is true. Palestinians are about as much genetically Arab as maghrebis are Arab. Both groups experienced massive culture shifts, but there was little change in actual population.
Thank you for providing some anthropological history. I learned some stuff. 🍻
It’s never right to blame the whole people of an country because of an Australopitecus which they have as president.
The issue here is that they lack the self awareness to say, “maybe my hangups about certain things people say are a product of my own upbringing and sensitivities, rather than any intentional antisemitism on their part.”
Ah, yes. The suggestion that racial minorities just get over it. Don’t we determine racism based on the experiences and opinions of the victims?
I don’t think that’s true at all. Collectively determining racism is a complex process that involves interrogating social structures and power imbalances as a whole. Minority opinions are an important part of that, perhaps the most important part, but not the only part. Intersectionality taught us how flawed that was. That’s how we got the TERFs
In this case he’s talking specifically about an intersectional issue.
There are no “semitic people”. The term was invented 1879 by William Marr and he definetly meant jews and not arabs.
Nope, earlier, it’s Göttingen school of history stuff. Essentially the bible-based alternative to Blumenbach:
II) During the time of Moses, the Semites lived partly in India, towards the Ganges, partly on the coasts of the South Sea to the Persian Gulf, in Elymais, Assyria, Chaldea, and in southern Mesopotamia, and with further expansion in some areas of Palestine, in the north and south of Arabia, finally too, but maybe not yet in Moses’s time, in Abyssinia or Ethiopia.
Which isn’t totally off compared to our modern understanding of who spoke proto-Semitic. “Semitic” as a descriptor of languages is unchallenged in linguistics because, well, symbols are arbitrary anyway and “Descendants of Shem”, as in Noah’s son, ancestor of Abraham, is not exactly a contentious thing among a group of related cultures having birthed no less than three Abrahamic religions.
I think you a both right. Historically, Semites referred to a large cultural group.
Over time, it has become a nonsense word because those cultural groups have become so dilute and diverse that you can’t point at someone and say they are part of that group.
More recently, the label has become misappropriated by some sort of whacky religious nutbaggery so they can oppress other people.
Great example of “less is more” when conveying a message
No one is forgetting that. Both governments suck and both are murdering people, but Israel is committing a genocide. That’s a bigger deal right now.
It has nothing to do with anti-semitism to call Netanyahu an genocidal nazi shit.
The US House of Representatives just passed a bill that can make calling Jewish people nazis a hate crime.
It will soon, the bill passed the house that adds “comparing Israel to Nazis” to the official antisemitic hate speech list - but according to a friend (been out of town and busy to read it myself) it’s worded to cover basically any criticism of Israel.
The point is once its added the department of education can pull funding, accreditation, etc from any schools that “allow antisemitic speech or actions (aka protests)”
Not in Spain, our president is advocating for an independent Palestinian state as a path to ending genocide (sic) and fostering peace in the Middle East…
Sorry, the claim that Netanyahu is a nazi, is historically wrong and trivializes the nazis.
But no, seriously, there’s a big book of insults that actually fit Netanyahu. Genocidal maniac. Baby killer. Warmonger. Neocolonialist. The list goes on and on. Trying to fit the label “Nazi” on a Jew is a fool’s errand.
I think this meme might actually be perfect
Pulling the lever is not actually antisemitic, but the government passed a law deeming pulling the lever legally antisemitic
