The Tactic of Calling People Anti-Semitic

[Galraedia]

A reply to Mitchell Cohen's Anti-Semitism and the Left that Doesn't Learn, and to Michael Pugliese, who sent a link to Cohen's article to various list-serves

Michael and Mitchell--The tactic of calling people "anti-semitic" who oppose Israel's actions is getting quite tired.

Is it your contention that we in the left should look the other way as Palestinians are oppressed, tortured and murdered, with the help of US tax dollars and US diplomatic cover? Are Palestinians not people? Don't they deserve equal rights? How is it acceptable that Palestinians cannot return to their native land, but have been living in refugee camps for nearly 60 years? Why do their lives not count?

Are we supposed to look the other way while Israel brutalizes the Lebanese, and leaves millions of cluster bombs on their land, left to kill and maim Lebanese children?

Let's just consider the facts on the ground, which lead people to oppose Israel, instead of trying to deconstruct the supposed reason for people objecting to Israel, and ascribing racist motivation for their opposition.

1. The State of Israel was built on land that had been populated by Palestinians as well as a small minority of Jews. This land was given to Zionists by Britain and the UN. No on asked the Palestinians what they thought of sharing their land, or what they would think of being ethnic cleansed and murdered in the process of building the new ethnic state. Of course there would be resistance by the indigenous people, and the response to the resistance would involve the usual methods of oppression, with the greater the response to the resistance, the more accumulated grievances, and the more persistant the resistance would become.

Read more: http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/War/Amy.htm

[liberal N proud]

1. Quite!

[HERVEPA]

2. How many of these do you plan to start?

[marble falls]

3. How about until the name calling stops?

[Fred Sanders]

4. The article caught one of culprits!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

6. !!!

[DRoseDARs]

5. It devalues the term, and insults the people who've been harmed...

...by ACTUAL anti-Semitism. Like Jews... and Palestinians. Yes, they're Semitic too. But to the people throwing around "anti-Semite" so casually, the Palestinians aren't even people let alone Semitic (they're Hamas, every last one of them re:guilt by association), making such verbal fire-bombers... anti-Semites. Pot, you are the Kettle.

[Igel]

8. People keep trying to redefine "anti-Semitic."

There's something called the "etymological fallacy." A word must mean etymology. Words change meanings--but typically it's a agreed-upon change.

Changes in meaning often happen through ignorance. Take the expression "stay the course." Overwhelming ignorance of the phrase's meaning lead a few reporters (English majors, no doubt) to assume it meant "don't change the course," don't change your actions or plans. They used it in a way that could only really mean that. "Bush is 'staying the course' instead of changing his plans." The phrase, however, was precisely parallel to "stay the night", whatever happens to your plans while your guest is there. "Stay the course" was a horse-track term. A horse that finished its course instead of dropping out and stopping would "stay the course."

"Anti-Semitic" was coined to mean specifically "anti-Jewish" and that's what it meant exclusively for well over a hundred years, and pretty much means today (except in little closed-off pockets of self-reinforcing and self-justifying social networks). However, sone people found they were being termed "anti-Semitic" for calling for actions that would lead to the de-facto "decolonialization" of Palestine, if only because they were close allies with people who tended to yell out "Death to the Jews". They thought this was a bad thing. And realized that Arabs were also Semites and so they wanted to neuter the term. More Worf-Sapir gibberish-think. If you dispose of the term you dispose of the idea. (Which, of course, means that no new ideas can ever arise, because if you don't already have a term for the idea you can't have the idea. So what we had 25k years ago are all the ideas we can ever have. So much for iPhones. I expect them to go "poof" and vanish immediately if the strong version of Worf-Sapir is true. ... No, mine's still there. Perhaps it'll take a moment longer. ... No, sorry. It's still sitting there, un-vanished.)

It's like "racism". It's a term that's perceived, but often the racists themselves don't think they're racist. "Arabs are also Semites" is really rather like "but how can I be racist when I have black friends?" In some cases it's overused and the erstwhile "racists" are just being insulted because there's no other good way to make them shut up or get them ignored for saying unpleasant things. Sometimes a real racist will have a real, fact-based objection to some policy that isn't racist. (It happens that even racists are right sometimes, and on occasion those "sometimes" involve policies that involve race. But who wants to agree with a racist? Ugh. It's like wanting to agree with an anti-Semite. Better guilt by association ... No, wait, that makes us fascist. Arghhh!!!! My self-perception of ideological purity and superiority is being tainted!!!!!!!)

[pansypoo53219]

7. taint palestinians semites? i admit to anti netanfuckyou + settlers.

[Garthem]

9. Overusage =

Lack of impact. K&R.