Antisemitism *Dun-dun-duuuuuun*!
Nov. 20th, 2007 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaA few days ago I was reading the blog of an entertaining graphic designer, she's a Palestinian Arab and mentions it probably as much I mention that I'm an Israeli Jew (meaning offhandedly and not always politically), which is cool. It's always good to remember that the blogosphere isn't different shades of White.
However, she wrote something that bothered me and I didn't comment, because my GDess the backlash it would have caused, and the grief it would have given both her and I wouldn't be worth it.
So I'm going to write my much longer, would be comment, here on my own little piece of the Internet.
Arabs like Jews, are part of the larger ethnic group known as Semitic.
In this little exercise in semantics someone (anyone) accusing Arabs being antisemitic would be saying that they are prejudiced against themselves.
This is beside the point, seeing as the term "Antisemitism" was coined in the 19th century when people realised one couldn't, in that post-Enlightenment era, accuse the Jews of murdering Christ as a reason to hate them. And so began the more racial aspect of Jew-hating.
Dictionary.com has this to say about Antisemitism:
I get that as a member of an ethnic group which is Semitic in origin the term being used is irritating, but missing the point about the use of the term and trying to retcon it, is not, in my humble opinion, a valid way of saying "Arabs can't be prejudiced against themselves".
Jews, Arabs, Blacks, Whites, Christians, Muslims and every other ethnic group, race, religion, mixed or not can be, has been and will be prejudiced/racist/irrationally hostile towards someone who is different from Them.
Ignoring the fact that there are members of a Semitic group collectively (and mistakingly) known as Arabs hate Jews (for various reasons), and trying to explain that Antisemitism isn't just about the Jews, ain't gonna fly, because its completely ignoring the origin and history of the term and the meaning of the term as it is used in this day and age, seeing as there is a whole lot of anti-Jewish sentiment going around these days.
Yes, there's a lot of backlash towards Arabs and specifically Muslims, which I oppose whole heartedly, but I cannot stand when someone tries to co-opt and change the meaning of a word which is very specific in its use, just to suit their own sensibilities and views.
That's what I think about Antisemitism the word.
I think racism and racial prejudice are a base and vile kind of prejudice found in every society and that we have to try and eradicate it from our collective consciousness, since more often than not (and historically), racial prejudice (and sometimes atrocities) are directed towards those who are ethnically and racially closest to each other.
Should I prepare for my own backlash?
*hides* ;)
However, she wrote something that bothered me and I didn't comment, because my GDess the backlash it would have caused, and the grief it would have given both her and I wouldn't be worth it.
So I'm going to write my much longer, would be comment, here on my own little piece of the Internet.
Arabs like Jews, are part of the larger ethnic group known as Semitic.
In this little exercise in semantics someone (anyone) accusing Arabs being antisemitic would be saying that they are prejudiced against themselves.
This is beside the point, seeing as the term "Antisemitism" was coined in the 19th century when people realised one couldn't, in that post-Enlightenment era, accuse the Jews of murdering Christ as a reason to hate them. And so began the more racial aspect of Jew-hating.
Dictionary.com has this to say about Antisemitism:
-noun.(Emphasis theirs - and this is the first time I've come across the term Judaeophobia, which makes as much sense as Islamophobia >:/)
discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jews.
[Origin: 1880–85]
-noun.
1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.
1881, from Ger. Antisemitismus, first used by Wilhelm Marr in 1880, from anti- + Semite (q.v.). Not etymologically restricted to anti-Jewish theories, actions or policies, but almost always used in this sense. Those who object to the inaccuracy of the term might try H. Adler's Judaeophobia (1882).
I get that as a member of an ethnic group which is Semitic in origin the term being used is irritating, but missing the point about the use of the term and trying to retcon it, is not, in my humble opinion, a valid way of saying "Arabs can't be prejudiced against themselves".
Jews, Arabs, Blacks, Whites, Christians, Muslims and every other ethnic group, race, religion, mixed or not can be, has been and will be prejudiced/racist/irrationally hostile towards someone who is different from Them.
Ignoring the fact that there are members of a Semitic group collectively (and mistakingly) known as Arabs hate Jews (for various reasons), and trying to explain that Antisemitism isn't just about the Jews, ain't gonna fly, because its completely ignoring the origin and history of the term and the meaning of the term as it is used in this day and age, seeing as there is a whole lot of anti-Jewish sentiment going around these days.
Yes, there's a lot of backlash towards Arabs and specifically Muslims, which I oppose whole heartedly, but I cannot stand when someone tries to co-opt and change the meaning of a word which is very specific in its use, just to suit their own sensibilities and views.
That's what I think about Antisemitism the word.
I think racism and racial prejudice are a base and vile kind of prejudice found in every society and that we have to try and eradicate it from our collective consciousness, since more often than not (and historically), racial prejudice (and sometimes atrocities) are directed towards those who are ethnically and racially closest to each other.
Should I prepare for my own backlash?
*hides* ;)
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Date: 2007-11-20 09:17 am (UTC)It's the moral equivalent of "my mother was a woman, and I love my mother so I can't be a misogynist".
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Date: 2007-11-20 11:44 am (UTC)I agree fully with what you wrote, except for the part about expecting a backlash :) Interesting co-opt of the word she's using there ... not sure what she's trying to accomplish by screwing around with it. Linguistically she's correct but historically she's way off base.
Also, her assertion that a member of an ethnic group can't possibly hate itself, well, I have to disagree. I've seen misogynistic women, black people who hated black people ("phew! I'm lighter than you!") and right on down the line. Hard to fathom, but there it is.
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Date: 2007-11-20 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 12:05 pm (UTC)Going to add you as well:
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Date: 2007-11-20 12:11 pm (UTC)About the backlash, I merely speak from experience when I commented on a different website about a similar subject, I got slammed, so I'd rather be in my space and talk about it, ya know what I mean.
Also, I totally agree about the self-hatred thing, I've seen far too much misogynous women no too.
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Date: 2007-11-20 01:04 pm (UTC)I wonder, though, if antisemitism should be the word used to express Jew-hatred coming from Arabs, because the reason they ("they", you know what I mean) resent us is historically very different from the antisemitism that developed in the non-Arab world. There's anti-Israel mixed up with anti-Judaism, but I never found myself comfortable using antisemitism in an Arab context. Not because of the meaning of Semite, but because of the historic origin of the word.
(BTW, I recently learned this little tidbit, which is why I don't spell antisemitism with a hyphen:
The term antisemitism has historically referred to prejudice against Jews alone, and this was the only use of the word for more than a century. It does not traditionally refer to prejudice against other people who speak Semitic languages (e.g. Arabs or Assyrians). Bernard Lewis, Professor of Near Eastern Studies Emeritus at Princeton University, says that "Antisemitism has never anywhere been concerned with anyone but Jews."[1] Yehuda Bauer also articulated this view in his writings and lectures: (the term) "Antisemitism, especially in its hyphenated spelling, is inane nonsense, because there is no Semitism that you can be anti to."[9][10] A similar point is made by Professor Shmuel Almog, of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who writes "So the hyphen, or rather its omission, conveys a message; if you hyphenate your 'anti-Semitism', you attach some credence to the very foundation on which the whole thing rests."[11]
-from Wikipedia)
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Date: 2007-11-20 01:12 pm (UTC)I think people who are Anti-Israel, as in want it gone, can be seen as antisemitic, because it's seeking to annul a national identity which I don't agree with, I mean if you don't think the Jews deserve a country to call home then you(general you) should believe in the abolition of all states.
Right?
Such nonsense.
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Date: 2007-11-20 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 01:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 01:52 pm (UTC)ps... i consider myself a pan-semitist (movement being pan-semitism)... where jews and arabs embrace each other as one. :)
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Date: 2007-11-20 01:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 02:03 pm (UTC)I'm with you on the pan-semitism thing ;-D
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Date: 2007-11-20 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 02:42 pm (UTC)How would you describe her being correct? Just "technically"?
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Date: 2007-11-20 02:49 pm (UTC)Also, true story: I had a really dumb classmate. I mean, achingly dumb. A girl who argued in a mock UN class that we (the US) should give nukes to North Korea because "we have them too so it's only fair". She argued that a woman's place is in the home and that of course men should be paid more in the workplace.
Because I'm paying the same tuition as my male colleagues just so I can get a job and work for less pay. Right.
Hard to believe people think less of the group they belong to!
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Date: 2007-11-20 02:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 02:50 pm (UTC)That is achingly dumb. Sheesh, doesn't think ahead much, huh?
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Date: 2007-11-20 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 07:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 07:07 pm (UTC)i think what the arab world is objecting to (and voicing it by saying that they too are semites and therefore the term doesnt apply)... is that what is going on in the arab world can not be compared to what happened in the european world...
the definition above says that it is
1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews or Judaism.
2. Discrimination against Jews.
in europe this was more about jews and judaism and was unprovoked and irrational... in the middle east, although it may be overblown and has taken on a irrational, conspiral tone, there was reason for "anti-semitism" to come about. before the creation of israel (and the major influx of european jewry) there were incidences of violence towards jews but it wasnt like how it is now...
to just say that the arabs/middle east/muslims are anti-semitic is to play down israel's policies towards palestinians and its history in the region. yes, it is not all one sided but this is not the same as europe. to make it the same is offensive and unconstructive.
i think what arabs have against being labeled anti-semitic is that it makes them seem irrational... like they have no right to be angry, that they just hate jews because they are jews...
and i think as jews, we should be offended that europeans down play their own irrational past of anti-semitism... to put the two on equal footing is not fair to jews or to arabs, mainly palestinians (the lebanese being next in line).
not sure if this relates to your response to me but this is what i was thinking about on my lunch break :)
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Date: 2007-11-20 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 07:29 pm (UTC)I have issue with the cooptation of Antisemitism, which historically, is a prejudice against Jews, to try and say that within "Antisemitism" Arabs are there as well is a cop-out in my opinion, because it's ignoring the history and use of the word.
As for the history of Antisemitism in the middle east, when the population of Jews within the dominant Arab/Muslim cultures, there was a lot of prejudice and violence towards them, which would be Jew-Hatres i.e. Antisemitism. I really have no idea what that kind of prejudice was called in those places, if at all. When in Europe the term was coined in order to legitimize the racism of the Jewish ethnic group. Which both in Europe and the Middle East is totally ridiculous since other than a few genetic markers intergration was practically complete.
I mean looking at my face, unless you knew I was Jewish, you'd think European-of-the-generic kind, since I look like a mix of West and Eastern Europe. And looking at one of friends whose of Yemenite origin and my Arabic teacher, my friends looks more Arabian than her... so I went off tangent there, but I hope you managed to follow my convoluted thinking.
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Date: 2007-11-20 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 07:16 am (UTC)