politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
It's not a conspiracy of the israeli government to modify english words to exclude arabs.
Semitic was a termed coined by a german academic in the late 1700s, to mean semitic languages. Antisemitism was being used to mean hatred of jews by the mid to late 1800s, mostly by german and prussian nationalists describing their own hatred of jews as antisemitism. When english borrows the term from german in 1881, it already meant hatred of jews.
I'm using it in this context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_languages
If they speak a Semitic language, and they're being targeted, I'm calling it Anti-Semitic. I reject your reality, and substitute it with my own. It removes the power of the claim that Israel uses it for. I could think of no better way to reappropriate the power of a word to claim victimization. It's used to deflect criticism and push blame onto the person criticizing.
Hi, I heard you like to cite Wikipedia.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etymological_fallacy
Using antisemitic to mean hatred of speakers of semitic languages doesn't make sense because no one groups all speakers of semitic languages together. Hatred of jews and hatred of arabs are two very different phenomena with vastly different sets of prejudices and stereotypes, each deserving of their own term.
The point is to remove the air from the sails of the word "antisemitism". Much like many groups who have adopted slurs against them, and turned their meanings around.
We can have a new word for hatred of the jewish people that doesn't connotate back to the incidences of WWII that Israel uses to shield against criticism every single time.
If you want one for Arabs, or whatever other division of people you go ahead and do that.
But including semitic speaking people under the umbrella of antisemitism serves to relinquish the power it has over people when Israel uses it as a mallet to deflect criticism. Quite literally, nothing you say will cause me to change my viewpoint on this.
I am not arguing this to discuss and enlighten my viewpoint. My viewpoint is already the enlightened one in my eyes. Call me wrong, call me whatever you will - but I'm going to continue to push the term antisemitism to include the cultures which speak semitic languages.
We both know why the definition is being muddied. I completely agree with you. It's a pretty common tactic. It's just like DEI and CRT actually encompassing many things, but now only being used as a way to claim "reverse racism."
Only a "certain type" of person can be a victim. The others are just too brown and oooobvioisly deserve all the hate they get!
The state of israel is already doing more than enough to "remove the air from the sails of the word "antisemitism".
Antisemitism is real and a real threat and it deserves a term that reflects the level of horror that it has inflicted. Minimizing the horrors of the holocaust against the jews does nothing to combat the holocaust israel is conducting. You can't draw attention to a genocide by minimizing a different genocide. That's not how horror at human barbary works.
No one is happy that israel is abusing the term antisemitism but the solution is to point that out. Or just laugh at israel when they make obviously untrue claims, as most people do.
Homo means same. So homophobia means hatred of people like oneself. No one can change that.
Are you familiar with the concept of reclaiming and reshaping terms?
Why should the term stay the way it was coined
Especially as it is clearly an euphemism to sound more sophisticated and give it some sort of "scientific" sound. Also nowadays fascists and other far-right arseholes have shifted their target on mostly Arab Muslims (or anyone looking "brown" really) even instrumentalizing the term and "support for Israel" as they cheer on the killing of Arabs. Of course that does not stop them from also hating Jews, but they are very happy with focusing that on "leftist" Jews for now, which Jewish pro Israeli lobbies are often also happy with.
It is long overdue to seize the control of the term from the fascists.
The term was coined by an academic and then claimed by fascists to describe their own hatred of jews. If anything, the current meaning as something to be reviled is the reclaimed version.
Antisemitism is a word that a historically oppressed group uses to defend itself. Others taking that away from jews is not the same thing as the reclaiming of queer or the n-word by their communities .
The word is being misused by israel and that's truly appalling, but there is still a valid use case for it's current meaning.
I don't think including other semitic people is "taking it away" from Jews. Also i don't think think that bigots are well differentiated in who they target. Mostly it boils down to "looks brown" or "looks asian". So Arabs are targeted in Anti-Jewish attacks too, as well as Jews are targeted in Anti-Muslim attacks too.