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Columbia University suspends three deans for 'antisemitism' in private text messages
(www.middleeasteye.net)
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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No, it means the same thing it's always meant.
Why are people letting the pro-Israel groups control this narrative?
Comments like the one above make fun of how Netanyahu and the Israeli right use the term "antisemitism", and how they want us all to use it in an absurd way that supports their political objectives and inoculates them against criticism. The comment attacks the Israeli right's undermining of the notion of antisemitism, not the notion itself. To preserve our ability to call out actual antisemitism we must reject this politically motivated attempt to spread the concept so wide and thin that it loses all force.
I think that's the point of comments like the one you're replying to: they're ridiculing the Israeli right's narrative, not following it.
They've made it very clear in subsequent replies that if they read the word 'antisemitism,' they assume it means 'anti-Israel criticism' and that it's the news' duty to tell them when it doesn't mean that.
As much as I don't like it, language is highly adaptable and contextualized. The experienced truth of what the word means, has historically been very flexible, complaints dating back to the '80s about the ADL using the anti-Semitism term to simply mean not following the Israeli government party line demonstrates this.
Word inflation, is just part of the human experience. So the lived experience today, is if you hear antisemitism, it is almost certainly somebody saying hey hey hey maybe we shouldn't genocide some people today
Okay, then what would you say we call an act like what happened in Cincinnati last week? https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/us/cincinnati-jewish-cemeteries-vandalism/index.html
Petty vandalism that had nothing to do with hating Jews? A protest against the Ohioan Jews who died in the 1800s for their support of the genocide in Gaza?
Or maybe we can all agree that the pro-Israel groups don't get to own the language and antisemitism has meant what it's always meant.
A hate crime.
Beating up a gay person is also a hate crime. We have a special word for that. Should we get rid of it?
No need to - "gay bashing" is unambiguous and hasn't been used for decades to describe criticism of gay gangs that go around clubbing trans people to death.
Acknowledging that Zionists have robbed the word "antisemitic" of its meaning is the first step in reclaiming the word. The second step is to use other words to describe actual antisemitism so that people understand it still exists. The third is to refuse to allow Zionists to continue conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism.
You asked how to describe it, and I engaged with you in good faith to provide an answer. You responded with a second rhetorical device, and I engaged for the benefit of other readers. I won't bother a third time.
[Edit: I removed the last paragraph after initially posting, being unsure I was responding to the same user in both cases. When I re-added it after confirming, I used slightly different language. Their quote of "rhetorical trick" below matches the original wording, and is a legitimate quote of my response]
I wasn't going for any sort of 'rhetorical trick.' The word I was talking about was homophobia.
There is nothing wrong with having words for different types of bigotry to clarify what you're talking about.
With that way of thinking any hate group can just remove every useful word by simply misusing it and having hapless people carry water for them trotting out the ole "language is mutable" line.
You know. Like they're doing.
We can, as we are doing now, lamenting the The dilution of a previously very impactful word. By political groups who have an agenda
We can call acts of hate, acts of hate, we can call religious hate religious hate. But today, as expressed in the news cycle, anti-Semitism for the most part means antigenocide
Or we can, as I said, not let Zionists control the narrative by taking over that word.
Why are you willing to allow them to do that?
I'm just stating the reality is when I hear anti-Semitism in a news article, I have to read it assuming that it does not mean hate based on religion. And 80% of the time right now in the new cycle it simply means people who don't support a genocide.
That is the reality as language is being used right now today.
In fact the trap is the opposite thing, arguing with people about what is and isn't anti-Semitic is the trap. It means people are not talking about the genocide. They're talking about philosophical debate of language, when quite frankly that doesn't matter, what matters is people are being killed right now.
The reality is, again, you are allowing them to control the narrative by making that assumption.
You do not have to make that assumption. You are letting them control your ideas of what bigotry means.
Shrug. I've had the same battle over AI vs algorithm.
I'm not the one writing news articles.
But you're the one who controls your own language and your own assumptions.
Yes, and as I have said multiple times now, I'm going to react to the reality of the discussion and talk about the genocide rather then let people bait me into a debate about religious hate which would distract from the real issue of the genocide.
Again... Anti-Semitism in the news means 80% of the time people are not supporting the genocide.
No one is baiting you into anything. I'm trying to get you to acknowledge that there are two different issues here and you are letting the people that you rightfully oppose conflate them when you shouldn't.
Is it Islamophobia to condemn horrible things the Saudi royal family has done even if they continually insist it is? No. Because we don't let them control the narrative. So why is this different?
im not sure of your thesis at this point. Is the current common media use of antisemitism a different definition then the dictionary? yes, i agree.
Am I going to debate every article about how anti-genocide normal people are not actually anti-semitic. No, not at all, I think that is actually part of the pro-genocide strategy, it moves the conversation into safer territory for them. Better to ignore that language trap and just talk about the genocide.
My point is that you said, and I quote-
Which means that you are just assuming that some sort of actual bigoted attack did not happen.
And the reason you are assuming that is because you are letting the Zionists win a propaganda war.
I'm letting probability tell me that the term now means what it is being used to mean, and if the news item is about religious hate, then they have to explicitly call that out.
If you want to fight news media and tell them they are not doing their job properly and are using words wrong, more power to you... But thats not how I'm going to spend my life .
Would you say that about any other term regarding bigotry? Would you be willing to give up the word 'homophobia' if there were some sort of LGBT+ group that committed atrocities and claimed that homophobia is the same as disagreeing with them even if the news started doing it? I doubt it.
Israel wants you to think Israeli = Jew and Jew = Israeli and you are going along with it.
Why does this news article need to tell you what the banner said in the headline just because you have decided that the word 'antisemitic' means 'criticism of Zionists?'
https://www.wlwt.com/article/antisemitic-banner-columbia-parkway-cincinnati-police/60235930
How about this one?
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/01/us/jewish-communities-antisemitism-israel-hamas-war/index.html
Does it need to list all the incidents in the headline? Because there's more than one and it includes someone painting FUCK JEWS in huge green letters on the side of a building. I assume you don't think that's someone innocently protesting Israel. Am I wrong to assume that?
Here's another example for you since you are claiming that the news has co-opted the word 'antisemitism.' Note these are all recent articles.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/los-angeles-area-plagued-antisemitic-attacks-tsunami-hate/story?id=105623842
Tell me which one of these three details from the article is the one that belongs in the headline and how you would write that headline:
Glad to see your so passionate and have energy. I'm not changing my position on the word having lost its original meaning.
Keep up the good fight, but not with me.