As I mentioned below, I find it disingenuous that people often use the term 'anti-semitic' when they mean 'anti-Israel', as if any judgement on the actions of the state of Israel automatically implies hate of Jewish people.
Not only that. Jewish people are not the only Semites. Arabs are Semites too. The word anti-semitic has totally lost all of its literal meaning, much like the word hacker.
Anti-Semitism is a term that, in the western culture, is used to mean anti-jewish. When you treat it literally, you are ignoring a long and established history associated with it. See this for much more articulate explanation than mine:
<quote>
anti-Semitism is not the optimal term for anti-Jewish sentiment, among other things because there are other Semites than Jews, but it is the one we have, and comes with a long history and a well-established meaning. Rather than critiquing the term or coining a neologism to substitute for it, speakers of English should simply understand the term's history and commonly accepted definition and use it accordingly.
</quote>
It's more like "black," which comes from a PIE root meaning "to burn," and is thus closely related to the word "bleach."
You can't look at the roots of a word and declare it "wrong" because it doesn't precisely match the original usage. That would wipe out a lot of everyday language.
Heh! I had so far restrained myself from adding to the thread. But it tickles me a great deal to see how just an observation can fuel nay-saying and name calling. I never made a moral judgment and neither am I ignorant of the typical use of the word. But was not aware that such usage ruled out making observations that the well used and common rule of "anti-blah" does not apply in this case. Then I added another example were words sometimes do not mean what they are supposed to mean. Oh the outrage, I wonder were it comes from :).
<tongue in cheek>
If usage trumps correctness then English with an Indian accent is the canonical accent. After all there are more who use it. </tongue in cheek>
Summary: 226 million "native" speakers of English, plus 90 million with English as a second language. I'd suggest that the canonical English accent is actually American. And whilst it is true that India will probably overtake the US in this regard in the not too distant future, they too will probably be eclipsed by the Chinese (http://www.economist.com/node/6803197?story_id=6803197) before that happens.
Regardless, the traditional anglo-saxon countries will hold sway as the main proponents of English for a long time, as aside from the US there is also the UK (60-odd million), Canada(35 million), Australia(20-odd million), New Zealand (5 million), and South Africa (50 million) to throw into the mix, giving a total of somewhere around 500 million native speakers.
Whoa! No way India has 226 million "native" speakers of English. It still would be under a quarter million. But upvoted for checking. Tongue was very much in my cheek in my previous comment, so all can rest easy :)
but I've heard this repeated a few too many times recently
I havent heard it before and that is indeed strange given that I am Indian.
Antisemitism has never meant racism directed at Semitic peoples in general. It has a very specific meaning. Not only that, but 'hacker' doesn't have a literal etymological meaning ('hacker' is derived from...?).
This whole comment thread has me extremely disappointed with HN.
It's obviously not the case that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. However, it should be equally obvious that some is; surely the anti-Semites that do exist will criticize Israel. So the question is how to distinguish the legitimate criticism from the anti-Semitic criticism. I don't have an answer to this question, unfortunately. One (flawed) test that's often proposed is to see whether the criticism is proportional to Israel's wrongdoings as compared to the wrongdoings of other countries.
In any case, while I agree with what you're saying, quite often people say pretty much the same thing as a sort of misdirection to deflect criticism of their own criticism of Israel, no matter how unfair or misleading or just plain dishonest it is. If you go read some reddit comments on Israel you'll see anti-Semitism mentioned at least an order of magnitude more frequently by Israel's critics than by Israel's defenders.
I criticize the Indian government all the time. But I find it strange that for my criticisms to be taken seriously I also have to criticize all other countries equally. I may be the most anti Indian person in the world, but should that discredit my criticism if its valid ?
I got thrown off by the terminology "anti-Semitic criticism". From the context it seems to mean: criticism by an "anti Semitic" person, you probably meant "criticism that has no truth in it". Why cloud matters then, with terminology that is already too loaded to begin with ?
>From the context it seems to mean: criticism by an "anti Semitic" person, you probably meant "criticism that has no truth in it"
Sorry, my other comment skipped this question. What I mean by anti-Semitic criticism is criticism motivated by anti-Semitism, and, separately, criticism that attempts to exploit the emotional weight of the Holocaust (e.g. "the Zionists are the new Nazis" or subtler variations thereof).
The former of these might be legitimate criticism in some cases, yes, but tends not to be, and even when it is, bear in mind that most people are totally clueless about the world. If Joe Sixpack hears ten times as much criticism of Israel as Saudi Arabia, he'll assume that Israel is much worse than Saudi Arabia, even though this is clearly not true (unless you happen to be a Wahhabi Muslim, I guess). I remember hearing of a survey conducted in China where Chinese on the street were asked how big they thought Israel was and some answered that it was probably about as big as China. I can't find it, but I did find an article where the Chinese ambassador to Israel describes something similar: "I explain to [other Chinese] that Israel only has seven million residents – barely a small town in China," he says. "They find it hard to believe. I understand them." (source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961612,00.html)
Well, are you Indian or Pakistani? The unspoken condition of that test (which I already stated is imperfect) is that the person not have a direct personal connection to that country. I wouldn't necessarily call a Palestinian preoccupied with criticizing Israel anti-Semitic; I'd be a little more inclined to wonder about the motives of, say, a Belgian.
George Clooney is an American of Irish descent. Does his interest in Sudan (to which he seems to have little "personal connection") make you wonder about his motives?
No, it doesn't. There's a genocide on the order of millions going on there. Not really a fair comparison to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
And for the third time, I don't think it's a good test and I don't really like being put in the position of defending it. My mention of it was descriptive, not prescriptive.
Not all criticism of Israel is anti-Jewish, but some can be. Just because someone claims an anti-Israel group is anti-Jewish, don't assume that they would whitewash all Israel critics as anti-Jewish.
