mikedilger on Nostr: I am firmly pro-Semite. I am also firmly anti-Israeli-foreign-policy, and also ...
I am firmly pro-Semite.
I am also firmly anti-Israeli-foreign-policy, and also anti-American-foreign-policy. As an American citizen, that would be weird if it meant I was anti-American therefore anti-Self. Clearly being anti-Israeli foreign policy says nothing about my feelings towards the largely innocent Israeli people.
Before Israeli Jews migrated to Palestine, they were hounded by Europeans/Russians and collective punishment was inflicted upon them, called pogroms.
At that time, the term 'Semite' made sense to use. They called Jew-hatred "anti-semitism" because that broader accusation, that these people hate "all semites" not only made their group larger (by including the Arabs) but deflected from the term Jew which was already embedded as a dirty word deep in the psyche of people who were anti-Jew. (Even now, typing the word Jew feels like a slur, but it shouldn't). This term was appropriate and effective during and after the Nazi holocaust.
But it doesn't mean anything useful today and it should be retired. It no longer serves a useful purpose.
In the early 20th century reckoning (the truth is much more complex, but this historical reckoning defined some of these terms) and the Jewish traditional reckoning, Semites are descendants of Shem... usually also descendants of Abraham, whether via Isaac (the Jews) or Ishmael (the Arabs). Aryans (descendants of Iran, including Europeans and Asians) are not Semites but thought to descend from Japheth, one of Noah's other sons.
Now that Arabs are a major Israeli enemy, the term "anti-semite" doesn't work anymore. You cannot be anti-semite and pro-Palestine at the same time, because Palestinians are more pure Semites than Israelis are (which are Semites mixed with Europeans).
I am also firmly anti-Israeli-foreign-policy, and also anti-American-foreign-policy. As an American citizen, that would be weird if it meant I was anti-American therefore anti-Self. Clearly being anti-Israeli foreign policy says nothing about my feelings towards the largely innocent Israeli people.
Before Israeli Jews migrated to Palestine, they were hounded by Europeans/Russians and collective punishment was inflicted upon them, called pogroms.
At that time, the term 'Semite' made sense to use. They called Jew-hatred "anti-semitism" because that broader accusation, that these people hate "all semites" not only made their group larger (by including the Arabs) but deflected from the term Jew which was already embedded as a dirty word deep in the psyche of people who were anti-Jew. (Even now, typing the word Jew feels like a slur, but it shouldn't). This term was appropriate and effective during and after the Nazi holocaust.
But it doesn't mean anything useful today and it should be retired. It no longer serves a useful purpose.
In the early 20th century reckoning (the truth is much more complex, but this historical reckoning defined some of these terms) and the Jewish traditional reckoning, Semites are descendants of Shem... usually also descendants of Abraham, whether via Isaac (the Jews) or Ishmael (the Arabs). Aryans (descendants of Iran, including Europeans and Asians) are not Semites but thought to descend from Japheth, one of Noah's other sons.
Now that Arabs are a major Israeli enemy, the term "anti-semite" doesn't work anymore. You cannot be anti-semite and pro-Palestine at the same time, because Palestinians are more pure Semites than Israelis are (which are Semites mixed with Europeans).