Talk:Anti-Semitism (etymology)

A summary of past arguments about etymology. See Talk:anti-Semitism for more of the same. Summarised by Martin who has got stuff wrong twice today, and is very depressed at the failure of Godwin's law, so don't trust this stuff for accuracy.

Table of contents 1 Electoral Collage 2 Sources/Examples 3 Arguments 4 Other Debates

Electoral Collage

I tried for a categorisation like below, but rapidly realised I couldn't accurately guage people's positions, with some exceptions. Also, some people didn't sign their posts, so they forfeited their vote.

1. anti-Semitism only means Jew-hatred. All other usages are illegitimate and/or anti-Semitic.
   • RK, Uri,
2. anti-Semitism sometimes means opposition to all "Semitic" races, though this is very much a minority usage.
   • Stevert, Martin, (This terminology is also advocated by some in the racist anti-Semitic "Christian Identity" movement, by Neo-Nazis, and by Louis Farrakhan's anti-Semitic "Nation of Islam". What does this tell you?)
3. Why the heck are you wasting your lives debating this rubbish?
4. ...

One question is how old the minority usage is. Some believe that if it's only been around a few years then we can probably ignore it, but it requires a bit more respect if it's been around for over, say, 50 years.

Sources/Examples

Various examples have been given of the minority usage in practice.

• Gary Geddes book Flying Blind (1998).
• the letters section of "The Independent" (July 26th) (London) , the "Culture" section of the "Sunday Times" (June 30th) (London) , page 15 of The Guardian (June 19th) (London), page 8 of the "Morning Star" (June 1st).
• Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
• Joseph Telushkin "Why the Jews?: The Reasons for AntisemitismTalk:Anti-Semitism/archive", Moshe David's "World Jewry and the State of Israel" or the article "Antisemitism is Anti-Jewish" by Lorne Shipman and Dr. Karen Mock.
• The Sun (London), July 5, 2002 , Letters section, letter from Ambassador Ali Muhsen Hamid
• BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, November 1, 1997, (admitedly the use was in a quote from Qadhafi)
• Daily Post (Liverpool), September 25, 2001, page 6.
• The Times (London), September 2, 1992, interview with Bobby Fischer.
• The Times Higher Education Supplement, June 2, 1995 , page 22.
• M2 PRESSWIRE , March 24, 1997, "UN Human Rights Commission concludes general debate on racism and racial discrimination"

Most are modern, with the Webster entry being the oldest (1913). Some feel this is significant. I've not been able to confirm the Webster claim, though.

Arguments

Arguments for accepting the existance of a minority usage generally revolve around pointing at the minority usage and saying "LOOK! IT'S RIGHT THERE!".

Arguments against accepting the minority usage are:

1. It's sometimes used as a mistake by incompetents. This doesn't count.
2. It's sometimes used to score political points. This also doesn't count.
3. It's never used in any way that isn't ruled out by one of the first two reasons

Explanations of why they don't count rarely get beyond the stage of "They just don't" before the discussion is derailed by accusations of Nazi sympathies or suchlike.

Other Debates

Other etymology debates:

• Is it possible to be Jewish and anti-Semitic?
• Is anti-Semitism solely an ethnic prejudice?

I don't care about this, so I'm not going to bother summarising it. Martin

wikipedia:no personal attacks

Well.... for one thing, the "minority" definition actually makes more sense to people who know what semitic means. Also, looking at the current state of the world, the Jews don't look like they're the only semitic people to face ongoing persecution for their cultural identities. Even in America, which is a fortress of the civil rights movement, there is widespread persecution of Arab semites for nothing more than their ethnic origin. See [1] (http://www.cair-net.org/civilrights2002/) for a report. Silver Maple