“how (white, christian, noble) of you!
Christopher Goodwin : So I have a friend who suffers from 6 degrees of Jewish Separation, that’s where a post on any subject becomes a post about jews or Israel within 6 posts. This morning his feed was punctuated by the usual bollocks including an article about how walling off Palestinians is considered “apartheid” rather than “security” and that this is due not to Isreals treatment of Palestinians, but solely to the fact that the world is anti-semitic. This bounced around in my head in traffic this morning and something occurred to me. “Semitic” refers to the family of afroasiatic languages spoken in North Africa and the Middle East. As such all North Africans and middle easterners are semitic people’s. Now since Israel is and has been in a nearly constant state of conflict and aggression with nearly all of these countries, doesn’t that make Israel the most Anti-Semitic country on earth…
Is this meant as shark bait?
I have no idea who your friend might be, but it was not me. Like the majority of the Jews I know, I do consider the West Bank as Apartheid and am repelled by Netanyahu.
Nonetheless I take offense at your post.
Whatever word you want to use for hatred of Jews, denying the evil that is antisemitism or justifying it because you do not like what Israel does, is wrong. As with slavery and extermination of idigenes, antisemitism is a heritage that needs tp be accepted by the cultures and people of Europe.,
If so it is as shameful as some Southerner claiming their damned flag is just heritage. Or to put tjis in the vernacular .. “how (white, christian, noble) of you!
The conflicts Israel has had have not been with other Semites. I assume you know that Iran is not a Semitic country? I assume you also know that 20% of Israelis are Arabs and that Morocco, inter alia, has a long and proud tradition of Jewish citizens.
Israel’s existential issue has always been over Zionism .. the idea that there should be a Jewish state amidst the Muslim/Arab states of the near east.
Note that the key term here is Muslim. Israel does not and never has had any conflict with Arabs. Zionism has never been over any form of racism. About 50% of today’s Israelis are Jews, refugees from the same countries that are at war with Israel. If you were to look at a Yemeni Jew you would not be able to tell her from any Arab Yemeni. Have you visited Alexandria or Baghdad? Do you know they used to be a largely Jewish cities?
BTW, there is no racial identity in Judaism. If yuo want to regard Moses as our funder, he married a Cushite. Converts, that is people who decide to be a members of the Jewish people, are deeply rooted in our history. You might read about the efforts of Rabbi Funnye Capers to bring Adrican Americans and Igbo people form Nigeria into Jewish identity?
The term antisemitism arose in Christendom, aka Europe, where persecution, hatred, and racism were deeply rooted in the Roman heritage. Rememebr the entire
“holy empire” heritage f Europe was based in the empire founded by Constantine and the principle of divine rights (Christian) of the rulers. In Europe, we .. the Jews .. were the only significant semites so the term became what it is.
The roots of antisemitic (are whatever word you want to use for hatred of Jews) is also deeply embedded in Islam. It was the Jews of Yathrib that gave the Prophet a home and his first chance to govern. That broke down ehen the Jews, sometimes called “arab jews” by historians, refused ot accept Mohammed as a prophet and refused ot fight a watr with im against the Meccans. He responded by keeling or enslaving the Jews and banning us form Arabia.
As fort he idea that Israel is antisemitic, aside from the semantic slur, that too is untrue. Like over 50% of Israelis, I am a Sephard. I am extremely proud of my heritage in Arab dominated Spain also called Andalusia. Sometime you ought to meet some of us who live down near Seward Park …
Semitic pride is very real for us!