How to define "Anti-Semitism" in the 21st Century?

Get the Point!

What is Anti-Semitism?

As campus unrest on many of the so-called "elite" Universities has emerged across America since the Israeli-Hamas War erupted last October, pick a major media site on any given day and you will find "Anti-Semite" and "Anti-Semitic" mentioned multiple times in articles chronicling or opining about current events in the Middle East. 

Not to mention that if you spend any time on social media, surely you will find any number of posts featuring the same words in nominal or adjectival forms; through the years, it has been my observation that these words are highly charged and often serve as a cudgel to blunt debate and dismiss discussions on subjects that MUST be debated and discussed by reasonable people worldwide. 

Protesters face off holding the flags of Israel and Palestine

Frankly, it seems that often times, he/she who uses "Anti-Semite" in an article or post uses it based upon their subjective understanding of the term(s). But if we know that “anti” means “against,” what does “Semite” really mean, at least from an English lexicon and/or a legal-political perspectives?

A quick online search of Merriam-Webster's English Dictionary defines Semitic as follows:

I'm sure that you, too, noted that as an adjective, “Semite” refers to "...Afro-Asiatic language family that includes Hebrew, Aramaic, ARABIC, and Amharic..."

One needn't be a cunning linguist to realize that Arabic is the primary language in the Islamic world, much like Hebrew and Aramaic have been the primary languages of Jewish people (as well as a certain Jewish Rabbi better known as Jesus the Christ who spoke to his followers in Aramaic), for thousands of years. Thus, this dictionary meaning basically holds that those who speak Arabic are just as Semitic as those who speak Hebrew. 

Now, logically speaking, if the speakers and readers of Arabic are just as Semitic as speakers of Hebrew/Aramaic, how, then, can those who support one in a political struggle be "Anti-Semitic” just because they choose to support the set of Semites speaking Arabic? 

I would be remiss if I didn't add that the concept of “Semite” is a relic of European colonial terminology circa the 18th Century, back when European powers deemed themselves “Caucasians,” thus, “different” than the darker peoples in Africa and the Middle East that they would soon dominate as colonizers and slavers.

So, with the dictionary meaning of Semite established, with an added dash of historical context, in current foreign affairs, the United States Department of State, in conjunction with fellow member nations of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) including Germany, Great Britain, and France, has adopted the following working definition of Anti-Semitism: 

"Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of Anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

Duly noted! The State Department's core definition is clear, concise, and quite easy to follow!

The State Department's definition even goes as far as to give examples, including “incidents of physical violence to Jewish people,” and making "mendacious, dehumanizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews or the power of Jews as a collective...including the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions."

Once more, this definition is clear, concise, and quite easy to follow!

Based upon these definitions, and my own life-long love of learning about world history in general—and 20th Century/World War II era history, specifically—clearly, I am NOT an Anti-Semite! I am not being sarcastic, either, as I've had a few social media followers throw this slur at me in ages past when I have used my platform to question Israel's discrimination against Black Ethiopian Jewish immigrants, or, during prior instances when Israeli Defense Forces slaughtered Palestinian/Arab civilians caught in between its fight against Hamas, Hezbollah, and other cells that refuse Israel's right to exist. 

While I surely have never held any prejudice against Jewish people, and have always thought that Christians who are prejudiced against Jews are kinda dense when considering that Jesus and his Apostles were for the most part, observant Jews, I was quite glad to see that my personal perspectives align fully with one other VERY critical aspect of the U.S. State Department's Anti-Semitism manifesto: "Criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic."

I'm going to write that out once more so as to make it crystal clear: "Criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country CANNOT be regarded as ANTI-SEMITIC."

Ergo, whenever I call out Israel's powerful military for waging a total war resulting in a humanitarian crisis that has been condemned by, in no small order, THE United Nations, the Vatican, Doctors without Borders, and many of Israel's western allies, such criticism is NOT Anti-Semitism, not from my personal definition of the term, not from Merriam-Webster's definition, and clearly not from the U.S. Department of State and her sister agencies among 30 other Western Allies.

Such is why I adamantly believe that when people choose to automatically equate questioning Israel's overwhelming use of force upon innocent Palestinian civilians as being Anti-Semitism, it does absolutely nothing to hasten the end of this destructive conflict! Check out the way American politicians and mainstream news sites do JUST that when covering Gaza:

Hobbservation: Any violence against any Jewish student, faculty/staff member, or supporter is wrong and should be prosecuted fully! But disagreeing with Israel’s policies in Gaza, or the massive losses of Palestinian lives, does not amount to Anti-Semitism according to all accepted definitions of the term.

When I first really began to grasp the international legal implications of modern Israel being created in the former protectorate of British Palestine was during my senior law school seminar at the University of Florida. It was then that I realized that much of what I assumed was true in that region was based more on urban myths, Sunday School doctrines, and subtle anti-Islamic prejudice passed down by prior history teachers.

But once my interest in this subject was piqued, I soon read everything that I could get my hands on and concluded that the only feasible pathway to peace was a "two state solution," one that would find New Palestine and Israel existing as neighboring nations—with equal access to areas in which Palestinians and Jews had rather peacefully inhabited long before modern Israel was created out of old Palestine in the late 1940's.

A woman mourns in Gaza…

I also believe that one can empathize with the suffering of Israeli civilians who were killed and captured by Hamas last October, while also empathizing with the sufferings of Palestinian civilians up to this very hour! To me, one who picks one set of so-called Semitic civilian sufferers over another is not a humanist—but a biased person who needs to look in the mirror and check their own moral compasses before blasting others with the “Anti-Semitic” charge... 

Lest we forget!