Regarding the antisemitic label
I have heard lately all kinds of people being called "antisemitic" and I am confused --I even have come to thinking that it does not make sense in many cases. For example, I hear now that the description antisemitic is applied to Muslims, to Palestinians, to Arabs, to Pakistani, to Black Americans and even to Japanese.
Here I need a little help now, cause I thought that the word antisemitism refers to systematic discrimination, prejudices and conceptions of the Jews that have prevailed in the Christian world the last 2000 years. Hence, antisemitism is not something like the prejudices some people in Western Europe may have about Russians or other people from Eastern Europe (who might be considered mafia, corrupted, etc.). Most of the prejudices about Eastern Europeans are not systematic, are a phenomenon of the last 30 years --in some cases are applied, in some cases not.
Similarly, I doubt whether there have been any kinds of systematic/traditional prejudices against Jews in Africa, Middle East and Asia before WWII. Arabs, also, consider themselves to be part of the Semitic linguistic and genetic family and I guess calling them antisemitic sounds strange. Many of them will hardly understand what that description is supposed to mean.
It wouldn't be more correct to confine the word antisemitic to the Christian and Western World, instead of using it for people who might live in Nigeria or Yemen? Wouldn't it be more correct to call the Muslim, Asian and African opponents of Israel "anti-israelites" instead of calling them antisemitic?
It is hard in my view to trace systematic prejudices against Jews in the non-Christian world and if someone in these countries has become "antisemitic", he probably read many books from some European, Russian or American authors. The majority of the people who might despise Jews or Israel in the non-Christian world most probably use historical accounts of Israel and Jews during the last 100 years, and have no clues about the sustained antisemitism of the Western world, which mixes religious and racial theories.
Since Christians and Europeans now are a minority in the Planet Earth, it makes sense, I guess, that the world antisemitic should not be applied to Asian, African and Arab critics of Israel. If the second did not bother to read or elaborate Christian and Eurocentrist theories, they better be called "anti-israelites".
It would be interesting to see what other people think about the use of the antisemitic label.
Thank you.
Here I need a little help now, cause I thought that the word antisemitism refers to systematic discrimination, prejudices and conceptions of the Jews that have prevailed in the Christian world the last 2000 years. Hence, antisemitism is not something like the prejudices some people in Western Europe may have about Russians or other people from Eastern Europe (who might be considered mafia, corrupted, etc.). Most of the prejudices about Eastern Europeans are not systematic, are a phenomenon of the last 30 years --in some cases are applied, in some cases not.
Similarly, I doubt whether there have been any kinds of systematic/traditional prejudices against Jews in Africa, Middle East and Asia before WWII. Arabs, also, consider themselves to be part of the Semitic linguistic and genetic family and I guess calling them antisemitic sounds strange. Many of them will hardly understand what that description is supposed to mean.
It wouldn't be more correct to confine the word antisemitic to the Christian and Western World, instead of using it for people who might live in Nigeria or Yemen? Wouldn't it be more correct to call the Muslim, Asian and African opponents of Israel "anti-israelites" instead of calling them antisemitic?
It is hard in my view to trace systematic prejudices against Jews in the non-Christian world and if someone in these countries has become "antisemitic", he probably read many books from some European, Russian or American authors. The majority of the people who might despise Jews or Israel in the non-Christian world most probably use historical accounts of Israel and Jews during the last 100 years, and have no clues about the sustained antisemitism of the Western world, which mixes religious and racial theories.
Since Christians and Europeans now are a minority in the Planet Earth, it makes sense, I guess, that the world antisemitic should not be applied to Asian, African and Arab critics of Israel. If the second did not bother to read or elaborate Christian and Eurocentrist theories, they better be called "anti-israelites".
It would be interesting to see what other people think about the use of the antisemitic label.
Thank you.
Comments (55)
Generally, yes, with local exceptions, such as the periodic resurgence of systemic discrimination in South Africa. However, many western Jews consider any criticism of Israel antisemitism, just as many Americans call any criticism of their foreign policy America-bashing. People are sensitive to blame for collective action by nations, ethnicities or religions with which they identify. While American's may protest against American injustice and Jews may censure Israeli misdeeds, they become defensive when outsiders do so.
These days, we tend to reach for facile labels without a second thought.
It's not limited to the time or geographical region you assumed. This stuff is easy enough to Google.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_antisemitism
Quoting Eros1982
Just read the timeline I cited.Quoting Eros1982
It would be more accurate to call anyone who is anti-Israel "anti-Israel" if that's what they are, regardless of where they're from, and it would be more accurate to call someone "antisemitic" if they were antisemitic if that's what they are regardless of where they're from. The terms have different meanings.
Even if your historical analysis were correct that antisemitism began sometime in the 1st century and was limited to Christian nations (and none of this is accurate), your logic still dioesn't hold. By analogy, someone who hates black people is properly called a racist even if he's from a country that has no history of hating black people.
But the bigger question is what is your larger point? Are you simply trying to prescribe linguistic usage for pedantic reasons, or are you suggesting some substantive difference between the hate felt by modern day Christians antisemites versus Muslim ones so much so that a different term should be prescribed for each?
:up:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/858450 ¹
An Arab or Akkadian who is antisemitic must be self-hating that is a deductive syllogism.
Some people are anti-Jewish (National-socialists) while other are anti-Zionist (Palestinians and some Jews), those two are related though different.
Quoting Eros1982
This does not make sense to me.
Quoting Eros1982
Why? Nigerians are not semitic. It seems you just want to reserve a special word for a certain group in order to demonise them, specifically Europeans and Christians.
When you call someone antisemitic, I guess you somehow imply that either Jews do good things to that person or they do bad things to that person he still blames them, because this is what he was taught to believe all his life, he always despises them.
I hardly understand how people who do not know Jews at all (were taught nothing about them) can be labeled antisemitic just because for them Israel has come to mean: "Muslim murdering machine".
Calling people of different backgrounds antisemitic sounds to me like applying Western criteria to them. Since in the West it is hard to find people who hate Israel without quoting some far-right politician/author, we rightly confuse anti-Israel with antisemitic feelings in Western countries. But it is hard for me to call a Nigerian Muslim, to take an example, antisemitic, even if that person dreams the end of Israel. Insofar as the latter was taught to see the history of Israel from the Palestinian/Arab perspective, not from the European far right perspective, he better be called Anti-Israeli or even Jewish-hater, but not antisemitic.
Even if the term were not obsolete, most people who refer to antisemitism either are not aware of the inclusion of Arabic-speakers, or don't care: they just mean 'discrimination against Jews' either as an ethnic minority or as a religion, usually both, they never include the anti-Arab sentiment so prevalent today in various countries.
Of course, most of the people who throw around the term antisemitism rarely bother to make the fine distinction between criticism of a nation's actions - which does not in way include barring anyone from university or housing or golf-club membership, nor denying them employment opportunities and legal rights - and actual discrimination. Try to ask a Zionist or supporter: "Does the present state of Israel really have a right to be where it is, as it is? If so, by what moral authority?"
Exactly. It's in the usage.
Being "for" or "against" the "Jews" can be antisemitic if the agenda being advanced is antagonistic to Jews in one respect or another or reduces Jews to mere object (rather than agent). For instance, wanting to help Jews establish god's kingdom to bring about the second coming of Christ is usefully being understood as being antisemitic. Similarly, when Christians "adopt" "Jewish" practice in an effort to show Jews that Christianity is truly the spiritual successor to the Jewish people subsequent to the Christ, that is also an example of antisemitism.
A simple heuristic is that anytime you speak about (or react to) Jews or someone's Jewishness you are in ambiguous territory. There is generally a more precise way that you can speak (or react) that removes Jews or Jewishness from the conversation with no loss in substance. Obviously if you are talking about banning ritual slaughter of cows in the EU and you fail to account for Islamic or Jewish views on the subject, you would be missing a significant consideration in the conversation. Importantly, however, you must be careful to understand "Islamic or Jewish views" to refer not to Islam or Judaism writ large, but to a subset of people who happen to adopt a particular attitude about ritual slaughter. The linguistic convenience of speaking about groups of people (where knowledgeable people understand that you may be speaking of only a small portion of the group) must be understood for what it is - a convenience.
Israel (whatever you think about it) is far too complicated to be a helpful example of what antisemitism is or isn't. In some respects, merely discussing it is evidence of antisemitism unless such discussion is happening amongst people meaningfully effected by it. Some people will furiously insist that calling discussions of Israel antisemitic is just an unwarranted method of deflecting justified criticism (and sometimes it may be) of Israel, but that doesn't erase the intellectual structures which gave rise to a discussion of Israel rather than something else. Why is Israel an object of curiosity as opposed to anything else in the world?
I've used square quotes throughout this post in order to draw some attention to words that are used as if they mean one thing when they are actually used in a variety of contexts to mean different things (which are often contradictory). You must always consider the possibility of equivocation - people using the same word in different senses at the same time. Each of them may think they had a mutually intelligible conversation, but each of them may actually understand what was said in fundamentally different ways.
I have never called someone anti-semitic because people who are antisemitic are usually also prejudiced against other racial groups, so I call them racist instead.
I have met many who are prejudiced against Arabs or prejudiced against Jews in particular. I call them prejudiced against Arabs and prejudiced against Jews, respectively.
Quoting Eros1982
So what? Many people in the west were taught nothing about the Jews too.
Quoting Eros1982
That applies to everybody because people who are against Israel are against Israel. The country of origin of someone does not change their feelings and what those feelings are called.
This whole thread is stupid. This is a philosophy forum and yet purposefully confusing oneself with very basic words and their definitions is deemed an interesting topic.
What? It sounds pretty bad to me. Especially when applied to someone who has never harmed, berated or done anything mean to a person who identifies as Jewish.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
In that case, speaking about any self-identified national, gender, political, ethnic or religious group puts you in ambiguous territory. So just never talk about any groups at all - or accept some degree of ambiguity.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
So what? You're still entitled to an opinion about the practice itself. You don't have to talk to any Incas to consider child sacrifice distasteful. You don't have to take a medieval Muslim tradition
tradition into consideration when banning in France or Canada the murder of daughters who disobey their father's strictures.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
True. And yet, remarks about Israel, its leadership and activities are the fastest and most likely triggers for calling someone antisemitic - thus:
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Why does the same not apply to The US or Japan or India? In what way, and for what reason is Israel exempt from commentary?
And yes, you are right, speaking about any group puts you in ambiguous territory. Seems pretty simple. The question is whether there is sufficient intellectual warrant to speak in those terms and potentially be misunderstood.
Whether or not you are entitled to your opinion is neither here nor there, what is being discussed is whether it is useful to speak in terms of religion. If someone says, "I want you to stop cutting down my lawn because I like the way the grass feels between my toes" it is considered to be of less moral force than "I want you to stop cutting down my lawn because it is my property." Some conversations lend themselves to ethics based arguments (which include religious based ones even if you disagree) and pretending as if you are discussing individual ethics rather than communal ethics is more trouble than it is worth.
The same does apply to the US and Japan. When people who hate the US talk about the US in negative terms, it is a) evidence that they hate the US and b) might be true. Do you think Jews are the only group/people capable of being hated?
It might also be helpful to have a discussion about evidence more generally - one can have evidence for a false proposition just as one can have counter evidence for a true one. Think of it this way, either P v not P but not both is alleged to be the case. Symbolically we might represent P as T, not P as F, ~ to mean "is not evidence for" such that we get T, ~T, F, and ~F. With that out of the way, it is also useful to hone in on a definition of entailment and to what extent logical necessity is extensible to states of affairs where causality is stochastic. As some jurist once wrote, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it. . ."
That Israel does bad things is self-evident, but also insufficient to explain why it is the topic of conversation. It doesn't take a thesis to know that most people talk about Jews and Israel because they are antisemitic - you'd be hard pressed to come up with an alternative explanation. Indeed, the claim in the OP is along these very lines - that antisemitism is the type of Jew hating reserved to describe the Western fetishization of the Jews. The problem, of course, is that Jew hatred anywhere has come under the euphemism developed at a time where the only relationships of intellectual interest were the relationships of the Europeans to themselves and the people they were subjugating - it isn't even that they didn't care why the Chinese hate/hated Jews, it was that they didn't/don't care about why the Chinese thought about anything.
The logic stuff was a joke, but also a way of highlighting how judgments about a label work even in the absence of strict rules/definitions/standards/theory.
Which are "those terms"?
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Whether anyone is entitled to an independent opinion is very much here and also there. Freedom of speech is supposed to be fundamental to democracy. Whether any discussion of religion is 'useful' depends on what one wants to use it for. As a subject of discussion, all religions are eligible and fair game.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Doesn't require any kind of justification. Defending your turf is a fundamental right also.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Huh? How does the singularity or plurality of ethics affect a conversation?
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
But why do you think disagreement with some element of US policy or practice amounts to hating the US? This is exactly the prejudiced conclusion apologists use to shut down critical discussion - even among those who love their country more than the ones making the bad decisions.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Everyone may be hated. And anyone may be discussed, their actions questioned, even criticized, without hatred.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Maybe because it's in the news? Maybe because people are suffering and dying? Maybe because there is cause for concern regarding the direction in which events are going? Maybe because some people have questions about the leadership? If you talk about the weather or goldfish or a possible cure for Parkinson's or how to grow cabbages, you don't have to produce a "sufficient explanation". Again, I ask you, what puts Israel in a special category?
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Yes, that's the one: the automatic defensive posture and labelling.
Seemed acceptable to talk about how they "made the desert bloom", when books were written about the valiant struggle and movies made about Israel's progress and successes.
You say automatic defensive posture - I just point out the inexplicablity of its coverage given its relative importance. Why has anyone cared about Israel since 1900? Did anyone care about Palestine before?
For the Western audience, you can't just point to its coverage as reason for why you are talking about it as if that is independent of the Western antisemitism. It is covered because the West is antisemetic and when you talk about it, you are likely just acting out that antisemitism. Isn't your fault. You don't know any better. It is a system of antisemitism just as it is a system of racism.
Perhaps you don't believe in things like systemic racism. If so, at least you are consistent. If you do believe in such things, then ask yourself why seemingly "innocent" people who would never call themselves a Jew hater couldn't possible be motivated by antisemitism.
What? Talking about 1 of the 2 wars that could bring about world war 3 makes us antisemetic?
We need Lionino to come back here and tell you how dumb these arguments are.
If that is what you said, then you need to rewrite your argument, because it makes little sense.
P.S. I will refer you to my initial post where I wrote the following. It specifically identifies the trouble with antisemitism and Israel, anticipates the retort, and states that antisemitism is a systemic issue.
Israel (whatever you think about it) is far too complicated to be a helpful example of what antisemitism is or isn't. In some respects, merely discussing it is evidence of antisemitism unless such discussion is happening amongst people meaningfully effected by it. Some people will furiously insist that calling discussions of Israel antisemitic is just an unwarranted method of deflecting justified criticism (and sometimes it may be) of Israel, but that doesn't erase the intellectual structures which gave rise to a discussion of Israel rather than something else. Why is Israel an object of curiosity as opposed to anything else in the world?
Yes. Lots of people did. They were generally shut down by pro-Israeli western governments and media.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Are you sure?
They don't look all that hostile to me.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
Of course not!
I started to care about Israel when it became relevant in a conflict escalation that could lead to world war 3, before that I did not care.
Quoting Ennui Elucidator
There are powers in the Middle East that have nuclear options, things can happen.
I care even more about Ukraine, are you going to tell me I hate Ukrainians now?
In any event, I already pointed out that things can look supportive of Jews (or Israel) and yet be antisemitic. So Canada and the US supporting Israel isn't all that impressive or informative. In fact, the more supportive they are, the worse it is. Kind of like the idea that the opposite of love isn't hate but indifference. They need to stop paying attention.
Facts, logic and history ain't gonna prevail against blind partisanship.
So, now that you have unloaded some more nonsense... do I hate Ukraine?
Oh, no. You won't bullshit yourself around this one. You claim I hate Jews because I am worried about the war in Isreal.
Do I therefore hate Ukraine?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_prejudice
You wouldn't know what is happening in Ukraine if people didn't report about it. The question is not why you care, but why they reported.
So, answer the question. Do I therefore hate Ukraine?
I am a person "in the west" so yes, I matter here.
Now answer... Do I therefore hate Ukraine?
https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/ahrc_sr_2021_4_keyterms_a4_r2_0.pdf
I didn't deny the existence of antisemitism. I do maintain that labelling every remark on the subject antisemitic is ridiculous.
So answer this. Does westerners hate Ukrainians?
This also speaks against your first arguments, when you said westerners hate Jews because they care about Israel.
That you like to deflect is already evident by the fact that I just had to ask the same simple question 5 times in a row and still never got an answer. You are a hopeless case.
Just try a little bit of historic context for how you exist in the world and you might find that identifying certain things as antisemitic is both accurate and useful, but that also may not mean that it is necessarily a problem in the particular instance being discussed.
You claimed before that westerners thinking about Israel probably means that they are antisemitic.
Do you retract this statement?
One need not "hate" Jews to be antisemitic. One need not even have ever met one or know where to find one. The Jews were being blamed for all sorts of things in Europe at times/places where they weren't even present in the area. The Western institution of antisemitism is what the OP was referring to rather than "Jew Hatred" which is all you can seem to understand. That is why they suggested that antisemitism should be restricted just to Europeans and something like "jew hater" to everyone else in instances where they are engaged in actually identifiable negative conduct/speech.
This is the equivocation that I referred to in my initial response. It is even equivocation that happens within the Jewish community. The problem is that people want to use (and do use) antisemitism as a euphemism for Jew hater, thereby confusing the issue of which is which.
It doesn't hold logic that you need to be "anti" something to think about it. The other way around holds though, if you are "anti" something then you probably think a lot about it.
What I have said, and continue to say, is that what you are exposed to (and ultimately what happens in your head even after the exposure ends) is a function of the systems in which you exist. Where those systems create a circumstance that you are exposed to A instead of B, one can inquire as to why A rather than B. That is all I am suggesting you do - consider why Israel and not anything else. If you say it is because Israel Cs and not Ds, it behooves you to at least find out if B also Cs. You can't justify the attention you pay to A by telling me more about A, you need to actually find out about B. But in the system you exist, you aren't going to passively learn about B, you will have to self-educate. All you will ever hear is A. And so you will think about A. And care about A. For all of the right reasons, because we know that A does C! But you will have missed the point.
And this is all just some long-winded logic to convince us that we are probably antisemitic for thinking about Israel?
Nah, I am not following.
Thanks for the debate, you hold out well, even if I didn't follow your arguments.
Perhaps I misunderstood you, I thought you meant to say that caring about Israel was somehow a proof of underlying antisemetism, but now that I reread your comment I see that may not be what you claim.
If that is the case, you have my apology, because then I have derailed the debate.
By doing so, that media, whether they realize it or not, have done a disservice to its own reputation and the Israeli/Jewish people themselves [the road to hell, after all, is also paved with good intentions]. Not as widely criticized thus publicized as the violence are the considerable fossil fuel reserves beneath long-held Palestinian land that are a plausible motivator for war.
Perhaps mostly because I have no Jewish heritage thus experience, I still never expected the level of anti-Semitic attacks in the West since the initial Hamas attack against Israelis. For one thing, the Jewish people in Israel and especially around the world must not be collectively vilified, let alone physically attacked, for the acts of Israels government and military, however one feels about the latters brutality in Gaza.
Its blatantly wrong for them to be mistreated, if not terrorized, as though they were responsible for what is happening there. And it should be needless to say that diaspora Palestinians and Western Muslims similarly must not be collectively blamed and attacked for the acts of Hamas violence in Israel or Islamic extremist attacks outside the Middle East.
There seems to have been much latent animosity towards Jewish people in general, perhaps in part based on erroneous and disproven stereotypes thus completely unmerited. Also, incredible insensitivity was publicly shown towards Jews freshly mourning the 10/7 victims, especially when considering that young Israelis and Jews elsewhere may not be accustomed to such relatively large-scale carnage (at least not as much as is seen in other parts of the Middle East) in post-9/11 times.
But also concerning about all of the highly publicized two-way partisan exchanges of fury is: what will young diaspora Jewish and Palestinian children think and feel if/when they hear such misdirected vile hatred towards their fundamental identity? Scary is the real possibility that such public outpour of blind hatred may lead some young children to feel very misplaced shame in their heritage.
While the conflict can and does arouse a spectator sport effect or mentality, many contemptible news trolls residing outside the region actively decide which side they like more or hate less thus support via politicized commentary posts. I anticipate many actually keep track of the bloody match by checking the days-end death-toll score, however heavily lopsided those numbers are.
@Ennui Elucidator
This is only ever even a reasonable inference if you can show the disparity is the result of some policy. Disparate outcomes don't indicate anything about discrimination in most cases.
When civilized behavior fails us, we go back to being animals.
Quoting FrankGSterleJr
The fact that this is not the starting point for any IRL activity around these two groups is bizarre.
The reason: somehow millions of Muslims had come to believe that France was a Muslim murdering machine and they were reading more bad news from Maghreb countries, than from Palestine.
Right now, Israel and US are killing more Muslims than France and this is a reason why many people in the Muslim world have forgotten the hatred of their grandparents against the French and other European (colonizing) nations.
My conclusion in a few words: for the Muslims it does not matter too much whether "their killer" is a Jew or a Catholic, but it matters a lot to Europeans when the killer is a Jew. The comparisons and graffiti of Jewish soldiers with Nazi symbols most probably are made in Europe, not made in Middle East. For the Middle-Easterners all non-Muslim enemies are equal (they, unfortunately, have a blind spot about their own despots). But for many Europeans the crimes of the US, UK and France most probably are not equal with the crimes of Israel.
If I am right in these beliefs, then the use of the antisemitic label should be confined to Europeans and Christians, whereas other labels should be valid for the rest of the world (who on their right have stopped believing that Europe and Bethlehem are the center of our Universe).