Letter: Looking at the bigger picture over the terms ‘anti-semitic’ and ‘anti-semitism’ and how they are interpreted
A letter from Dennis Golden:
The terms ‘anti-semitic’ and ‘anti-semitism’ are too broad and non-specific to express what is actually meant when they are used.
They are generally used, or thought, to mean ‘anti-Jew/Jewish’, and are also now used to deflect or inhibit criticism of Israel.
Used in that context, both terms might actually fuel anti-Jewish sentiment. Conversely, anti-semitism could be interpreted ambiguously to mean ‘anti the semiticisation of Judaism and/or politics’.
Jews are not the only semitic people. Palestinians, Arabs in general, and several other Middle-Eastern peoples are semitic by ethnicity and related languages. Jews are a small minority among the broader semitic peoples.
The majority of semites are Muslim. A few are Christian and of other religions. Many Jews today, descended from many generations of life in the Diaspora, far from Palestine and the Middle East, may actually no longer be semitic, ethnically or linguistically.
While mindless, unreasoned anti-Jew sentiment is obviously offensive and abhorrent, sentiments expressed as ‘anti-Israel’, ‘pro-Palestinian’, ‘anti-Zionism’ are legitimate expressions of freedom of thought and speech, and are in reality pro-semitic-majority.
The terms ‘anti-semitic’ and ‘anti-semitism’ should not be used to denigrate legitimate opinions.
Dennis Golden, Strabane