it’s not exactly a controversial or very original point to say that the meaning of antisemitism has been seriously trivialized, given how often it’s been used recently to mean justifiable criticism of israel
Israel has said flat out that it uses antisemitism accusations as a means to stifle criticism. Have you not seen the news since Oct. 7th? We have zionists swearing up and down that “from the river to the sea” is antisemitic for christ’s sake. It’s totally trivialized the word and given cover to actual antisemites, I’m talking real neo-nazis to spread hatred, it’s totally backfired.
The ADL is so fucking craven and cowardly with it’s shit. The head of it was gloating the other day on CNN over Asna Tabassum getting stopped from speaking.
Zionist are just extremely disingenuous. I read Innuendo Studio’s curious cat and every Israel apologist there just talks like they are trying to get him in a gotcha. Some examples that come to mind:
-Keep accusing him of wanting to exterminate Israel or being in the ‘Israel should not exist’ camp when his stand has always been ‘Israel should stop being an aparthied and grant equal rights to Palestinians’
-Accusing him of comparing Jews to nazis (more often than not is other curious cat askers on his page that are comparing Israel, not the Jews, to the nazis). Every time he says ‘Israel is conducting genocide’ these hasbara brigaders jump to accusing him of calling Jews Hitler.
-I remember one user who after Innuendo Studios said that Israel should stop being an ethnostate/ aparthied was like ‘oh so you support soft genocide where one race mixes with another to eventually produce offspring who dont resemble their parents’. When he called this mindset out as nazi shit they, predictably, accused him of calling Orthodox Jews nazis.
-Inventing bullshit hypothetical scenarios that are not happening right now. Like wrt the Ansar Allah blockade one asker was like ‘would you still support them if they were nazis’. Basically what he called Values-Neutral Governance in the You Go High, We Go Low Alt-Right Playbook video.
Israel should not exist. This is not anti-Semitic to say. Colonial projects have no legitimacy and Israel has no more right to existence than Rhodesia or Apartheid South Africa
it has when used by anyone besides leftists. Center and right cannot distinguish between anti-zionism and anti-semitism so they cannot be trusted when they cry wolf.
I think there might be something wrong with you if you don’t look at 99% of the accusations of antisemitism being levied at people who are like “don’t genocide Palestine” and see something wrong with that
Or like shit like jk Rowling (who wrote very antisemitic caricatures in her shitty books) calling Corbyn an antisemite. Actually I literally only ever see accusations of antisemitism when it’s being used by right wingers like her in bad faith, or zionist Jews conflating criticism of Israeli imperialism with it.
I think there has to be something very wrong with you if you think that dishonest accusations of antisemitism renders the concept meaningless. This is a garbage post, and if you genuinely think that antisemitism has ceased to be a factor because of people like Podhoretz then you are also a garbage person.
They’re pretty explicit in talking about the word, not the concept. Nobody here is saying antisemitism, the concept, doesn’t exist or isn’t important, but that the signifier less and less frequently refers to the actual concept of antisemitism.
I think you might just be arguing at cross purposes. Original post was borderline a purely linguistic observation, but you’re talking about the underlying phenomenon.
In media especially, the popular use and meaning of antisemitism has been so thoroughly degraded and twisted that it’s not only largely useless, but I think should actually be a watchword for ‘more investigation of this claim is needed’.
But that doesn’t mean that the original and accurate meaning and the thing it actually describes does not exist or is not a problem, or that we should accept it’s shameless misuse and attempted perversion.
Wasn’t the original meaning/usage nazis trying to sound smart and scientific? Maybe this is wrong of me, but I think the word needs to be scraped for something more accurate.
Similarly, I am extremely grossed out by the common usage of the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe acts of violent displacement and genocide of people. It’s uncritically accepting the framing and language of the perpetrator of the crime, that they are doing a “cleansing” act by killing “unclean” people. That even leftists use the term gives me big heeby-jeebies.
idk that compound always made the “cleansing” part sound really gross to me, like a nazi was saying it and winking, rather than any association with cleanliness. If you don’t hang out with newage crystal healing weirdos you probably don’t even hear the word “cleanse” outside of the genocidal context.
the term is not used with a wink though, as a satirical critique of perpetrators of genocide. It is used straight, as a flat description of the process of “genocide lite”. Like even international legal documents will call it “ethnic cleansing” which is not appropriate whatsoever in my view, to accept the Nazi phraseology in such explicit ways
It’s weird, I have too had issues with the term, but never really thought of it in the sense of accepting the language of the perpetrator. I just hate it in the context of Palestine, where it is sort of used by libs to, as you say, soften the accusation of genocide. This of course rests on the false premise that the Israeli don’t want to outright genocide Palestinians, but simply “drive them out”, as if Palestinians were just generic “arabs” who will immediately assimilate and become Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians etc. if they flee, and not a unique people with a unique culture and a homeland - which the Israelis want to destroy and build fucking beach resorts on. It’s kind of a bullshit term for people too chickenshit to call a genocide what it is.
Anyway, not sure I added anything to your point, I just thought your almost etymological objection to the word was interesting. Just another reason to call a genocidal spade a genocidal spade.
It has not, and that’s a bad path to go down to even suggest so.
it’s not exactly a controversial or very original point to say that the meaning of antisemitism has been seriously trivialized, given how often it’s been used recently to mean justifiable criticism of israel
Israel has said flat out that it uses antisemitism accusations as a means to stifle criticism. Have you not seen the news since Oct. 7th? We have zionists swearing up and down that “from the river to the sea” is antisemitic for christ’s sake. It’s totally trivialized the word and given cover to actual antisemites, I’m talking real neo-nazis to spread hatred, it’s totally backfired.
look at the ADL’s “antisemitism tracker”
The ADL is so fucking craven and cowardly with it’s shit. The head of it was gloating the other day on CNN over Asna Tabassum getting stopped from speaking.
that doesn’t mean that the word antisemitism has no meaning or that antisemitism isn’t a real and present factor.
Zionist are just extremely disingenuous. I read Innuendo Studio’s curious cat and every Israel apologist there just talks like they are trying to get him in a gotcha. Some examples that come to mind:
-Keep accusing him of wanting to exterminate Israel or being in the ‘Israel should not exist’ camp when his stand has always been ‘Israel should stop being an aparthied and grant equal rights to Palestinians’
-Accusing him of comparing Jews to nazis (more often than not is other curious cat askers on his page that are comparing Israel, not the Jews, to the nazis). Every time he says ‘Israel is conducting genocide’ these hasbara brigaders jump to accusing him of calling Jews Hitler.
-I remember one user who after Innuendo Studios said that Israel should stop being an ethnostate/ aparthied was like ‘oh so you support soft genocide where one race mixes with another to eventually produce offspring who dont resemble their parents’. When he called this mindset out as nazi shit they, predictably, accused him of calling Orthodox Jews nazis.
-Inventing bullshit hypothetical scenarios that are not happening right now. Like wrt the Ansar Allah blockade one asker was like ‘would you still support them if they were nazis’. Basically what he called Values-Neutral Governance in the You Go High, We Go Low Alt-Right Playbook video.
Israel should not exist. This is not anti-Semitic to say. Colonial projects have no legitimacy and Israel has no more right to existence than Rhodesia or Apartheid South Africa
it has when used by anyone besides leftists. Center and right cannot distinguish between anti-zionism and anti-semitism so they cannot be trusted when they cry wolf.
are you
I think there might be something wrong with you if you don’t look at 99% of the accusations of antisemitism being levied at people who are like “don’t genocide Palestine” and see something wrong with that
Or like shit like jk Rowling (who wrote very antisemitic caricatures in her shitty books) calling Corbyn an antisemite. Actually I literally only ever see accusations of antisemitism when it’s being used by right wingers like her in bad faith, or zionist Jews conflating criticism of Israeli imperialism with it.
I think there has to be something very wrong with you if you think that dishonest accusations of antisemitism renders the concept meaningless. This is a garbage post, and if you genuinely think that antisemitism has ceased to be a factor because of people like Podhoretz then you are also a garbage person.
They’re pretty explicit in talking about the word, not the concept. Nobody here is saying antisemitism, the concept, doesn’t exist or isn’t important, but that the signifier less and less frequently refers to the actual concept of antisemitism.
I think you might just be arguing at cross purposes. Original post was borderline a purely linguistic observation, but you’re talking about the underlying phenomenon.
Okay you’re just an idiot, bye
Removed by mod
it has when zionists use the term
Both can essentially be the case.
In media especially, the popular use and meaning of antisemitism has been so thoroughly degraded and twisted that it’s not only largely useless, but I think should actually be a watchword for ‘more investigation of this claim is needed’.
But that doesn’t mean that the original and accurate meaning and the thing it actually describes does not exist or is not a problem, or that we should accept it’s shameless misuse and attempted perversion.
Wasn’t the original meaning/usage nazis trying to sound smart and scientific? Maybe this is wrong of me, but I think the word needs to be scraped for something more accurate.
Similarly, I am extremely grossed out by the common usage of the term “ethnic cleansing” to describe acts of violent displacement and genocide of people. It’s uncritically accepting the framing and language of the perpetrator of the crime, that they are doing a “cleansing” act by killing “unclean” people. That even leftists use the term gives me big heeby-jeebies.
idk that compound always made the “cleansing” part sound really gross to me, like a nazi was saying it and winking, rather than any association with cleanliness. If you don’t hang out with newage crystal healing weirdos you probably don’t even hear the word “cleanse” outside of the genocidal context.
the term is not used with a wink though, as a satirical critique of perpetrators of genocide. It is used straight, as a flat description of the process of “genocide lite”. Like even international legal documents will call it “ethnic cleansing” which is not appropriate whatsoever in my view, to accept the Nazi phraseology in such explicit ways
It’s weird, I have too had issues with the term, but never really thought of it in the sense of accepting the language of the perpetrator. I just hate it in the context of Palestine, where it is sort of used by libs to, as you say, soften the accusation of genocide. This of course rests on the false premise that the Israeli don’t want to outright genocide Palestinians, but simply “drive them out”, as if Palestinians were just generic “arabs” who will immediately assimilate and become Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians etc. if they flee, and not a unique people with a unique culture and a homeland - which the Israelis want to destroy and build fucking beach resorts on. It’s kind of a bullshit term for people too chickenshit to call a genocide what it is.
Anyway, not sure I added anything to your point, I just thought your almost etymological objection to the word was interesting. Just another reason to call a genocidal spade a genocidal spade.
It has. Read this article by Em Cohen
https://emcohen.medium.com/on-the-dangers-of-fighting-antisemitism-c888c0bbd79f