Antisemitism Defined
Zionism = Colonialism = Antisemitism = Anti-Human
“We have the crisis of planet, poverty, and peace... We have nothing to lose except everything. So, let’s go ahead. This is the wager of our generation. If we are to fail, it is better in any case to have stood on the side of those who choose life rather than those on the side who are destroying life.”
Albert Camus
Antisemitism Defined
Sociologists, anthropologists, archeologists, as well as other scholars have used the word Semite as a linguistic or language designation for ancient cultures who spoke, or contemporary cultures who speak a Semitic language as their native tongue. Current Semites would include those who speak Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, as well as numerous other languages, Arabic being by far the most prolific (500 million users). The use of the term antisemitic in reference to the Palestine/Israel conflict has no linguistic or intrinsic value.
In 1879 German journalist Wilhelm Marr, convinced that the Jews and Germans would never coexist but that one would eventually destroy the other, founded the League of Antisemitism to advocate for the forced expulsion of Jews from German territory. In this case, Marr interpreted the word antisemitism to mean anti-Judaism. Many claim that this colossal misrepresentation was one of the catalysts that led to Nazi Germany’s Jewish extermination program.
To address this particular connotation, religions were and are constructed in an attempt to answer three questions that have agitated philosophers since the beginning of thought. Who am I? Where did I come from? And, why am I here? Throughout time, cosmologies from many different cultures were put forward to address these inquiries. Discoveries in the sciences of Astro and Quantum Physics have made significant leaps over the years in edging us closer to the answers of these questions. However, these investigations and their manifestations are situated in the realm of ideas. Judaism, among other things, is an idea. Due to a distorted understanding of the term “race” and its conflation with language, a European nation waged war on an idea. This in turn, led to one of many genocidal campaigns in the 20th century.
This notion of blotting out an idea is a phantasmagorical nightmare concocted by disturbed minds. You could exterminate every person known who practices Judaism and slap your hands together announcing, ‘job done.’ Then, on some future day, a young seeker stumbles across a copy of the Torah, reads it, and thinks, ‘This makes sense to me,’ (and why wouldn’t they, the book contains some of the most profound words ever written)- and the whole process would start again.
Today, nefarious political actors whose ancestors were the victims of Marr’s interpretation have revived his disfigured definition of antisemitism, in order to justify their colonial aims and genocidal actions against the people of Palestine.
These same political operatives attempt to equate the term ‘antizionism’ with Marr’s classical definition of ‘antisemitism’ which is categorically false. Zionism is a political movement that has been rejected by the majority of Jews; Semitism is a language characterization. Any definition of anti-semitism that does not include all Semitic peoples or favors one Semitic group over others is incomplete and non-functional. Any remedy to discourage, prevent, or criminalize anti-semitism that does not include the protection of all Semitic peoples is prejudicial.
This would include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism that was introduced as Bill (H.R. 6090) and passed by the US House of Representatives on May 1st, 2024. The intent of the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023 was “the enforcement of Federal antidiscrimination laws concerning education programs or activities, and for other purposes.” The bill did not pass the Senate, but could be later included with another bill.
The bill was introduced by New York Congressman Michael Lawler who has received over a half a million dollars in AIPAC associated funds during his political career.
The Reality
Anyone, regardless of their affiliations or religious orientations, who holds the Zionist Supremacist of Israel and their supporters to account for the numerous war crimes that they have committed over the last 80 years, are being tagged as antisemitic and punished in some form or fashion. Many have been arrested and detained. We are seeing this plastered all over mainstream and social media on a daily basis.
The Zionist Supremacist ideology is a carbon copy of the colonial supremacist mindset we have read about throughout history. It goes like this, ‘We will do whatever we want, whenever we want, to whomever we want, which includes our victims, and we don’t want to hear any complaints from anyone about it! We are the favored and you are the fodder.’
And to make sure we understand their intent, we get to watch them do exactly that, as human rights defenders, medical practitioners, citizens in Gaza and elsewhere, when they are not being starved to death, are mowed down by Israel’s perpetual US funded and supplied killing machine.
In closing I leave you with the sobering words of the former United Nations human rights official and specialist in International Human Rights Law, Craig Mokhiber, who resigned from his post four days before his retirement in protest of the UN’s weak response to the Gaza Genocide. You know what to do.
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“In naming its state this way, the Zionist movement conflated its settler-colonial project with all Jews, even when the majority of world Jewry did not support the movement and continues to refuse to live in Israel today.” - it is entirely false to say most Jews don’t support Zionism / are Zionists today today predicated on this statement.
All Jews who live in Israel are by definition Zionists and support it - which leaves those who live outside of Israel - various data and polls has shown the vast majority of those Jews who live outside of Israel are Zionists or support Zionism.
This is a fantastic article. I was also going to go into the history of the term "anti-semitism" when I wrote about it; I didn't, but I am glad that you did here. Wrt religion - yes, it is an idea, although when you get a group of people who are quite insular and closed, and regard themselves as far superior to others, and call themselves an "ethno-state" to project their superiority, they are the ones conflating ethnicity and religion for their own purposes, but then complaining if other people see them in this way. They always want to both ways. I hope the impunity is coming to an end so that the world can have a reset.