Antisemitism

Why is it that an Arab, an Amharic, a Lebanese, a Syrian, a Jordanian. a Saudi, a Kuwaiti, an Iraqi, and an Israeli are all Semitic, but only the racial discrimination against a Jewish or Israeli is called antisemitism ? Why isn't the discrimination against an Arab also called antisemitism ?
WB 10th on antisemitism (1882): hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as religious , ethnic, or racial group. My friend from NY who now lives in the UK, for this reason, insisits on using

instead of

What is the cause of this selective (narrow) definition of antisemitism ? The Arabs were often discriminated against before, during, and after the time of Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) for example, but I do not find the word 'anti-Arabic' in my MW dictionary. Could it be that at one point antisemitism was inclusive of the hostility towards Arabs, but dropped the Arabic connotation some time after the rise of the Zionist movement ?

Lexico,

Antisemitism does not mean, and from its origin has never meant, prejudice against Semites; its actual meaning is, and always has been, prejudice against, and/or hatred of, Jews.

The reason for this has absolutely nothing to do with Arabs at all. The word antisemitism was coined by European Jew-haters about 125 years ago as a euphemism to semantically legitimize as a philosophy or "science" what they were really talking about, i.e., hatred of Jews.

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The following is from the first link above:

Semitism is a word now, so perhaps they mean that semitism has no independent meaning. Unlike (all?) other words that can be prefixed by anti-, the word semitism never had a meaning before antisemitism was coined; it's a manufactured word whose only purpose is to refer to the opposite of antisemitism.

Thank you , Bramicus, for the definition and the links. I apologize for the misunderstading/misspelling. From your first link where it says,

By Bill Oakfield

A German professor of languages, A.L. von Schlozer, first coined the word "semitic", in 1780, to describe some Middle Eastern languages, including Hebrew and Arabic.

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I understand this is only a linguistics term of language typology. Is it considered okay by the Jewish community to use the language group of "Semitic languages" ? Or by extension, "Semitic ethnicities" ?

In circa 1880, one hundred years later, a German Jew-hater, Wilhelm Marr, was searching around for a suitable title for an anti-Jewish organization, which he founded, came across the term "Semitic" languages, and named his group "The Antisemitic League".

During the next 50 years or so the term "antisemitism" became accepted as meaning opposed to, hating, or against Jews. It has never meant anything else. The Britannica or any dictionary will confirm this basic truth. So many people falsely believe that if there is antisemitism then there have to be "semites".

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If the word itself had a biased coinage, and used for antisemitic purposes already, weren't there any objections to using that term due to the fact ? I would imagine this word to be high on the list to be corrected, or replaced with a more neutral term that accurately represents the idea without confusion for the uninitiated (e.g. me) to the exact history of the word. In my case, I recognized the usage correctly, but had doubts. Why not replace the word with a more politically correct term ?

Bramicus said:

The word antisemitism was coined by European Jew-haters about 125 years ago as a euphemism to semantically legitimize as a philosophy or "science" what they were really talking about, i.e., hatred of Jews.

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Not quite so, I think. The Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider is said to have coined the term in 1860 when he accused Ernest Renan of anti-Semitic prejudice. The adjective "antisemitisch" occurs already in 1865 in a Prussian dictionary.


I came across a German definition, BTW:

anti-Semitism = against the Jewish "race"
anti-Judaism = against the Jewish religion
anti-Zionism = against the Jewish state (Israel)

I don't know if the same could be applied in English, though.

bossel said:

The Jewish scholar Moritz Steinschneider is said to have coined the term in 1860 when he accused Ernest Renan of anti-Semitic prejudice. The adjective "antisemitisch" occurs already in 1865 in a Prussian dictionary.

I came across a German definition, BTW:

anti-Semitism = against the Jewish "race"
anti-Judaism = against the Jewish religion
anti-Zionism = against the Jewish state (Israel)

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Interesting. I'd never heard of Steinschneider before.

But as for the dictionary, is it a very old German dictionary? There is no such thing as the "Jewish race" except in two essentially obsolete meanings. The first is from the discredited "racial theories" adopted by the Nazis. The second is an antiquated usage of the word race, which you can read in (for example) 19th-century English literature. In this sense, race can refer to any recognized grouping of people (or even animals). So, for example, in old literature you will come across references to the Jewish race, the Christian race, the English race, the German race, the farming race, the Arab race, the seagoing race (i.e., sailors), even the race of haberdashers.

Here's an example of that kind of "race," from one of my favorite poems by Robert Service (1907):

It's a shame, but the fascist usage of "race" pretty much did in that interpretation of the word.

Lexico, first of all, Saudi, Iraqi, Syrian, Egyptian, Morrocan, etc. are all considered as ethnically Arab.

In my understanding (which is usually more based on the root of the word than general usage), antisemitism also includes racism, hatred or violence against the Arabs, not just the Jews.

Recently, there has been such a sentiment growing, first in European countries where many Arabs have immigrated (France, Belgium...), and more recently (after 9/11) in the US and most developed countries as a fear of religious extremists and terrorists. I believe that "antisemitism" is appropriate to describe this fear and hatred of Arabic people, at least in the first case. Note that most Al-Qaida terrorists were

Interestingly there is much less racism against Chinese, Thai, Indians, Bangladeshi, etc. than against Arabic immigrants. That may be due to a different behaviour on their part. I am not sure. It is not just a matter of religion as Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Turks or Indonesians are also Muslim, but usually better adapted in European societies than the Morrocans or Algerians (at least in France and Belgium). Usually when extreme-right political parties like the French Front National or the Flemish Vlaams Blok talk about expelling foreigners, everyone understands that they are mainly talking about Arabs, and that other Westerners or even East Asians are not included. That is why I would call that anti-semitism (although it is not directed at the Jews).

Sorry, this has become more a debate on immigration than linguistics...

Maciamo said:

In my understanding (which is usually more based on the root of the word than general usage), antisemitism also includes racism, hatred or violence against the Arabs, not just the Jews.

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WADR, what is it based on this time? Your understanding seems to be completely unique. On what evidence (other than your feelings about the root of the word) do you make this statement?

Bramicus said:

WADR, what is it based on this time? Your understanding seems to be completely unique. On what evidence (other than your feelings about the root of the word) do you make this statement?

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No "evidence", just my feelings based on the root of the word - but I am not the only one to feel that way. If I want to talk about racism against the Jews, I'd prefer the term "anti-Zionism". Likewise, we could say "anti-Arabism" for racism against the Arabs. But when talking about racism against both Arabs and Jews (it exists of course), I cannot see any better term than "anti-Semitism". The problem is that this word has first been used in Europe to describe anti-Jewish feelings at a time when there were no (or very few) Arabic immigrants. Hitler has popularised the term. But he was no linguist, and there is no reason to follow his (time's) definition.

Language is flexible, and the meaning of words changes all the time (over decades and centuries), especially in English. I personally dislike erroneous usages such as "kamikaze" being used for "suicide attack" outside the context of defending Japan from an invasion, etc.

So for me anti-Semitism will describe racism against both Jews and Arabs, and anti-Zionism only against the Jews (note that anti-Judaism is yet something different, not a ethnical rejection but a religious one).

Citing from Wikipedia on Anti-Semitism

Wikipedia said:

The term anti-Semitism has normally referred to prejudice towards Jews alone, and this was formerly the only use of this word for more than a century. It does not traditionally refer to prejudice toward other people who speak Semitic languages (e.g. Arabs or Assyrians). Bernard Lewis says that "Anti-Semitism has never anywhere been concerned with anyone but Jews."[1]

In recent decades some have argued that the term should be extended to include prejudice against Arabs, since Arabic is a Semitic language; these arguments are commonly made in the context of accusations of Arab anti-Semitism. This usage has not been widely adopted, one example is October 16/17, 2004 statement by Ralph Nader in Counterpunch: "There is, as you always ignore, aggressive anti-Semitism against defenseless Arabs in many places in the world..."

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Maciamo said:

No "evidence", just my feelings based on the root of the word

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That's what I figured.

Maciamo said:

If I want to talk about racism against the Jews, I'd prefer the term "anti-Zionism".

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But that's not accurate either. Let's just get right to the point and say Jew-hatred, shall we? Of course, many Jew-haters call themselves anti-Zionists to disguise their true agenda.

Maciamo said:

So for me anti-Semitism will describe racism against both Jews and Arabs

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Well, no one will know what you're talking about, but that's your privilege.

Maciamo said:

...and anti-Zionism only against the Jews

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Well, since so many who call themselves anti-Zionists are really just Jew-haters, at least there's there's a sort of perverse logic to that.

Well, no one will know what you're talking about, but that's your privilege.

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Ralph Nader will.

Maciamo said:

Ralph Nader will.

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I rest my case.

"Semitic" doesn't refer to a race of people, rather it refers to a group of languages. The most wide spread semitic language is Arabic. Others in this category are Ahmaric, Tigrinya, and of course, Hebrew. "Antisemitic" (and the original Prussian form "antisemitisch") comes from the biblical personage of Shem, one of the sons of Noah. The Jewish people are said to have descended from Shem (who is not mentioned in the Qur'an). This is where the term antisemitism received it's "anti-jew" context, and not an antisemitic-language context.