Recently the Arab News published an article titled “Arabs Can’t be Anti-Semites.” The effort to show that racism can be misinterpreted and misrepresented was noble. And technically the writer was correct, but I feel that I must point out that this is an argument that many Arabs use over and over again and they are inevitably on the losing end of this debate.
Many years ago when I was a college student, I joined the Arab Students Association at the university that I attended. Every Tuesday, we used to set up a booth on one side of the corridor leading into the student union and the Israeli Students Organization and the Friends of Israel used to set up their booth on the other side of the corridor. There were often heated disagreements flashing back and forth from one side to the other, but I felt this was usually a healthy way for the more neutral students and staff walking by to hear both sides of the argument for a change. That was true until either side got overheated or the pro-Israeli side started calling the Arabs anti-Semitic. The Arabs would always say, “We can’t be anti-Semitic, we are Semites ourselves.” Chalk one up for the friends of Israel.
I have mentioned before in other articles that an astute college professor of mine taught me a very basic premise early in my education. He always said, “whoever defines the situation, controls the situation.” And therein lies the reason that the Arabs always lose the argument that starts with, “We can’t be anti-Semites since we are Semites.”
Almost all dictionary entries of “anti-Semitism” or “anti-Semites” define these terms as hostility or discrimination against Jews and Jews alone. Yes, some definitions do point out that the original meaning of Semite referred to linguistic groupings that included Hebrew, Arabic, Assyrian and a few other languages. However, those references relate much more to the etymology or root of the word Semite rather than to the popular definition.
According to various references, the term anti-Semite was coined in Germany in 1879 by a Wilhelm Marrih to refer to recurring anti-Jewish statements of his time and this was supposed to be a more scientific-sounding name than the one that was more commonly used, “Judenhass” or “Jew-hatred.” Most widely used dictionaries have picked up on that definition and define anti-Semitism in the same way...as hatred of Jews.
In addition to this conventional definition of anti-Semitism, the unabridged edition of Webster’s New International Dictionary that was originally published in 1961 and reprinted in 2002, gives a very controversial second and third definition of anti-Semitism. It defines the term as “opposition to Zionism” and “sympathy for the opponents of Israel”. This definition, by the way, is being fought by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee that has mounted a campaign to have this definition removed from Webster’s.
No matter what any dictionary or thesaurus states, the reality is that the standard popular definition of an anti-Semite is someone who hates the Jews. Ask anyone on the street in the United States or any other English-speaking country and they will give you that as the definition. So defining the situation controls it and watch closely the battle for the new definition of anti-Semitism as is listed in Webster’s New International.
In the United Jewish Communities Federations of North America’s website, Mitchell Bard states that it is a myth to say “Arabs cannot possibly be anti-Semitic as they are themselves Semites”. He goes on to say, “The claim that Arabs as ‘Semites’ cannot possibly be anti-Semitic is a semantic distortion that ignores the reality of Arab discrimination and hostility toward Jews. Arabs, like any other people, can indeed be anti-Semitic.”
So my Arab friends, you have lost the first battle before it even started and you will likely lose the battle against the second and third Webster’s definitions of anti-Semitism, a term that brings fear to the hearts of most.
Anti-Semitism in its original definition, hatred of the Jews, is despicable as is anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism or any other brand of racism. But, you see, if the other definitions of anti-Semitism that relate to Zionism and Israel are allowed to stand and become the popular definitions of anti-Semitism, we are likely to see many more crises like the recent Lebanese crisis.
No one should hate a whole people because they have hatred for one person from a particular group whether it be a Jew or a Muslim or an Arab. But neither should a country nor a person be allowed to take revenge on a whole people like the Lebanese because of hatred for a few people who happen to be Lebanese. Racism is racism however you apply it and no matter who controls the definition. So we should give them their definition of anti-Semitism but take away their ability to apply racist behavior against Arabs and Muslims in the process. Then and only then might we begin to have some control of a definition and the ramifications of actions taken in the battle to control the words and phrases of truly racist behavior.
