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[W:32] Antisemitism, Zionism, and Semantic Shift

PeacefulWarrior said:
Zionist is a word with a meaning.

It doesnt care about your feelings.
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-True, however Meanings change, and how the term is used and by whom, can matter. I think thats the subject of the thread actually, yes.
 
zincwarrior said:
-True, however Meanings change, and how the term is used and by whom, can matter. I think thats the subject of the thread actually, yes.
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How ironic.
 
zincwarrior said:
Because they are anti-Semites. The moment one starts spouting "Zionist" this or "Zionist" that, is just below the surface, a rabid anti-Israeli.
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Lots of Jews, even Israeli jews, are anti zionist.

www.aljazeera.com

Israel’s ‘anti-Zionists’ brave police beatings, smears to demand end to war

Some have been jailed for refusing to serve in the armed forces while others face threats and harassment.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
 
NolanVoyd said:
Lots of Jews, even Israeli jews, are anti zionist.

www.aljazeera.com

Israel’s ‘anti-Zionists’ brave police beatings, smears to demand end to war

Some have been jailed for refusing to serve in the armed forces while others face threats and harassment.
www.aljazeera.com www.aljazeera.com
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The even more ironic thing is that many Zionists int he US are antisemites.

Some evangelicals in the US want all of the Jews to be in Israel, so the rapture can happen and God can send most of the Jews to hell.

Bibi prefers evangelical antisemites to the Jewish people protesting for a cease fire.
 
I think, to really understand Zionism in all of its iterations, it is useful to go back to the beginning. Zion is not a Hebrew word, but rather, designated a hill (mount) where the Canaanites (Jebusites) had a hill fortress. The city itself was not yet "Jerusalem", but uru-salim, again, a Canaanite reference to their god, Shalim. (Israelites referred to it as Beth-Shalem - the House of Shalem).

According Hebrew texts (Tanahk), Samuel 5:7, David conquered the fortress, and uru-salim. Historians place this conquest about 1000 BCE.

"The term Tzion came to designate the area of Davidic Jerusalem where the Jebusite fortress stood, and was used as well as synecdoche for the entire city of Jerusalem; and later, when Solomon's Temple was built on the adjacent Mount Moriah (which, as a result, came to be known as the Temple Mount), the meanings of the term Tzion were further extended by synecdoche to the additional meanings of the Temple itself, the hill upon which the Temple stood, the entire city of Jerusalem, the entire biblical Land of Israel, and "the World to Come", the Jewish understanding of the afterlife." Wikipedia

That history is important to understanding what "Zion" came to mean to the Jewish diaspora, how it came to be described in the texts, and how it is used by other traditions. It was the place that displaced Jews longed to return to: In Psalm 137, Zion (Jerusalem) is remembered from the perspective of the Babylonian Captivity. "[1] By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion." and for others it came to represent a "promised land" - later the afterlife. Zion and Jerusalem came to be used interchangeably throughout the Tanahk (and later the Christian Bible's Old Testament). Zion is mentioned 152 times in the Tanakh.

Those uses, and those references, established an understanding and meaning that was adopted and adapted to Zionism, as came into existence in the late 19th Century. It is what drove the movement to reclaim the ancient lands. Wikipedia contains at least a half-dozen different entries about different aspects of it. The period from the beginning of the 20th Century through the Second World War was a period of militant Zionism. See, e.g., TERROR OUT OF ZION - IRGUN ZVAI LEUMI, LEHI, AND THE PALESTINE UNDERGROUND, 1929-1949.

Many academics refer to the period after the creation of the modern State of Israel as "Post-Zionism" (as distinct from anti-Zionism), and the modern neo-Zionist movement the successor to the militants of the pre-partition era. "In a widely cited 1996 essay, sociologist Uri Ram used the term Neo-Zionism to describe a political and religious ideology that developed in Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War.[3]: 18 [4]: 67 [5]: 218  He considers it as an "exclusionary, nationalist, even racist, and antidemocratic political-cultural trend" in Israel[6] that evolved in parallel with, and in opposition to, the left-wing politics of Post-Zionism and Labor Zionism."

The conflict between the post-Zionists and neo-Zionists informs today's conflict in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, Likud (and more extremist parties), and, most especially, the settler movement. That conflict exists not only within Israel, but throughout the entire Jewish and international community.



​

 
Moderator's Warning:
Just a reminder to everyone, you are in the Loft. Please act accordingly.
 
samiam5211 said:
The even more ironic thing is that many Zionists int he US are antisemites.

Some evangelicals in the US want all of the Jews to be in Israel, so the rapture can happen and God can send most of the Jews to hell.
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That particular sentiment has ancient roots, which many people don't realize. Today's evangelical tradition is actually the descendant of the Crusaders. ("Onward Christian Soldiers!")

Crusaders are actually related to Zionists. Both viewed Jerusalem/Zion as "the holy land", as the aspirational center of their respective religions. That is why there are so many references to it in religious and political texts.


Being the center, it has been a magnet for both conquest (see Wikipedia, "Siege of Jerusalem" for a list) and pilgrimage. So, really, it is no surprise that it maintains a mythical status for various traditions - Jewish, Christian (Byzantine and Roman) and Muslim - and the concomitant center of so much conflict. Israel may control it now, but, if history is any guide, that is only a temporary condition.
 
I'm going to shift a little, back to the word "antisemitism". Recently (there is a thread on it), the House passed the "Antisemitism Awareness Act", which has engendered a great deal of controversy, particularly for its bald political purpose. That Bill, however, incorporates by reference a definition propounded by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. On its face, the definition is intended to be a "working" definition, not a legal one, but it is a good jumping-off point for discussion of how the term is used (and misused).

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

If that seems garbled and vague, that is because it is. As I said, it is expressly stated as a "working" and explicitly "non-legally binding" definition. Why?

I submit, because the term is not easily defined or understood and its meaning is in the process of changing - quite rapidly. Because of this polysemy, it is thrown around a lot, and for a remarkably broad bases. To clarify their understanding, the IHRA provided a list of "examples" which, unsurprisingly, are also controversial, contradictory and ill-defined:
  1. Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
  2. Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
  3. Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
  4. Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
  5. Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
  6. Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
  7. Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
  8. Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
  9. Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
  10. Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
  11. Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.
Like pornography, the meaning is hard to pin down, but we get "the gist".

It's not that we, collectively, don't know what "antisemitism" is, generally, it's that we can't delineate the edges of it, and it is at the edges that most conflicts occur.

An American going over the list will be struck by how many would constitute direct violations of "free speech" principles, e.g., "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."; "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis."; "Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel." Frankly, anyone reviewing it will be confused by the intentions of some of the examples. Some examples, do, however, go to the core of antisemitic tropes: Denial of the Holocaust, calling for the killing of Jews on religious grounds, making stereotypical allegations, and attributing the sins of individuals to the collective.

The problem, of course, goes back to the beginning - words are tools to convey meaning, intent. When they don't do that clearly, they are ineffective - even counterproductive. That is the realm the term antisemitism currently occupies. We get the central concept, but it is its application to various specifics that creates the friction. Many of the "examples", frankly are advocational, not definitional. That can get anyone into hot water, even unintentionally.
 
 
I'm a Zionist in the original sense of the term before it was used to stir division, I also do oppose Israeli settlers and of course terrorism by the IDF against Palestinian innocents (IMHO that's what's happening).

Good talk on words' meanings shifting. Worth reiterating the fact that Semitic peoples don't just include Jews. Shame some derailing occurred on the thread when it was quite thoughtful, but onwards and upwards.

I agree that the over-broad usage of the term antisemite is now problematic and causes more division than healing.
 
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