I found a new articles of use Asylum Granted to the Vietnamese Boat People

Vietnamese 'boat people' become Israeli

Kosovar Muslims arrive in Israel

I read an article not too long along that about 1,200 non-Jewish people a year petition for political asylum in Israel. How accurate that is I don't know for sure, nor do I know how many are accepted.

On the Sudanese issue, I did a bit more research and it several hundred Sudanese have been released to Kibbutzim pending disposition. The Khartoum regime is very hostile to Israel and the Israelis are attempting to determine if there are any terrorist sneaking in with the refugees.

more like incredulous at how llosely you define race, which is basically any group of people who want to be a race can be if they self identify themselves as a race.



If the disorder you have is genetics, but does not pertain to just jewish people, then it does not pertain to this debate or your claim of Jews being a race.



Really?? I never ever heard that Aborigines being racially "Black". Dark skinned, but not what most of the modern world thinks of as Black people. Tell me do they have short croppy hair, as well. There are Dark Skinned Indians whose complexion are darker than my own, but they are not considered Black either. So like I said to prove that Jews are a race you basically trying to break down any boundaries or limits on the term "race". In other words if you muddle the waters enough no one can see anything so they'll except anything.

When we talk about Blacks we are often talking about people who are descendant from Africa. However, unlike you very loose standard of what makes one a descendant seem to be much higher

Let's bring things into a realistic version of whatis being said here.

I am Black, but my wife is half Black and Half white.
My Wife's mother is White Her Father is Black

So that makes our children 3/4 Black and 1/4 white. But by Jewish thinking, since my wife's mother is white, my wife is white. And since my children were mothered by a white woman, they're white, though they are 3/4 Black.

To take this further if my Daughter chose to marry a Black man, though that kid would be 7/8 Black, but (s)he'd still be white. And if it was a daughter, by now only my grandaughter, were to have a child, my Great granddaughter, with a Black man that child would be 1/16 White, yet by Jewish standards, this child would be white. Because race is passed down through the mother, right??

And that's the absurdity I am dealing with here. Except here rather than 60 to 80 years, we're talking about 2000 years of assimilation. Now if it all played out in my scenario, I would agree that my Great Granddaughter is the descendent of France (My wife's mother is "Frenchie). But I wouldn't say hey she's French, even if she learned it in school... Because if she's 15/16 Black... She's Black.



No, I think that this is where I stop letting the wool get pulled over my eyes. I'm not saying Ashkenazim Jews can't be of Hebrew descent. However I am saying that they are too far removed to be considered part of the Hebrew race if such a race existed.

Hebrew people derived out of Canaan, which is basically the middle east. You don't look Middle eastern MOIF, you don't look Half middle-eastern. You don't look mixed at all. And neither do most Ashkenazim Jews. The Ashkenazim Jews are so far removed that hair, eye color, skin complexion takes more after caucasians that you swear they are not.

To say that the foremost way to be a jew is to be a descendant of a Hebrew is just... wrong. The middle east is mostly Muslim, not Jewish. Do you actually think there are more descendants in Europe of a middle eastern people(Hebrew) than there are in the middle east?!?!?!

Time after time in this debate I've been asked to deny simple logic.

And how many more Humans are descendants of some Hebrew?? How many Christian believe they are descendants of Hebrews?? They're not Jews. What about the Christian migration into Rome and Eurorpe?? Aren't they descendants of hebrews?

At any rate you are further proving, my case. If what it trakes to be a Jew is to be a descendant of a Hebrew(no one is saying how far removed) then Jews aren't a race. Because you classify yourself as a Jew, and you're not a Hebrew, maybe a descendant, but you're not middle eastern, are you??



Just because Hitler wanted to justify his own actions to a group of Humans, by saying "they're not one of us", doesn't make it so. And if such actions have put a permanent divide in between Ashkenazim Jews and their race, doesn't mean we should make up a race for them.

Christians were also persecuted. Protestants sought refuge in another country where they slaughtered off the natives. That didn't make the protestants a different race of people from the Catholics.

And even by Jewish doctrine it is your religion that made you a Jew. I already posted a link to that. Would you like a repost??




Oh come now, you can't be 50% Jew, 50% Arab, and 50% scandinavian... that would make you more of a man then one could ever hope to be.

Which is my point. Do you want to claim you would be 50% Scandinavian 25% Jew and 25% Arab?? Wow that would kind of be like saying that the Arab Jews aren't fully Jews right or aren't fully Arab??

Are arab Jews or African Jews only half Arab or only half Black?? Are they not as Jewish as their European counterparts??

Sure why not, but do you want a better definition of race? The second definition of race in my OED reads thus:



And the fifth definition reads thus




I never said it did either. I was explaining about my own perception of self.


What on Earth is 'racially black'?

Well so you've never heard an Australian refer to en Aborigini as a black? I can assure you they do, or rather did, in the not so distant PC past. There is nothing specifically African about being 'black'.


Well I am sorry but in my mind the 'absurdity' is your use of the words 'black' and 'white' to define race. These are not racial terms but simply the colour of people's skin.


Jewish 'doctrine'? What on Earth is that?


No, I don't want to claim anything. I've already told you that race is a redundent word, especially in a political debate and the sort of distinctions you are trying to make here are pointless.

I understand your distaste at being called a racist, but I'm afraid if you draw racial distinctions then you're going to be called a racist, whether you are or not.

166 political refugees is not a policy; it's political window dressing to publicly distract from the obvious chauvinism inherent in the nearly exclusive Jewish "right of return"(Talk about stark Orwellian phrasing) and the 100s of thousands of Palestinians removed and the over 400 towns taken over to make way for the new pc immigrants.

I don't get my characterization of the removal of Palestinians as ethnic cleansing from Arab or anti-Israeli forces but from Zionist chauvinists like Benny Morris and the new Israeli historians along with other objective outside observers.

One thing I'll say for Israel, they allow self-criticism. Too bad some are simply too immersed in extreme Zionist apologies to take advantage of an objective evaluation of Israeli history.


In this country it refers exclusively to people of African descent. Black Hindu Indians or black Fijians are not referred to as "black."


In America race is a common place term in making distinctions for sociological and political reasons and is part of general discourse. It is accepted by practically everyone including minorities as a matter of course in referring to principally people of white European ancestry, black African ancestry, far eastern Asian ancestry and American Indian ancestry. Go tell a member of La Raza that he/she is a racist. Jew in common parlance is generally not considered a racial term in my experience except among neoNazi types and the most extreme chauvinistic expressions of Zionism. For most I think "Jew" is more of a cultural-religious-political term depending on what is being emphasized.

What about the dark skinned immigrants from the Caribbean and through south America? They are referred to as 'black', too. 'Black' is a rather inclusive description and it fits a lot of completely unrelated people. Loosely, yes, Jamacians, Cubans, ect received their skin tones from Africa but that was a LONG time ago. Anyone who is black with relatives that have been around since before the civil war are likely a lot more white than they think...certainly more than the arbitrary "I'm 100 percent black" "my wife had a French mother so she is 50 percent black" description droop is throwing out here. Basically, IMO, we're left with a designation roughly as arbitrary as the Jewish one ostensibly is. Do they look black? If yes, they are black. If no, do they call themselves black and can they point to a person who looks black in their family? If yes, they are black ect.

We use the TLAR (that looks about right) "rule" to designate race, and the entire reason for such designations are because people are judged on their ethnicity/race/whatever. Are Jews judged and subject to persecution because of their ethnicity/race/whatever? Yes, and it is defined as 'racism' (there's one for you, Droop).

Edited to add: I realize I haven't answered the second question yet. Yes, I believe that a person can be against Israel's creation without having problems with Jews, but existence? I'm not sure about that. I don't see how anyone can argue that they have less of a right to exist now than most any other country, but if I had a time machine and were in charge of things back when Israel was founded, I would have likely not made this decision. On the flip side, a person can be an anti-Semite and simultaneously pro Israel as well. Nixon was, my father-in-law is, ect.

1. Should jews be classified as a race of people?
The term race is often prejudicial in use. Strictly speaking it should be used to define the descendants of a member of a nation existing in Palestine from the 6th century BC to the 1st century AD or someone of the . It is also used to describe someone of the faith of Judaism and of the cultural background of those peoples.

2. Can one be against Israel, whether that be creation or existence, without having any problems with Jews as a group of people?

Of course one can. Israel is a political entity, created as a state in the last 60 years. It's history since and before has been mired in controversy from all political view points. One can be anti-zionist without being anti-jew (or anti-semite as that phrase has now become to mean, sadly); the two are not inexorably linked. That is not to say though that those who are anti-zionist or not anti-semitic - some clearly are. Merely that you can be one without the other.

You're proving my point and don't even know it.



Many of them do have African roots and though in culture we re very different in race we are very much alike. Let's sa its been about 400 + years since slavery. IF two Africans were to mate that baby would be considered the same race as their parents. The collective sum of their parents to be more specific.

Lets say a slave owner has sex with slave and gets her pregnant. This baby is now half white/half black correct?? Now this child grows up with the slaves and mates with a slave that is all black and lets say that pattern continues over generations and generations up until day. The living (as of today) descendant of that first union is not 100% Black, but I guarantee he is calling him/herself Black. Because while they may be a descendant of a white man, it is so far back and diluteted that there really isn't much claim to it.

So even if it was a long time ago you can still look at most Blacks and see, they're Black.



I agree 100%. I mean I am so light skinned I am definately not 100% Black. But my feature are predominately Black. I've been told by my cousin that our Grandmother told her that we had some Chickahaw Indian in us.

Contrast that to the current debate. We are saying just the oppossite. Ashkenazim Jews are so far removed from any Middle Eastern descent that they have Pale Skin, Blonde hair, and Blues eyes. Yet they are claiming to be a race of people from the middle east.

Also add to that the fact that Judaism is a Religion. At that nmany people who were not Hebrew converted over to the religion. Could have been 500 years ago or 1000 or even 1500 or 2000.

In America, how many Blonde hair Blue eyed kids with two seemingly white parents would we call "BlacK" simply because he/she has a drop African blood. As a matter of fact:


Read this story from Oprah



Again, as a Human construct we do classif each other by race. Now why would we classify a descendant of Thomas Jefferson as Black?? Look at the link and you'll see racially they're not that dark. The reason why Is when speaking about race generally the the more of one race you are the less you claim to be another race. Someone half and half, usually says their half, some one one sixteenth of something and 15 parts another race will usually neglect mentioning the 16th portion. They definately not say they are the race of the 16 part.

Except for those here claiming Jews are a race. You guys are basically saying one hebrew ancestor(regardless of how far) or one to two generations after the conversion to judaism and Ashkenazim Jews can be a race of people who are middle eastern in origin. Though their feature show that they have a far greater percentage of Caucasian/european/EuroAsia/ White (whatever floats your boat) descent than middle eastern descent.

I mean really how many people here have met an Ashkenazim Jews, not all Jews, just Ashkenazim Jews?? How many look closer to middle eastern than to White people?? I haven't met any. I have co workers with Blonde Hair, I live in a country with them being politicians, actors, bankers, street kids. I look at Isral's list of Prime ministers, none of them look middle eastern.

It's one thing to say look at this guy he doesn't look middle eastern, because you are pointing out that not all middle easteners look alike. Or that some resmble whites. Fine. I can accept that.

But when you debate that a WHOLE group of people, such as Ashkenazim jews, are a race of people that were middle eastern in origin, and none of that group looks like they are from the middle east... you're trying too hard to pull an Okey-Doke, to which I must decline

You seem to be trying to disagree with me but in fact you are not. The term "black" refers to people of African ancestry, even light skinned ones, but does not include say dark people of 'American Indian ancestry or India Indian ancestry(Assuming in both cases no African blood is included) for instance. Do you disagree with me?


Absolutely not. There is inherently no region of racial origin for Jewish people as there is a region of racial origin for "black" people.


I am. In fact there are probably some anti-Zionists on this board who are Jewish as there are on many forums I have been on. That is they don't except Israel as a Zionist ie Jewish state. They believe admission policies should be free of cultural-religious bias and that Palestinian Muslims should enjoy the same full rights as Jewish citizens, including immigration rights.


Ah, now we can agree for a change. Jerry Falwell and a good part of the Christian Zionist movement are anti-Semitic. They think the Zionist Jews if they don't convert are going to hell but Israel should be supported because the Jews return to occupy the Holy Lands is a necessary prelude to ushering in the end times foretold in the Bible. Some friends.

Should Jews be classified as a race of people?

Pardon me if everyone already knows this, but I believe some basic background information is necessary to answer the question. Although still in flux, the Wikipedia page at Who is a Jew? contains some good info. I would like to issue a blanket apology in advance for the omissions and oversimplifications required for condensing this info into a relatively short space; but I do believe, in general, my treatment of the subject to be relatively fair.

Put simply, a race is merely a group of people with a common ancestor. Race can be as broadly-defined as "the human race" or as narrowly defined as a group of siblings and half-siblings who have a common parent. The common ancestor need not be a biological ancestor; adopted descendants can also become part of the race as a matter of law rather than genetics.

In the United States, the term "race" has been closely associated with skin color, originally under the assumption that people of a similar skin color must have a common ancestor, however accurate or inaccurate such an assumption might be. As a result, we tend to forget that the concept of race was around long before Columbus sailed the ocean blue, and long before we began to associate it primarily with skin color or biology.

Although Judaism is a belief system, it is more importantly the classic example of a race. According to Jewish tradition, there was a man named Judah (Yehuda), son of a man named Israel (formerly Jacob/Yakov). Israel was the son of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham, who was descended from Shem, son of Noah. The term "Jew" refers to Judah, the term Israelite refers to Israel/Jacob, and the term "Semite" refers to Shem. Each of these men define races such that the Jewish race is a subset of the Israelite race, and the Israelite race is a subset of the Semitic race.

According to Jewish tradition, Judah's descendents were given the area of modern-day Israel around Jerusalem. That land was also called Judah, or Judea. The term "Judaism" usually refers to the belief system of the people who descended from Judah and lived in Judea. Converts to Judaism from outside the race are "adopted" into the kingdom of Judah, so they become "legal" descendants of Judah (from a certain perspective), even though there may be no genetic connection to the common ancestor. To be more accurate, many Jewish people may also descend from Judah's youngest brother, Benjamin. The distinction between Judah and Israel came at a point when the people divided into a northern kingdom which kept the name "Israel", and a southern kingdom in Judea who followed the heir of "Judah", son of Israel. The ten tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel have been "lost" to the extent that modern Jews are almost entirely from the kingdom of Judah (the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Levi, and individuals remaining loyal to David's line).

According to both Judaism and Islam, Noah is the common ancestor of the current "human race". He had only three sons: Ham, Shem, and Japheth, whose descendants form the three major races (which have nothing to do with skin color). Ham's heir, Canaan, was the traditional ancestor of the people who occupied the modern-day land of Israel before the Israelites. Many generations later, Shem's heir, Abraham, had two sons: Isaac and Ishmael, by different mothers: Isaac by his Shemite (Semitic) half-sister Sarah, and Ishmael by her Canaanite servant Hagaar. Ishmael married a decendant of Ham/Canaan and rejected Isaac. Isaac's son Israel had a slightly older twin brother, Esau. Israel stole Esau's birthright, so Esau rebelled and married a Canaanite (Hamitic) woman. Arabic muslims claim descendancy from Ishmael (Ishmaelites), Esau (Edomites), and Ham (Canaanites), while the Jewish people claim descendancy from their younger brothers Isaac, Israel, and Shem. (Note: the birth order of some of these "patriarchs" are disputed: primarily whether Ham or Shem was eldest).

Here, Islamic and Jewish traditions diverge. In Jewish tradition, the race of the mother, not the father, determines the birth race of her offspring, so none of Esau's or Ishmael's children were Semitic by birth because their mothers were Canaanites and their fathers refused fielty to the heirs of Shem. However, according to most Arabic tradition, race is determined by the race of the father, and the eldest sons inherit the entire wealth and status of their fathers. According to Islam, the elder brothers Ishmael and Esau were the true heirs of Abraham, and by extension, also of Shem. So, by Jewish reckoning, Arabs are Canaanites but not Semites, while by Islamic reckoning, Arabs and Jews are both Semitic.

The term "anti-Semitism" arises from the Jewish perspective that only the Jewish people are legal descendants of Shem, while everyone else is either of the Japhethite or Hamite/Canaanite races. Jewish tradition claims that in Noah's blessing of Shem as his heir, Noah cursed the descendants of Canaan to be continually jealous of Shem and at odds with his descendants. In the blessing, Noah said the descendants of Japheth would side with Shem's descendants against the descendants of Ham and Canaan. Thus, nations who tend to side with the Jewish people are considered Japhethites; nations who tend to side against the Jewish people are considered Canaanites (or Hamitic); and the Jewish people themselves are the only true Semites. By such an interpretation, the only way to be anti-Semitic is to oppose the Jewish people.

Confusion arises because linguists, historians, and geneticists tend to side with the Islamic interpretation that the descendants of Ishmael and Esau should be considered both Semitic and Hamitic. However, it really boils down to a matter of different cultural perspectives on the same basic story, resulting in a situation where "Semitic" commonly refers to Jews, Arabs, and various others of middle-eastern descent, while "anti-Semitic" commonly refers only to Jewish people.

To complete the thought from a certain Islamic perspective, Arabs (Canaanites, Ishmaelites, Edomites, and others) are the true heirs of G-d's blessings any way you look at it, while Jews are usurpers who modified holy scripture to favor themselves, and have thus angered Allah through blasphemy. From such a perspective, Christians anger Allah by worshipping Jesus as if he were Allah himself instead of a mere human like all other prophets. From a Sunni (about 800 million) perspective, Shiites (about 100 million) anger Allah by worshipping Ali's caliphs (Imams) as if they were divinely inspired, and by rejecting Abu's caliphates. Moderate muslims tend to regard all Muslims, Jews, Christians, and some others as "people of the book" who may have different beliefs, but are spiritually compatible based on submission to scriptural teachings. So-called "Islamists", whom I prefer to call Wahhabis (somewhat inaccurately), take a much harder line by claiming those who disagree with al-Wahhab's fundamentalist interpretation are infidels who must either convert or die, as supported by various passages in the Qur'an and the conquests of Muhammad himself. Usama bin Laden is Sunni, not technically Wahhabi, but Wahhabis don't call themselves Wahhabi anyway, so the simmilarities betwen the teachings of al-Wahhab and bin Ladin are my basis for labelling similar "Islamists" as Wahhabis.

Can one be against Israel, whether that be creation or existence, without having any problems with Jews as a group of people?

If Americans and Europeans can disagree with the government of the United States without hating all Americans, then we can certainly oppose various actions of the government of Israel without necessarily opposing the people of Israel (the land or the man). Jewish people may disagree with one another over whether G-d still intends them to have political control over the Holy Land, the Temple Mount, and Mt. Zion (ergo, Zionism). If such disagreements are allowed among the Jewish people themselves, then there should be no shame among gentiles for forming such opinions, too.

However, one cannot wish an ill fate for the Jewish people without being anti-Semitic. Today, those who would support taking the land of Israel away from the Israeli government would seem to be wishing an ill fate for the Jewish people living there, and could thus be considered antisemitic to at least some degree. The question of whether or not the state of Israel should exist under Jewish rule was settled half a century ago; Israel exists, whether or not anyone wishes it did, and the only way to change that is to overthrow more than a half-century of modern history, all debates over ancient history aside.

Are the Israeli and Palestinian people capable of reaching a peaceful compromise? I have to believe many of them are; but it currently seems that enough of them are not to raise significant obstacles. Any stable Palestinian government would actively oppose militant extremists among them; but if the Palestinian government won't police itself, then why should we be so surprised when Israel steps in to police it as a matter of self-preservation?

Have the Israelis treated Palestinians fairly or harshly? The Palestinians have had difficulty providing stable self-government without massacring innocent Israelis. It is difficult to fault Israel for executing dozens of suspected terrorists in response to massacres of hundreds of innocent Israelis, but how can anyone expect the violence to end if neither side can stop killing? Recent unilateral withdrawals seemed to be a promising overture, but it doesn't seem to be working. Worse, the conditions under which many Palestinians are forced to live have historically led to revolution everywhere else, so why not in Palestine? It is not fair to deprive Israel of a state, and it is not fair to deprive Palestine of a state; yet their governments have difficulty sharing the land peacefully. It is a troubling cycle of violence which I doubt can be peacefully or fairly resolved.

As much as I have studied the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I have long ago given up on trying to understand it or resolve it. I hope others have a more optimistic outlook than I.

First let me congratulate you, Seamus: your post brought a lot of clarity to this issue. My only contention, would be that you can wish for generally positive developments that would be disadvantageous for a particular race with out being racist; for example, you can wish for the Japanese to lose World War II without being anti-Japanese. Or, within limits, you can wish for stronger immigration controls while maintaining tolerance towards various immigrant groups. Or, again within limits, if you believe Israel's Middle Eastern presence does the world more harm than good, then you can wish for the Jews to maybe scale back Israel's borders (something that would be disadvantageous for the Jews, but (dependent on a different argument) the right moral choice).

I don't want to sound like I'm leaking an opinion on Middle Eastern politics into an abstract, moral argument. But I think the underlying issue to this debate is not *can* you speak against Israel without being anti-semetic-- I'm sure you can. You can criticize the United States for its unjust 1848 war against Mexico and call for the annexing of Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona without being racist against Americans. (Thoreau did it.) I just think the issue is how do you express sentiment calling for the elimination or reduction of the Israeli state without voicing ill-will towards Israeli's themselves? And would the so-called elimination of Israel be such a drastically disadvantageous development for Israeli's so as to outweigh the overall good? That's the underlying question, and my personal answer is yes. That would be terrible.

I am in general agreement that these sentiments are not outrageously antisemitic, so my original post may have been inartfully worded. However, if an underlying assumption is that no Jewish-led government in Israel could possibly be worthy or capable of self-government, then shades of antisemitism could be creeping in... but now we're talking about the unexpressed inner workings of the mind; a wooly subject.

One who wishes the Jewish people no harm and wouldn't mind sharing a meal with "them" is probably not antisemitic by a lot of metrics; but that's a fairly low bar which still allows for enough prejudice to be worthy of some concern. It falls short of considering people individually on their own strengths and weaknesses without regard for what we assume someone "might" be like based on stereotypes. So maybe there is a spectrum of prejudice rather than a Boolean litmus test; if so, political positions resulting in seemingly inescapable harm to a group of people might fall somewhat lower than all-out hatred on that scale, but I can certainly see why some might consider such political positions alarmingly antisemitic.

If the general abstraction is whether it is racist to promote a political position that would be devastating for the people of a particular race, then we might can get some insight from other questions in that category. Is inherently racist to oppose Affirmative Action quotas in favor of merit-only? Is it inherently racist to support school vouchers? Is it inherently racist to ignore race as a factor in college admissions? Is it inherently racist to support better border security in wartime? The thing about all of these questions is that none of them is likely to result in death or physical injury to the offended race, whereas with the dissolution of Israel, death and injury have a very high likelihood. If any of those other situations imply racism, then supporting the overthrow of Israel would be even more racist, wouldn't it?


I am in agreement with these questions and answers. I suppose if one supported the elimination or reduction of the Israeli state because they genuinely believed Israel was doing the Jewish people more harm than good, then such a position could simultaneously express both pro-Jewish and anti-Israeli sentiments. But to me, such discussions are best left as an internal debate for the Jewish and Israeli people to decide. It is difficult to imagine how the dissolution of Israel could happen without massive persecution of the Jewish people living there on a scale more devastating than the current plight of oppressed Palestinians. The situation is bad, but I'd rather see it go from bad to good than from bad to worse.

Terrible, indeed.

Skin color is just one defining characteristic. Things like hair, facial features and body build are also generally factored in. A Negro and a Hindu may have similar skin color but not be classified as the same race.



Interesting mythical history but I doubt many of the Jewish leaders take this seriously as being historically factual. The founder of Zionism Theodore Herzl, a secularist, certainly didn't.


I've never heard of any Jews who claimed that Arabs were not Semites.


I thought Semite originally referenced a language group.



What's your point? There are Israeli Jews who want to change Israel's Zionist character to a nonZionist one. Does that make them anti-Semitic?


Writing that whole paragraph and blaming the Palestinian Authority while not mentioning that the Palestinians live in an illegally occupied colony policed harshly by the Israelis is revealing.


I like your sense of equity. One would never know who invaded who, who ethnically cleansed who, who occupies who, or who has the overwhelming power and who repeatedly refused to honor UN Res. 242. That's one thing that makes resolution so difficult. Partisan advocacy parading as even handed equity.


If I was trying to make an apple look like a lemon I would be flummoxed too. It's really not that hard but there has to be a partner for peace and the Israeli side has consistently been more interested in expanding the Settlements than pulling back to the 1967 truce line as part of negotiated peace agreement.

Please note that I said "closely associated with", not "entirely defined by."


Regardless of whether anyone believes it (the story), this is the source of the term "semite". The word would not otherwise exist. Romulus is a myth, but that doesn't mean the Roman Empire never existed. Athena is a myth, but the city still exists. What is historically factual is that whether or not these stories are true, many generations of the Jewish people believed them, used them to self-identify as a race, and from them, spread the concept of race to western civilization.


Try meeting more Jewish people, and maybe click on the links.


No, "Semitic" originally referenced the heirs of Shem's blessing by Noah. Linguists borrowed the term, but did not originate it. Linguists took the Islamic perspective on the term "Semitic", but the term "antisemitic" was coined from a Jewish perspective, not a linguistic perspective.


Please read the paragraph before the one you quoted:



What is even more revealing is that you seem to have skimmed over what you assumed I had not written:

Israel is oppressing Palestine, but not in a vacuum-- in response to Palestinian terrorism. If the terrorism would stop, the oppression would stop. Others might say that if the oppression would stop, the terrorism would stop, but my own opinion is that its has been tried and has failed, so the terrorism must stop first.

Many of the problems Palestinians experience today, wouldn't you agree, extend from the fact that they continue to elect terrorists as government leaders? If Palestinian voters would elect a government of law-and-order professionals who could keep the terrorists at bay, Israel could provide stability without oppression, and the land would have a comfortable peace. Yes, in my own opinion, Israel has taken actions that seem extreme, but perhaps not any more extreme than the situation requires... as I said, debating that issue does not make anybody antisemitic. Pretending that Israel has been unprovoked, however, tends to make me wonder...



Although we are getting a little off-topic, I'll address a couple of these, as I have been accused of inequitable partisanship in this thread, but if we want to discuss many of these issues unrelated to antisemitism in more detail, we should probably move to another topic, if I understand the AD rules correctly.

I agree that Israel should abide by UNSC 242, but it applies as much to Israel's neighbors as to Israel, and Syria (among others) is refusing to accept it. Although I think Israel's position on UNSC 242 falls within the realm of legitimacy, I would personally prefer Israel to be somewhat more magnanimous. I'd like to see North and South Korea stand down, too, but it's not going to happen any time soon. UNSC 242, as clarified in later documents, does not call for Israel to immediately surrender all armed conflicts, but to negotiate a peace and return to its pre-1967 borders. Whether or not Israel is living up to that requirement is debatable, but Israel does defend its position as described here.

"Who invaded who?" That history goes back a long way, and more often than not, both the Israelis and Palestinians were innocent bystanders while various empires fought for control of the region. Sure, the latest government was set up by the side that won the last major war, but that's just the nature of history; it could be said of almost every country on earth.

"Who occupies who?" Israel is "occupying" Palestine in the same way that the United States is "occupying" America. US culture was certainly not the first one here. The land was wrested from the grip of an aboriginal people who would have preferred to keep it. So do you support handing the government of America over to the Council of Tribal Nations, or the current situation that reserves land within the US for tribal self-government? Is either solution perfect? Of course not, but the current situation can be improved within the system we have, so it works. The problem in Israel is that the current situation doesn't work, at least not for the Palestinians. It has to be reworked and improved. There is a good plan that could end the oppression with the end of terrorism, but the terrorism has not been controlled. So, yes, I believe Palestine needs to clean up its act more than Israel does. If that makes me partisan, I'm partisan.

"Who ethnically cleansed who?" Now, there's some juicy bait. Should I itemize how much more often Israel's Jewish people have been victims of genocide, particularly at the hands of the Ottoman Turks in the early days, so that I can be more easily identified as a "Jew sympathizer"? Fine. I sympathize with the peaceful people among the Jewish population, and also with the peaceful people among the Palestinians. Now, I take the bait. Most of the empires that conquered the land of Israel tried to enslave or exterminate the Jewish people, which is why the Jewish population in Israel was so sparse by the 1950's. There is no proof of methodical, indiscriminate killing of Palestinian noncombatants by Israel beyond the kind of horrific "collateral damage" that always happens in armed conflicts. Making accusations of recent genocide without any evidence is, at best, alarming.


Well, that lemon is starting to look a lot like an apple, but I won't be fooled: it's still sour and yellow. I understand how a lot of people might oppose the course Israel has taken, but Israel has unilaterally withdrawn settlements lately, and Palestinian terrorism continues, with a heavy hand being one of the few options to control it. How can it be so easy to write off Palestinian terrorism as if it doesn't exist, then blame Israel for reacting to it? Israel's reactions might be over-reaching, granted, but without resisting terrorism, how could the nation continue to exist? Should the US also declare a moritorium on resisting terrorists, and elect Osama bin Ladin for President in 2008? Of course not.

Two wrongs don't make a right, so we can criticize the government of Israel as much as we want, and we can beseech it to take the first step in implementing peace. But in the process, we should be careful not to pardon antisemitic terrorists and adopt their hatred of the Jewish people if we don't want others to consider us antisemitic, too. Just saying.

As to the first, the Jews themselves believe that Jewishness is an ethnic distiction, and I see no reason to disagree. As pointed out by others here, there is some recent genetic evidence in support of that.

As to the second, of course it is possible to oppose the Jewish occupation and government of Palestine, even vehemently and utterly (as I do), and not bear irrational predjudice against Jews. It is, however, very difficult to argue strongly against that occupation and government without being accused of this particular form of racism by Zionists. I find this particularly ironic, since the Zionist claim to Palestine is, inherently, a racial claim; and the principle of the Zionist state is, inherently, a racial principle.

Personally I do not distinguish between government founded on racial principles and racism itself, but that, perhaps, is a topic for another thread. I do know that I would not wish to live under a government founded on racial principles, even if I were a member of the most favored race.

Seamus,



Can you please point to a use of the term semitic that predates Eichhorn?

In Hebrew, the term is transliterated as "Shemesh" or "Shimishiy" and more literally translates to English as "sons (or descenants) of Shem". Variants of it appear in the Hebrew Bible in many places, many of which you can find through links from here.

Although Eichhorn claimed in 1795 to have originated the phrase "Semitic language" in 1781 (with Schlözer?), he was predated in historical linguistics by Leibniz in 1710, Gatterer in 1771, Schlözer in 1781 and 1771 (assuming "the language of the Semites" is similar enough to "Semitic language" to count). According to Baasten (2003), these are instances of a "new usage" specific to historical linguistics, and Leibniz was not the first to use the term. Others had also borrowed it from several translations of the Hebrew Bible; Eichhorn merely popularized it in some circles.

Reference: Martin F.J. Baasten, "A Note on the History of 'Semitic'" in: M.F.J. Baasten & W.Th. van Peursen (ed.), Hamlet on a Hill. Semitic and Greek Studies Presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 118; Leuven: Peeters, 2003) 57-72.

Although the full Oxford dictionary is not freely accessible online, note the blurb from askoxford.com: "ORIGIN from Greek Sem 'Shem', son of Noah in the Bible, from whom these people are traditionally descended."

The common ancestors of those people in the Jewish ethnic group came from the middle east. Their common ancestors did not come from Europe. Period. Genetic evidence proves that, linguistic evidence proves that, history proves that, it's not up for discussion.

Let's say 100,000 black Africans move from Uganda to Sweden. They never intermarry with the Swedes but live in Sweden for 1000 years. What ethnic/racial group are they? Are their common ancestors still from Uganda?

That could have happened but it didn't. Jews were an oppressed people, nobody would want to practice Judaism since there was widespread discrimination against Jews. People in the United States today convert to Judaism but in the middle ages it never happened. Think about it, if a Christian in the middle ages converted to Judaism, they'd be burnt at the stake along with the all the Jews they knew. That's a very good disincentive towards conversion to Judaism.

When I look at Israel's prime ministers, they look Jewish to me. David Ben-Gurion doesn't look Polish, he looks Jewish.

Period...huh??

Genetic Evidence...
Which Genetic evidence do you refer to??

Linguistic Evidence...
Isn't Yiddish a slavic language??

History proves it....
What doe s Ashkenazim Jew mean?? Oh that's right "Jew of German rite" or something like that.

Oh and it's very much up for discussion, we're on page 6



Definately the same racial group... depends who we define ethnic group, but possibly... obviously the culture of the Africans who moved would be completely different than that of those who stayed.

But now, once again you are talking my points up not yours. How did the Ashkenazim Jews become so fair skinned?? how come many of them have lighter eyes.... blue, green. Do you think that 1000 years in a country is going to change their skin color?? Why does the Ashkenazim Jew look so different from the indigenous people of the middle east.

I mean white people in America still look white, they haven't started morphing into a people that look like Native Americans. That's like 500 years.



Then explain the Khazar Kingdom



Here scroll down a little and look at the younger version of Young Ben-Gurion

And while you're at it... why don't we all go look at the extensive list of All Israeli Prime Minister's Which one of them look middle eastern??

I've known plenty of Jews but lets attempt this angle, try focusing on standard modern usage as in Webster's dictionary. Semite: a member of any of a group of peoples of southwestern Asia chiefly represented now by the Jews and Arabs but in ancient times by the Babylonians, Assyrians, Aramaeans, Caananites and Phoenecians.

That's the world I and most people live in, not some esoteric Biblical etymology.


That is complete and utter nonsense. The terrorism came late in the game after the 1967 seizure and the building of the Settlements. The Israelis had aggressive expansionist agenda well before any Palestinian went the suicide route. You are engaging in shameless advocacy and historical invention, not honest analysis.


More of the same made up history. If the Palestinians would just behave everything would be cool. The historical evidence shows otherwise as I already stated. And your little strawman anti-Semitic shot is noted. When you occupy others illegally eventually they are going to respond. But in your convenient little world that is uncalled for provocation. Cute.



You are wrong. Syria and the surrounding Arab states and the PLO did accept it under the 2002 Saudi proposal. Israel was the hold out.



What a bunch of diversionary gobbledegook. The Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their places of residence by the Israelis, more than 700,000 of them. Can't you at least be honest about that?


Because the Europeans did what they did to the Indians then the Israelis have a right to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians and we should be financing it? Is that your argument? The next thing is you are going to be justifying the holocaust. Don't you think maybe the rules have changed in the last 400 years?


I think I'm on to your game. Anything that was ever done to Jews no matter how far back in the past it is all right for some Zionists to do to the Palestinians. Most of the Jews I know would be revolted by your ugly value system


From Gaza where it was too expensive to maintain and the Israeli government has turned around and expanded Settlements in the West Bank where it is more cost effective to keep their colonial expansion going.


On Palestinian occupied land terrorism continues from both sides with the kill ratio being heavily in favor of the Israelis. But of course the Palestinians have no rights and if they try to assert them they are terrorists in your world.


In Israel and America the term anti-Semitism is rightly restricted to Jews because of it's European origin. Please spare me the Biblical etymology. I'm talking about its source in modern standard usage. In North Africa however we are dealing with Semites of Muslim and Christian origin and in that regard I think it is fair to say the principal anti-Semites are in Israel and America and among the many who applaud Israeli colonization of Palestinian territory.

Dingo, the post I wrote is not well-suited to quoting out-of-context. You seem to have keyed in on the parts you don't like and then criticize them as if I hadn't already addressed the other viewpoints elsewhere in the post. I will again draw your attention to the parts you seem to have missed as a matter of self-defense, but I doubt I will respond again in this thread to avoid excessive repetition and getting off-topic.


...

This is precisely what I have been addressing quite directly, but this topic was clearly about the confusion between Semitism and anti-Semitism, and the answer is in where the words come from (etymology), so I discussed it. Earlier, I wrote:
and later...
and the definitions of anti-Semitism from post #20 by loreng59:

Note that the dictionaries define antisemitism from the Jewish perspective and Semitism from the Islamic perspective. The link I suggested you click on to elucidate the concept of maternal race propagation is right here, whose summary statement is:
The article goes into great length about the exact nature of matrilineal descent defining the Jewish race, and which groups differ and how they differ, far too detailed for me to requote here. I have clearly described why matrilinealism results in a narrower set of people considered Semites under Jewish tradition than under Islamic tradition, and by extension, historical linguistics. I have sited my sources, and you can clearly see the results in the dictionary definitions.

Ignoring etymology might be convenient for those who prefer to deny the Jewish people constitute a race, but it's not intellectually rigorous. The original post to this topic expressed the natural confusion about the conflicting definitions between Semitic and anti-Semitic, and since I happened to have studied that myself, I offered the answer, complete with tons of links. Apparently, I haven't made myself clear enough, but if we have to play by the rules that the origins of words are unimportant, then there is no way to resolve the conflict between the common usages of Semitic and anti-Semitic, so all dictionaries might as well be firewood for as much good as they'll do us, and we should go back to communicating in grunts we make up ourselves without any inconvenient historical baggage.


Oh, really?! I believe to the dispassionate reader it will be clear that, although I tend to believe the Palestinians must stop terrorism first (you're not condoning terrorism, are you?), I certainly do not give the Israelis a free ride, and have expressed the opinion that I believe it could be better if they would "show some restraint" as certain political figures have expressed in recent months. I certainly do not condone all the actions of the Israeli government, and I have never said so. Impuning my motives when you really have absolutely no way to know what they are is the sign of a weak argument, isn't it?

And by the way, if 1948 is where some of us are asserting everything went haywire, even if the Palesitinians had been completely docile until 1967, that would have been about midway through the game, not late in the game. By 2008, 1967 will have become early in "the game". It is only by taking a longer view on history that 1967 becomes "late in the game".

First of all, you may have stated your perspective on history, but you have cited no sources, while I have posted copious links. Secondly, are we both speaking in English? I have now cut-and-pasted the following quotation from the original posting twice:
Why is my position so difficult to understand? Both sides have done horrible things, but, in my opinion, the horrible things the Palestinians are doing are worse than the horrible things the Israelis are doing.


If you want me to believe Israelis killed 700,000 peaceful men, women, and children, then prove it. Cite sources. Give evidence. If you consider race-based relocation ethnic cleansing, you're using a different definition than I. I call that oppression, and I have referred to it all along. And, by the way, I have been honest all along. No need to call me a liar just because I slightly disagree with you.


I am saying we have to deal with the situations we have as they are, not try to undo history without regard to the here and now because mistakes might have been made in the distant past. The next thing I'm going to do is justify the holocaust? Puh-leez. I think it's pretty clear which of us is closer to that side of the argument, but it leads perfectly into the little trap...

And the trap is sprung. The bait was very juicy, though. We all saw it coming a mile away, and I can't say I was disappointed. My "game" was to let the casual reader know that Dingo had set me up for the classic "you can't mention the holocaust in debates over the Israeli treatment of Palestinians or I'll call you a Nazi" trap. I mainly just wanted to see if he would really spring it. Kudos for finding a way to do it without using the term "Nazi". Sorry, but that trap's got no teeth, because Dingo asked the question the wrong way. Asking "Who ethnically cleansed who?" allows me to discuss the holocaust naturally without being the one who brought up genocide. Next time, wait for the opponent to bring it up a little more naturally, and it just might work. Mmm. Bait, yummy.

Now, back to the issue; of course, two wrongs don't make a right. Genocide against one race obviously does not justify genocide against another. "Two wrongs don't make a right", as I posted earlier. You've picked the wrong sparring partner. I know many self-described Zionists (and I only use that term for the self-described) who might love to do this little dance, but I'm not among them. I don't believe Israel is blameless, but I'm not going to give terrorism a pass, either. I cannot be reasonably expected to defend positions with which I largely disagree. I'm not a lawyer.

There are ways to assert rights that do not require continual bloody massacres of innocents. I would be vehemently opposed to Israel's policies if the violence were truly one-sided, and I believe American foreign policy would be, too. Whether or not it would have been prior to 1967 is largely irrelevant.

As long as a significant number of Palestinians are murdering innocent men, women, and children, they should not expect the same kind of sympathy from Americans that they would get if they were making a real attempt at peace. Even if they were limiting themselves to strategic military targets with a minor amount of horrific "collateral damage", there could be some room for sympathy toward an oppressed people fighting for freedom. As it is, there's a bunch of indiscriminate murdering primarily on one side of the fight. Pardon me for being outraged. I'm human.

We have moved well away from the debate topic of this thread, so if we want to continue debating who is right and wrong in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, that's a different topic, one, as I have stated, I don't really care to debate because I don't thing either side is doing the right thing; what we're debating in this topic is whether Jews are a race, and whether opposing the actions of the Israeli government would make one racist/anti-Semitic. I may respond again to on-topic discussion, but I don't intend to continue debating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict further in this thread, so feel free to have the last word.