• dlatch@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Israelis doing whatever they can to make the word “antisemitic” lose all of its value.

    • agitatedpotato@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      At this point I can’t take it at face value unless I know who’s saying it. At least in this case I know it’s coming from a genocidal waste of human life.

    • Brokkr@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It already has lost its meaning. Semites are anyone who speak or spoke a semetic language. Arabic and Hebrew are both semetic languages. Palestinians and Israelis are both semites.

      • yetAnotherUser@feddit.de
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        9 months ago

        Yes, but the term antisemetic was coined by - well - antisemetic Germans who wanted a more scientifc term for “Jew hate” explicitly.

        It doesn’t matter that Arabs are semetic, the history of the term solely refers to hating Jews.

          • yetAnotherUser@feddit.de
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            9 months ago

            ???

            You know, you’re right. It doesn’t matter how words are used, only the etymology matters.

            That’s why it’s ok to refer to black people as negros. After all, “negro” is the Spanish word for “black”, so “negros” just means “blacks”. And the n-word is just an English version of negro after all.

              • yetAnotherUser@feddit.de
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                9 months ago

                What I am saying is:

                The meaning of words is defined by how they’re used. Antisemitic has never been used to refer to anything but hating Jews akin to how the n-word has been used as an insult instead of a neutral descriptor.

                You cannot use the n-word as a neutral descriptor, nor can you use the term antisemitism to describe hatred of non-Jewish ethnicities.

                • ShroOmeric@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  You just said that words are described by how people use them.

                  So I’ll use that word like any other the way I prefer, and by doing that I’ll shape its meaning.

                  See why it sounded dumb now?