The linguistic contortions used by supporters of Israel to accuse their critics of antisemitism are truly incredible.
Logic Broad Jump
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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The basic, two-pronged leap of logic is that 1) Palestinians, included as semites at the coining of the term, are deemed no longer semites, solely at the propagandistic convenience of the remaining, self-proclaimed “exclusive” semites and
2) the institution of a country’s government is identical to and inseparable from one (of more than one, extant) cultural/religious group of that country.
Several times a week, a http://www.foxnews.com article runs with the banner “Antisemitism exposed”. Invariably the article describes a situation where someone is criticizing Israel’s behavior in the war. Very rarely does such an article contain mention of an actual act of anti-Judaism.
1. The term ‘antisemitism’ was coined in the 19th century, and the person coining the word wrote that he knew that the Semites include all descendants of Shem, one of Noah’s sons, but he meant the term as only applying to Jews.
2. I thought the Zionists were all those who want all the world’s Jews in what used to be the British Mandate of Palestine, so the overwhelming majority of Zionists are Christians, not Jews, but Wikipedia says a Zionist must be Jewish. Christians who want all the Jews in the world to go to what used to be the British Mandate are called ‘restorationists’.
3. Israel goes from the river to the wadi, and the river is the Euphrates (it’s not clear where the wadi is, probably somewhere in the Sinai).