It is important we understand the words we use. “Antisemitism” is nonspecific because Arabs are Semites, too. Yet, since the Holocaust we have primarily equated this term with anti-Jewish oppression.
Israel supporters invoke the term to decry resistance to their ever-expanding borders. But I, a white Jewish person, have certainly never been singled out and oppressed for my Semite blood because my white privilege has a lot more cultural power. So to me, antisemitism is a moot point.
I have seen the word used to taint any sort of justified resistance as “unacceptable” because since WWII we can all agree that “antisemitism is evil,” even if what we are talking about is “Semite on Semite violence.” Similar to the term “terrorism,” without needing to understand any sort of context (like the classic, “it’s complicated”), we invoke these terms to dehumanize a desperate group of people and justify their annihilation.
Words are powerful, and the Americans that frame this as the Israel-Hamas war are equating a super military power with a small group of militants that do not represent an entire displaced people. Even talking about the Israel-Gaza war erases the rest of Palestine from the picture, taking for granted all of the dispossession that had taken place before Hamas was even created.
It’s too easy for the United States and Israel to just shout “antisemitic terrorists” and bomb Palestine into submission like they have done so many times already and in so many other regions, as well. We need to ask ourselves, who does this violence serve? Because from where I’m standing, this is not at all about the oppression our grandmothers faced in WWII, it’s about innocent people being forcibly displaced today.
Jake Trimble, Salt Lake City
