WHO ARE THE SEMITES
WHAT IS ANTI-SEMITISM REALLY
Today’s press is full of talk of anti-Semitism. The U.S. Jewish community and Israel constantly blame anti-Semitism for nearly all of their problems. This begs the question of what Semitism and anti-Semitism really are. The Jewish segment of the American population constantly refers to anti-Semitism as an evil force aimed exclusively at Jews as a way of keeping them down and segmented as a target of restriction from the full rights of Americans.
This raises the question of what exactly a Semite is. The implication of the American and Israeli Jewish communities is that a Semite is exclusively a person of Jewish extraction. But Webster says Semites are persons of Jewish, Arab, Phoenician, and Akkadian extraction. In other words, all those who speak an Aramaic language such as Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Phoenician, and Maltese. This begs the question of whence these languages. If they share a common root, they must also share a common ancestor. Who might that be?
The Bible says it all started with Shem who was a son of Noah of Arc fame and the father of peoples of Asia who spoke the Semitic languages of Hebrew, Arabic, Phoenician, and Maltese. Abraham was descended from Terah and was the father of Ishmael through his wife’s handmaiden Hagar and later of Isaac through his wife Sarah. Ishmael later became the father of the Arabs while Isaac became the father of the Jews. So unfriendly as they are, the Jews and the Arabs are nevertheless brothers, a fact that undermines the Jewish contention that Jews are the only Semites and the only objects of discrimination.
For example when Columbia University seeks to halt student protests it inevitably calls for a halt to anti-Semitism which de facto means anti-Jewish activity. No one calls for a halt to anti-Arab demonstrations because no one thinks of Arabs as Semites. So demonstrations against anti-Semitic activity are held entirely in support of Jewish complaints as they are considered the only Semites. Abraham must be lamenting in Heaven this war between the descendants of his two sons especially since he knows that Isaac cheated to obtain his father’s blessing by wearing a hairy dressing on his arms that made his blind father think he was Ishmael, the rightful recipient of the blessing which, alas, could only be given once.
Today it is taken as a given that Jews are the only Semites and that any one who opposes them is anti-Semitic and must be carefully watched and subject to restraint. To do this watching and restraining the American Jewish leadership has created several very powerful lobbying organizations that have enormous influence in the American political world. The American Israel Public Affairs Action Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most powerful and perhaps even THE most powerful lobby groups in the United States.
To give an impression of the power and access of this lobby group, let me cite a personal experience I had with the Israeli lobby about five years ago. I was asked by the Israeli government to do a study of why Israel was not given a higher rating by the World Economic Forum in its annual assessment of the relative performance of the world’s economies. WEF was always ranking Israel at about number 25 while ranking countries like Singapore, Taiwan, and Ireland much higher. What gives, the Israeli government asked me to find out. They were sure the poor ranking for Israel was due to anti-Semitism on the part of the WEF, especially since WEF founder Klaus Schwab was German although living in Switzerland.
The results of my inquiry were fascinating. I undertook to compare Israel with Singapore, Taiwan, Ireland, and Finland. Singapore’s economic performance was far better than that of Israel. Was it anti-Semitism that was holding Israel back? Not at all. Singapore had and has a multi-cultural population. The dominant ethnicity was Chinese but there was and is a substantial presence of Malays and Indians. Prime Lee Kwan Yew was extremely sensitive to the need for peace and harmony among Singapore’s ethnic groups if Singapore was to be a success. So as an example of his policy, housing developments had to have the same share of ethnic groups as Singapore as whole. Equality, equality, and more equality was emphasized. The make up of the student bodies of schools had to be the same as that of the state of Singapore. Everyone had the same opportunities and burdens.
Taiwan was not Singapore, but it was not nearly as multi-ethnic as Singapore. The key observation was that there was a high degree of equality in Taiwan. Ireland was very similar to Taiwan. The main ethnic problem of the Irish was the British who maintained a foothold in Northern Ireland after freeing the rest of Ireland in 1921.
The comparison of all these examples to Israel was devasting. Palestinians in Israel do not have the rights of the citizens of Singapore, Taiwan, Ireland, or Finland. They are treated as a lower class than the Jews, somewhat like the Blacks in the U.S. prior to 1954 when the Supreme Court upheld desegregation in its ruling in the case of Brown vs. Board of Education. There has not yet been such a case in Israel and it is unlikely that there will be one in the foreseeable future. Alas.
In any case, America’s policy should be to show that the term anti-Semitism is a facade shielding Israel and global Jewry from facing the reality that the Jews are not the only Semites and that their further assertion of that view will only draw them deeper into the abyss.