In the well of understanding

In the well of understanding

Friday, July 11, 2008

Am I Not A Semite Too?

While engaged in my usual reading of political and cultural goings-on this week, I came across an interesting article in The Nation. The subject of the article - "Warriors for Zion - in California" by an editor of the periodical, Jon Weiner - dealt with allegations by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) that the administration and faculty of the University of California at Irvine had failed to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic remarks and offensive acts. The piece goes a long way to disprove any concerted effort by any party to misuse, terrorize or subject to ritual condescension, collegians of Hebrew ancestry and, in turn, demonstrates the rather extremist position of ZOA, who ubiquitously indict any - Jews and Goyim alike - who do not pledge slavish devotion to the Israeli state and label them without reserve as "anti-Semitic". After I finished digesting the article, I could not help but ask myself do these people even know the meaning of the word? Are they aware of who the Semites are?

True, the term anti-Semitic was brought into being by uber-nationalist journalist and critic Wilhelm Marr in his polemic against Jews and their supposed degradation of German civilization. For Marr, all of the ills of German society could be laid at the door of ethnic distinction; Jews could never be assimilated as blood-in-the-bone Deutschlanders. And they were with celerity, in his opinion, laying waste to what had once been a noble and ancient kingdom. The problem was irreducible beyond the barrier of race.

If we fast forward to our age, the institutions of the Jewish state similarly have decreed that the plight of the Palestinians is circumscribed by ethnic and cultural derivation. Consider that Palestinians who are citizens of Israel are not allowed to rebuild areas or expand to the erstwhile habitations of their forebears; yet Jewish expansion is encouraged in these same places. How different is this than the pogroms which the Jews once languished in? Never mind mentioning the strife and ravages which are part and parcel of life in the West Bank.

There is a germ in all of this which is rarely voiced: Semitic refers to Arabic peoples as equanimously as it does to Jews. The eponymous nature of the word stems from the Greek variation of the name of a son of Noah - Shem. In Biblical tradition the Hebrews applied it to all of those nearby who approximated language and norms identifying them as having a common ancestry; and ethnographically it was linked with those groups belonging to a root family of languages (i.e., Afro-Asiatic, in this case).

So when we speak of Semitic peoples, we cannot escape being all-inclusive, and by logical extension anti-Semitism applies to vituperative commentary and acts towards Arabs as well. The Middle East is truly a conflict featuring family members, cousins, unable to see that beneath the veil of violence the blood of the other is just as precious and initiates from the same wellspring.

Note:
[As complexity is part of human evolution, certain groups - such as the Amorites and the Caananites - though not, according to Hebraic tradition at least, the children of Shem spoke languages which belong to the Semitic category. While the Lydians and the Elamites, marked as the seed of Shem also, used tongues not related to Semitic branch.]

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