No, just opposing Israel isn't enough. A telling feature would, however, be building skyscrapers of logic against Israel's actions, painting them as the 'bad guy', while doing one's best to ignore as much of the provocation and complexity of the issue as possible. I think it is featured nicely in perspectives like, say, that 600+ Lebanese have been killed simply because of a couple of soldiers being kidnapped, or the 1982 invasion being only because of an assassination attempt.

I think people consider it to be anti-semitic because such a perspective inflates the losses of those fighting Israel, while practically ignoring the horrors that Israel has dealt with. Such a perspective almost always inflates the perceived sins of Israel and usually fails to mention those on the poor, downtrodden terrorist side. Such people really try to feel what terrorists have had to live with in order to "understand" them, while dismissing Israeli motivation as land-grabbing and religious zealotry.

Your teacher was wrong, by the way. Nice is a word unto itself, not just a bare synonym for those other words. All she was doing was forcing you to use other words in place of a word that might have been the perfect word. Sometimes antisemitism is the perfect word, even if the antisemite doesn't realize it.

Are you one? I have no idea how you deal with Jews in any other way. You don't seem to me to be the kind of person that would hate your neighbor because they are a jew. I can't read your perspectives on Israel, though, and not see that you have to blind yourself to half the issue to make your bleeding-heart points about terrorists and the populations that support them.

From your writings I would not call YOU a Jew hater, you have a point of view that you back up rationally, even if I totally disagree with it, I would not go that far as to brand you an anti-Semite.

Thanks for your contributions but I don't really want this to turn into a discussion of my beliefs because, as I say in the blog, it's pointless.

I'd prefer it if people could make more general comments about how the term "anti-Semite" is used.

There are seeming parallels between this and the Iraq conflict. Were people not labelled "un-American" if they disagreed with what their leaders were doing?

It's a dangerous path to go down when the fear of being labelled as an anti- stops people voicing opposition.

"Your teacher was wrong, by the way. Nice is a word unto itself, not just a bare synonym for those other words. All she was doing was forcing you to use other words in place of a word that might have been the perfect word"

I disagree. I think nice was seen as the easy way out and limited the scope of language in terms of expression, as OG said.

I think the teach was right

I'd prefer it if people could make more general comments about how the term "anti-Semite" is used.

It's much easier to label your opponent than debate them. It's done all the time. When we (the US) were angry that the French didn't want to support the war in Iraq, we called them "surrender frogs" and renamed french fries to "freedom fries." [Note: by "we" I mean the collective US, not any particular individual.] It makes it easier to separate the fact that French people are real, thinking, feeling human beings and it makes it easier to despise them, rather than listen to any point that they might have (legitimate or otherwise).

I think the same happens with the term "anti-Semite." Rather than acknowledging that there might be cases when the Israeli government has made some dodgy decisions, it is much easier to lump those that criticize Israel into the same category as those that perpetuated the Holocaust. It makes them subhuman, easier despise, and gives cause for not engaging in a debate (who would want to try to reason with someone so clearly inhuman and evil?).

The label "terrorist" is somewhat similar as well. It is much easier to talk about the terrorists in Southern Lebanon, than to think about the kids who are suffering. Labels like this help people believe that others are "getting what they deserve" rather than dealing with the injustices of the world. Because, while yes there are some terrorist in Southern Lebanon who should not be surprised to see rockets raining down on them, I can't honestly believe that anyone thinks that children (no matter their nationality or ethnicity) deserve such a fate.

Lebanon isn't just about terrorism, it's about the overt, warlike act of sovereign nations. Both Palestine and Lebanon have taken steps to institutionalize terrorism by absorbing it into their system of government and sanctioning it as their national resistance. Once they do so, they are nationally responsible for said "resistance".

The Lebanese people are no different than the German people in WW2. Their nation has undertaken an action that is leading them into war. Are they all responsible? No, but you don't have a census to see who voted for who when your nation is attacked. Backwards middle eastern nations need to be taught that they can't fight proxy wars and pawn off the results on the terrorists they employ.

Backwards middle eastern nations need to be taught that they can't fight proxy wars and pawn off the results on the terrorists they employ.

Damn right. Only first-world states and allied clients can do that.

First world states shouldn't do it either, and I'm not sanctioning that. If you want to play the "First world states can do it so Lebanon can too" card though, no one should have a problem with what Israel is doing in Lebanon, either. If it is okay for Lebanon to adopt the worst aspects of Israel, why are you guys condemning Israel at all?

You guys want it both ways, though. You want to excuse the little guy for doing it because the big guy does, but you want to condemn the big guy if they are better at it. The only option you guys leave open for Israel is to sit back and let Hezbollah do what they want, with only impotent diplomats to protect them.

The moral road is evidently watching your people get killed and just tolerating it out of some twisted sense of guilt and fairness.

I find it most interesting that I only see a lot of the word "children" and sometimes the word "women". Let's see, children and women in Cuba are suffering, I don't see any of you here doing anything positive about it. Women and children in Africa are suffering, I don't see any of you doing anything about it; women and children are suffering right here in the US, I don't see any of you doing anything about it. Are women and children who are caught up in the battle between "men" the only ones any of you care about? More interesting is that how come men are never mentioned? I am a man, I have feeling, I have a heart. I too suffer when my children or the children of others are in not so good situations. I suffer when I go hungry, when I hurt, when I'm thristy, when I have no where to sleep. Why am I, a man, less important in this world. last time I checked, just like in the movie Jurassic Park, females can not breed with out men and men can not breed without women. So as far as I'm concerned I am, and every man on this planet, as important as anyone else regardless or age or sex.

anti-semantic: Anti-Semitism (alternatively spelled antisemitism) is hostility towards or prejudice against Jews (not, in common usage, Semites in general — see the Scope section below). This happens on an individual level and goes on to the institutionalized prejudice and persecution once prevalent in European societies, of which the highly explicit ideology of Adolf Hitler's National Socialism was the most extreme form. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-semitic

I don't know about you, but judging by this definition it seems that most, not all, opinions being said against Israel falls very fairly within the definition. I see it as you being prejudice against Israel simply because Hezbollah's aim is crappy. But that's just me.

To me the biggest problem here is that almost everyone with an opinion against what Israel is doing is completely ignoring what has and is happening to them. No one here compplaining about the women and children who have died at the hands of Hezbollah. No one has complained that while Israel is trying to get to hezbollah but is hitting civilians in the process, Hezbollah is attacking Israeli civilians directly, shotting missiles when no israeli soldiers are at all. But that does not seem to bother some people here because either somehow the Israeli people asked for it because their Gov't is bombing the hell out of Lebanon or Hezbollahs aim is so bad that they barely get hit so the numbers are not that importnat when they are minimum. Can anyone please explain to me why an Israeli life is somehow less important than a Lebanese life? Does having more fire power reduce the value of the life of those who have it? Does having less fire power give you the right to a handi-cap (allowed to kill without repercussions)?

Shades of grey, I think there's a real problem here, and as you noted, the words anti-semiteand terrorist are cases in point.

I'll use David Duke as an example. David Duke often states that anti-semitism is a smear word that Jewish supremacists, Israeli diplomats, lobbyists, and Likud politicians use to fend off any criticism of Israel or Jews. While he is right that that label is abused, he uses it as a springboard to launch objectively real anti-semitic language.

For example, imagine if I said, I really resent the ADL and the JDL labeling me an anti-semite. I'm not. They just don't want to be taken to task for anything they've done wrong. So a few sentences later, I respond with something like this: well, those hook-nosed kikes are gonna fry for that. Hitler didn't get rid of enough of those Jew rats.

Regardless if the term anti-semite is abused by certain groups with a political agenda, there still is a such thing as anti-semitism.

A few days ago on television I listened to a representative of the group International ANSWER. When asked if he thought either Hamas or Hezbollah were terrorist groups, the man from ANSWER went on about how governments in power like to label all opposition group as terrorists. The point being that if one group overextends the definition of the term, then the term has no legitimacy at all. That is the epitome of illogic. Because an authoritarian government somewhere may wrongly hold that a mass of peaceful protestors in a capital city is a terrorist group, he believes that a man who blows up a bus full of civilians, or kidnaps a couple Christian girls on their way to school and beheads them are not terrorists. He wrongly accepts that there is no existence beyond human perception. This is a fairly standard liberal philosophy--the denial of an objective reality, beyond what a person thinks, believes or perceives. It is egocentric beyond belief, and is a self-negating. The difference is that many liberals are not ultra-leftwingers and make unprincipled exception to that philosophy.

I love it when not supporting Israel in your foreign policy is viewed as anti-Semitic.

First world states shouldn't do it either, and I'm not sanctioning that. If you want to play the "First world states can do it so Lebanon can too" card though, no one should have a problem with what Israel is doing in Lebanon, either. If it is okay for Lebanon to adopt the worst aspects of Israel, why are you guys condemning Israel at all?

I know. It was a joke. You'd have to admit though that everyone plays that game. As you say if we're going to condemn the terrorists for playing we may as well condemn the major powers like Israel, even if the major players aren't prepared to kill properly.

I can tell you I don´t like Bush. That does not mean I don´t like americans. I´ve been once accused myself of anti-semitism because I said Israel began an unfair war. When I say unfair I mean Lebanon is not Hezbolah. If they attacked Iran or Syria, who are their "true" enemies and the real Hezbolah sponsors, I could think differently. But as far as I know these two countries are pretty much harder to face. I´ve worked for an Israeli man. I´ve tons of friends that are jew.I do not know one single muslin. I´m catholic. And I believe that state and religion should never mix.
Anti-semitic is an easy stamp anyone can get on their front these days. I agree with you, it got a "cheap" meaning. And on my opinion it is very dangerous when these terms lost their true meaning and become cheap, because it can lead to misconceptions. If beeing Anti-semitic is to become normal, in a few years when someone read Hitler had anti-semitic politics maybe it will not sound horrible as it should, people will deny easily holocaust and so.
I live in South America. In my country jews, muslins, catholics and other religious groups live together, and it´s no big deal, it´s ordinary, it´s normal. When I look at the middle-east, and also in some USA pictures (darwinism-creationism), I get really troubled because religion is used as a tool for achievement of political targets.
I pray for peace as it´s the only thing I´m up to do. And I hope the war will end soon. Nor israeli or lebanese people want such a carnage to continue. I´m sure.

It gives me such a laugh to see MOST of you falling all over yourself, patting each other on the backs reassuring each other, "nope not me, I ain't no anti-Semite"

Your own words condemn you!

It's a word that is used to make you back off and shut up. Yes in some cases it might be true but not always.

It's no different than the black's calling anyone they don't agree with a racist.
My son accused a black kid of cheating (which he WAS cheating) but the kid said my son was racist and it became completely blown out of proportion.