[Military family member]

Unfortunately, Petronski, I do have to agree with her on that one point. The Arabs and Jews both consider themsselves to be decendants of Shem, Noah's son, from whom we get the word Semite

Semites are peoples who speak Semitic languages; the group includes Arabs, Aramaeans, Jews, and many Ethiopians. In a Biblical sense, Semites are peoples whose ancestry can be traced back to Shem, Noah's eldest son. The ancient Semitic populations were pastoral Nomads who several centuries before the Christian Era were migrating in large numbers from Arabia to Mesopotamia, the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, and the Nile River delta. Jews and other Semites settled in villages in Judea, southern Palestine.

Present day speakers of Semitic languages are as diverse in physical, psychological, cultural, and sociological characteristics as are speakers of Indo European languages. The most prominent Semites today are Arabs and Jews. They are different in many ways, and they have absorbed a variety of European traits through centuries of migration and trade. The origin of Semitic languages, however, and many similarities in the stories of Islam and Judaism reflect a common ancient history.

Robert A Fernea

Bibliography: B Lewis, Semites and Anti Semites (1987); J Morgenstern, Rites of Birth, Marriage, Death, and Kindred Occasions among the Semites (1966); S Moscati, Ancient Semitic Civilizations (1957); W R Smith, The Religion of the Semites (1890).

[Petronski]

I don't have any issue with the etymology of the term.

But using that etymology in a dissembled attack on the use of the modern term anti-Semitism is a tactic I have only seen from neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, Islamofascists, and their apologists.

I am not in this post at all referring to you, since you mention it to facilitate this discussion.

[SJackson]

The term antisemite, Antisemitische was coined by a German political leader in the late 1870s, used as the name of his political party, Antisemitische Volks­partei. Later picked up by others in the European political realm. It referred to the hatred of Jews, and had no connection to racial semites at all.