#etymology fallacy

[quotesfrommyreading]

The problem is not just that this word for anti-Jewish prejudice was popularized by a perpetrator rather than the victims, but that it easily lends itself to pedantic objections. Some critics claim that Jews are “not real Semites” and so anti-Semitism doesn’t refer to them. In the Arab world, conversely, others claim that they can’t be anti-Semitic, because Arabs are also Semites. This is not just a Middle Eastern canard. In 2015, the former U.S. presidential candidate Ralph Nader declared that “the Semitic race is Arabs and Jews and the Jews do not own the phrase anti-Semitism,” adding that “the worst anti-Semitism in the world today is against Arabs and Arab-Americans.”

All of this is ahistorical nonsense. The term anti-Semitism was chosen by an anti-Jewish bigot to lend a sophisticated sheen to his hatred of Jews. The term has never popularly referred to Arabs or other “Semites,” which is why the Dictionary.com definition of anti-Semitism reads: “discrimination against or prejudice or hostility toward Jews.” Anyone suggesting otherwise is at best ignorant, or at worst attempting to undermine discussions of anti-Jewish prejudice.

  —  Changing How You Spell 'Anti-Semitism' Won’t Stop Anti-Semitism

[ammg-old]

Some critics of the word Islamophobia have employed similar linguistic gymnastics, contending that their prejudice is not a phobia, because it’s not irrational, or that their objections are to particular Muslims and not to Islam. But Islamophobia, like anti-Semitism, is simply the word adopted by the targeted community to describe its experience of discrimination. That’s reason enough for any decent person who is serious about fighting prejudice to use it. Those who mumble about how Jews aren’t the only Semites, like those who insist their Islamophobia is not a phobia, are simply playing semantic games to avoid confronting obvious prejudice.

– Changing How You Spell 'Anti-Semitism' Won’t Stop Anti-Semitism