What is a Semite?

        It seems that whenever Israeli interests are openly criticized, the perpetrator is inevitably denounced as being an anti-Semitist.    The anti-Semitism flag, of course, is intended to shield the Zionist-Israeli agenda from accountability by painting anyone who challenges them as racists and Nazis.  That is unacceptable; no race, religion, creed, or nation is beyond accountability.   However, if the issue of anti-Semitism is going to get so frequently raised, then perhaps it is worth knowing what the term "Semite" really means.  

        From Webster's dictionary (1957), we find an evolved popular definition of, "1. a Semitic word or idiom, 2. Characteristics of the Semites; especially, the ideas, cultural qualities, etc, originating with the Jews."  This definition of Semitism fits well into the Biblical scheme of things, which mythologizes the ancient tribes of Israel as the genealogical key-stone of the ancient Middle Eastern world and more whimsically and dangerously the entire human race.  This being the biblical linking of the Genesis Myth to Abraham and then to the god of Moses and his tribe, and so on.  Master myth, master god, master doctrine ...... master race?  Before the ugly mirror of some of history's darkest hours, haven't we heard this very same sort of thing somewhere else before?   

            The definition of "Semitic" exists in its present state only because of religiously motivated wishful thinking in Christian dominated English, and thus doesn't accurately reflect known historical realities (Reference), not even according to Webster.  For example, the same dictionary defines a "Semite" as, 'a member of any of the peoples whose language is Semitic, including the Hebrews, Arabs, Assyrians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, etc; now especially the Jew'."  In addition, "Semitic" is defined as, "1. characteristic of, or like a Semite or the Semites, 2.designating or of a major group of languages of south Western Asia and Northern Africa, related to the Hermitic languages and divided into East Semitic (Akkadian), North West (Phoenician, Punic, Aramaic, Hebrew, modern Hebrew, etc) and south West Semitic (Arabic, Ethiopic, Amharic).  

        Considering the extended scope of these definitions, it would seem that anyone using the term "Semitism" is invoking something that encompasses a rather huge and diverse amount of geographical, genealogical, and cultural ground, of which the Jews are only a segment.  As such, one might just as well accuse the Israelis and their supporters of being anti-Semitists for aiding Israel's colonialist aggressions against the Palestinians.  It is no coincidence that the world community through the auspices of the United Nations has condemned Israel for being one of the most ethnocentric states on the planet.  Still, with all due respect for the issues, the Jews have just as much historical claim to the lands that were ceded to them in 1948 as do any other Middle Eastern ethnic or religious entity.  The notion that Israel should be extinguished because its existence offends either the ethnocentric biases of the Arabs or the monotheistic privy of Islam is therefore equally unacceptable.