It never ceases to amaze me just how dumb much of the stuff that is said on here is. Most of it said in all sincerity and seriousness.
Today's example....." Anti Zionism is anti semitism". Get your head around that if you possibly can.
The "IS " here is the is of identity. "Anti Zionism IS anti semitism "
The ancients noticed a star low down in the evening sky and called it " Hesperus". They also noticed a star low down in the morning sky and called it " Phosphorous". It was eventually realised that Hesperus and Phosphorous were the self same heavenly body, the planet Venus.
Hesperus is Phosphorous.Hesperus and Phosphorous are identicals. Now the Law of the Indiscernability of Identicals tells us that identicals have ALL of their properties in common. These include of course common
origin, common history, common fate etc.
So if anti Zionism really IS anti semitism, anti semitism cannot possibly pre date Zionism.So all the persecution and discrimination against Jews prior to the rise of Zionism, wasn't really anti semitism at all.
The simple fool proof test of whether this or that IS this or that, is the test of substitutivity. We should be able to substitute one word or expression for the other in ANY sentence without loss or change of sense.
So " There was a great deal of anti Zionism in Moorish Spain " ,has as much, and the same,sense as " There was a great deal of anti semitism in Moorish Spain" .
Watch out for the next exciting episode, when we will consider the question of whether any sense can be made of the notion of " self determination" .
And remember.
Dumb is dumb. The fact that it was said by some parliamentary committee or whatever, doesn't make it less dumb.
On a slightly different tack.There are a great many Jews that are anti Zionist ( not me ). There a great many Zionist Jews that are anti any political expression of Zionism. There are a great many Zionist Jews that are sympathetic to it's political expression yet are horrified by what The State of Israel has become.