“Semitism” once described a mosaic of Middle-eastern peoples; today, it is Jewish by monopoly. “Anti-Semitism” began as banner for German nationalism, became Jew-hatred, and now simply criminalizes any critique of Israel. It’s been a calculated drift from label to libel.
By Chudi Okoye
How fierce and flush it must feel to be Israel today!
It reigns supreme in the Middle East, having almost completely neutered its enemies in the neighborhood. It has turned the world’s dominant nation, the United States, into what I’ve called a “stooperpower” and reduced other major nations to stuporpowers. Despite the immense controversy it generates, it is venerated in key corners of civic and civil society.
Perhaps Israel’s greatest achievement is that, despite its ferocious militarism, it miraculously maintains an aura of innocence and moral immunity. Today, any criticism of Israel – let alone of Jews more broadly – is swiftly branded as anti-Semitism, a tactic meant to shut down debate. Critics from students and artists to pundits, governments, and even global institutions like the United Nations have been labeled, or rather libeled, as anti-Semitic. In effect, Israel is treated as a nation above reproach.
Yet, whatever the modern sensitivity, few nations were rebuked in sacred texts as searingly as ancient Israel. They were called a sinful nation, a brood of evildoers (Isaiah 1:4), and more trenchantly, a brood of vipers (Matthew 3:7). Their rituals and prayers were scorned by God, who declared their hands full of blood (Isaiah 1:11, 15) and vowed to scatter them, ruin their land, and draw His sword against them (Leviticus 26:33). They were called stiff-necked (Acts 7:51–52), told their true father was the devil, not Abraham (John 8:44), and their assembly denounced as the synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9, 3:9). One apostle openly accused them of killing the prophets (1 Thessalonians 2:15); they were blamed for the crucifixion of Christ (Matthew 27:25); and Scripture bluntly declares their covenant with God obsolete (Hebrews 8:13).
These are not the words of modern critics or fringe conspiracy theorists. They are canonical indictments delivered by God, Christ, and their prophetic messengers – some of the most blistering condemnations of the Jewish people ever written.
If the Almighty God, Jesus, or the fire-breathing prophets and apostles of sacred Scripture spoke today with the same scorching fury once poured upon Israel, they would be denounced as anti-Semites. Even a milder version of their rebuke would draw condemnation from Israel and Western governments. In the U.S., they’d be mauled by media or hauled before a disciplinary panel. As students, they might be expelled or arrested; as immigrants, denied entry or deported. Jobs could be lost, grants revoked, ties severed. Some might be digitally erased, purged by institutions wary of controversy or retribution.
The label of “anti-Semitism” has become a license to silence. So fraught is the phrase, so loosely defined and wantonly wielded, that in today’s febrile field even sacred, ancient, internally directed critique could be condemned as anti-Jewish hate speech.
In America today, you may call White people racists or drug addicts, label Black folks as thugs or ‘welfare queens,’ or brand Brown immigrants as criminals, and face no formal consequence. Even such stereotypes are protected speech under the First Amendment. But the faintest critique of Israel’s actions – its persecution of Palestinians, territorial expansionism, or ethno-national laws – invites a swift anti-Semitic smear. This functions not merely as condemnation but as cudgel. It can bring career-ending fallout, or trigger blacklisting, doxxing, deplatforming, even investigation. The price of dissent is no longer outrage; it is erasure. Free speech boundaries tighten sharply around Israel, especially in domains policed by Western liberal consensus. We inhabit a climate of selective moralism, where outrage is not universal but strategically weaponized.
There’s no longer any pretense about it. At the recent Glastonbury Festival in the UK, the English punk-rap duo Bob Vylan led a pro-Palestinian chant and offered a restrained critique of the Israeli military, condemning its indiscriminate killing of Palestinians and calling for its disbandment. The reaction was rapid and ruthless. The British Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition issued caustic rebukes. Israel’s Embassy in London declared the remarks “anti-Semitic.” Avon and Somerset Police opened a criminal investigation. The band’s talent agency dropped them. And the U.S. Department of State revoked their entry visas ahead of a planned autumn tour.
This was a libertarian music festival at which previously performers had mocked the monarchy, insulted the sitting prime minister, advocated for anarchism, and even burned effigies of political leaders – all without eliciting any comparable state response.
The same U.S. State Department, according to media reports, now treats nearly all criticism of Israel, even peaceful solidarity with Palestinians, as grounds for visa denial. Student protesters are labeled threats to public order, and routine pro-Palestinian phrases can trigger rejection. A senior official testified that the shift stems from a 2025 executive order by President Donald Trump, which made fighting anti-Semitism a foreign policy priority. The result: hundreds of revoked student visas and growing outcry over what civil rights lawyers call an “ideological deportation policy.” The strategy reflects a troubling drift toward political securitization (framing dissent as security threat), raising urgent questions about free speech, ideological vetting, and the limits of democratic pluralism.
It is especially striking, given the torrent of supercilious slurs from the very president now gatekeeping alleged hate speech against Israel. Trump has smeared Muslims, derided “shithole” African countries, and hurled vicious insults at migrants crossing the southern border. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” he declared in 2015. “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” He later warned that such immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country” and bringing “very contagious diseases.” That this fellow is now the arbiter of moral speech is nothing short of astonishing.
Against this backdrop, Trump’s crackdown on speech critical of Israel smacks less of national security than of selective repression. It indicates an alarming trend of dissent being securitized, thought policed, and democratic norms hollowed out. Worse, this authoritarian drift, framed as a stand against anti-Semitism, risks inflaming the very tensions it purports to quell. When civil liberties are curtailed to appease a foreign actor, it begins to look like institutional capture. And when American power serves foreign agendas over American rights, it breeds the resentment that corrodes democracy from within.
Triple Capture
How did we come to this, where democratic dissent is branded as bigotry, and conscience is criminalized? Why has the charge of “anti-Semitism” become such a fearsome weapon, silencing debate and shielding power? Why is Israel placed above reproach?
On some level, the answer lies in the uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust – the systematic Nazi campaign during World War II that sought to exterminate European Jewry. While the Holocaust stands as one of the most chilling atrocities in human history, it is far from the only or even the deadliest human catastrophe; yet it has acquired singular symbolic power in Western moral consciousness, shaping perceptions of Jewish suffering and exceptionalism. The explanation for this symbolic singularity lies in a triple capture rarely discussed as linked subjects: Jewish capture of Western institutions, most notably in the United States; the semantic seizure of “Semitism,” redefined in narrow, ahistorical Jewish terms; and a deep-seated theology of Jewish exceptionalism.
State Capture: The first pillar is the subordination of Western policy to Israeli interests. The United States – that “stooperpower” of my poetic lament – often advances Israel’s agenda over its own strategic priorities, global standing, and domestic welfare. Billions in aid flow annually to Israel, even as American infrastructure decays and social programs are gutted. (Recall Senator Ted Cruz, pushing more aid for Israel while backing cuts to weather forecasting as his Texas district flooded.) These flows persist, even when Israeli leaders openly defy U.S. presidents. This isn’t alliance; it’s obeisance. The “special relationship” has curdled into servitude. Driven by a powerful Israeli lobby and fervent evangelical pressure, U.S. policy, press, and principle now reflexively tilt toward Tel Aviv – evident in pro-Israel UN vetoes, gag laws, and crackdowns on dissent. All this reveals the extent of the political capture. As in America, so across the West.
Semantic Capture: The second pillar is the appropriation of the term Semitism, which has acquired a narrowly Jewish meaning. Historically, Semite referred to a mosaic of Middle-eastern and African peoples: Akkadians (Assyrians and Babylonians), Arabs, Arameans, Canaanites (including Phoenicians and ancient Israelites), and Habesha peoples (such as Ethiopians and Eritreans). These are distinct ethnic, cultural, and historical groups, united by diverse Semitic tongues – Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic, Amharic – all descended from the Afro-Asiatic root. Many have faced prejudice and persecution across time. Yet since the 19th century, the term has been increasingly “Judified” – semantically annexed to refer almost exclusively to Jews, thereby effacing other Semitic identities. The term anti-Semitism itself rose to prominence in 19th-century Germany through the writings of Wilhelm Marr, who gave racial and pseudo-scientific shape to older religious hostilities, reframing Judeophobia as an ethnic and civilizational threat. This philological shift narrowed the meaning of “anti-Semitism” to denote only hatred against Jews, enabling a form of linguistic enclosure and Jewish monopolization of victimhood.
This isn’t merely semantic drift; it is discursive imperialism. Arab critique of Zionism is labeled “anti-Semitic,” even when the critic shares linguistic and ethnic descent with the so-called victim. The irony would be comic if it weren’t coercive. The semantic field has been fenced off, surveilled, and rebranded – a clear case of identity capture through linguistic distortion. Today, the term is casually tossed out and fiercely weaponized by many who scarcely understand its fuller etymology or historical breadth.
Theological Capture: The third and most enduring pillar is the Jewish claim of divine election, a paradox that proclaims one universal God yet reserves His covenant for one ethnic group. Rooted in the Hebrew Bible (“chosen people,” Deut. 7:6; “holy nation,” Ex. 19:6) and sustained by rabbinic tradition, it is often framed by Jewish theologians as a great burden of higher moral expectation rather than privilege (Amos 3:2). Yet this theology collapses under its own contradictions, not least because nearly half of Israeli Jews are secular atheists who reject the very God whose covenant supposedly justifies their state. Zionist ideologues, meanwhile, often insist it is “anti-Semitic” to expect Israel to meet higher ethical standards than other democracies – ironically undermining the very premise of the moral election they invoke. Their posture, in effect, gives credence to Christian supersessionist theology, which holds that the old covenant is obsolete.
Whatever the internal tensions surrounding the claim of election, externally it reeks of arrogance and entitlement, especially when deployed to defend Zionism. With it, spiritual metaphor becomes geopolitical license; expansion, divine mandate; dispossession, sacred inheritance. A people claiming God’s special favor inevitably diminish all others made by that same God.
Beyond theological inconsistency, the claim of chosenness fails basic rational scrutiny. Science and philosophy refute such claims. Genetically, all humans share common ancestry; no group holds inherent moral or spiritual superiority. Philosophically, if God is truly universal and just, favoritism toward one group reduces Him to a tribal deity – contradicting the very essence of monotheism. Logically, the claim is unverifiable: grounded not in evidence or reason, but in mythic assertion aligned with power.
Clearly, the triadic architecture of Jewish exceptionalism is deeply problematic. It has fueled havoc not only in the Middle East but also in the West, becoming a key driver of authoritarian drift.
As I conclude this essay, I offer three brief correctives. First, Western governments, the U.S. above all, must abandon their devotional deference to Israel. It is absurd, even embarrassing. No nation, ethnicity, or faith should be exempt from critique. Second, we must reclaim the inclusive meaning of “Semitism,” and similarly distinguish anti-Jewish bigotry from principled criticism of state policy. Third, we must demythologize ‘chosenness,’ rejecting all claims of divine favoritism in public affairs. It is a logical absurdity – an ancient Jewish trope that, frankly, diminishes God.
Only by confronting this triple capture – political, semantic, and theological – can we unshackle democratic conscience from the ropes of fear, and restore speech, dissent, and justice to the civic sphere.
