WASHINGTON,
April 16 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A leading American
civil rights organization kept pressure on the publishers of an
edition of a Merriam Webster’s dictionary for linking anti-Semitism
to Zionism and Israel.
"This
is illogic. There is a growing number of opponents to the Israeli
policy," Dan Walsh, a political consultant for the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) told the London-based Al-Hayat
newspaper Friday, April 16.
The
Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, defines
"anti-Semitism as: "1: hostility toward Jews as a religious
or racial minority group often accompanied by social, economic, and
political discrimination".
"2:
opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the state of
Israel".
Merriam-Webster
turned down a request by the Washington-based group, whose members are
of different backgrounds, faiths and ethnicities, to
"repudiate" the latter meaning.
Walsh
renewed that equating opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism smears
the motives of all those who support the human and political rights of
Palestinians and stigmatizes political opinions and activities.
By
all definitions, the term involves hostility toward Jews. But the
world edition of Merriam-Webster's dictionary reprinted in 2002 linked
anti-Semitism to Zionism and Israel.
Arthur
Bicknell, a spokesman with Merriam-Webster in Springfield, Mass.,
refused to change the definition, which he said was written in 1956,
eight years after Israel's founding.
However,
he said, "there are very few citations from the past 50 years for
the second sense of anti-Semitism, it is likely that sense will be
changed or eliminated".
The
next edition of the dictionary - a basic academic source of
information - would be updated after eight years.
Hussein
Ibish - a spokesman for ADC - called on the company to send out
"errata sheets" to libraries. Nearly 3 million copies of the
dictionary are in print.
One
Decade
The
ADC officials wonder should opponents of the Israeli policy wait for a
decade to be able to voice their views without being lumped as
anti-Semites.
Ibish
further said ADC has no problem with the dictionary's first definition
of anti-Semitism, which describes it as "hostility toward Jews as
a religious or racial minority group, often accompanied by social,
political or economic discrimination."
But
he called the second definition "absolutely ridiculous".
Several
other Merriam-Webster dictionaries, including its collegiate and
online publications, are abridged versions of the International - the
company's flagship reference work - and do not contain the second
definition.
Ken
Jacobson, associate national director of the Anti-Defamation League, a
Jewish advocacy group, said defining anti-Semitism as "opposition
to Zionism" is "close enough" to be a legitimate
definition.
Jacobson
said that he "would have a problem" with defining
anti-Semitism as "sympathy for the opponents of Israel"
because "it's too vague. . . . It might be appropriate in some
cases, but there are too many exceptions that make it an inappropriate
definition".
What
Is Anti-Semitism?
According
to Encyclopedia Britannica, anti-Semitism is hostility toward or
discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group.
It
was coined in 1879 by German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the
anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time.
