What is the difference ?

@MistyCee can you further explain?

@Greyjedi Noah's three sons were Ham, Shem, and Japeth.

Shem's descendants are semites, and that includes, but is not limited to Jews.

@MistyCee Technically, Arab Muslims are Semitic, but antisemitism refers to Jew-hatred.

@LeopoldBloom Maybe Arabs, but there are an awful lot of Muslims these days who probably don't classify genetically, assuming there is anything to the Bible that can be genetically verified.

I get the historical stuff about the Anti-Semitism label and how it was invented, but I'll be damned if the whole mess doesnt point out how arbitrary language is, and how wrapped up it is in politics and human experience.

@MistyCee Words take on colloquial meanings. It's possible for Arabs to be antisemitic if they hate Jews, and the fact that they are semitic themselves isn't relevant. Same with "homophobia" literally meaning "fear of things that are the same" when its popular definition is very different.