Legitimate criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism

[Little Tich]

39. It's actually simple - the proof must prove that a person is an anti-Semite.

For me, anti-Semitism is antipathy towards Jews or alternatively racism against Jews. Proof that a person harbors these sentiments means that a person is an anti-Semite.

The problem is that people express all kinds of things for a variety of reasons, and it's not easy to exactly pinpoint the motivations behind a person's statements. I usually try figure out if the person making a potentially anti-Semitic statement could possibly have another motivation for making it. If there's no other possible explanation, the person is displaying an anti-Semitic attitude and is therefore an anti-Semite.

A good example of this is what Helen Thomas said about Jews in Israel "Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and "go back home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else."" (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/white-house-press-icon-helen-thomas-89-apologizes-jews-palestine-article-1.182117) On the surface, it's just a very angry woman talking back to an idiot "reporter" who's really just trying to annoy people, but actually it's much worse. The only possible explanation for what she said is that she harbors feelings of antipathy towards Jews. There's no alternative explanation. If she she expresses her opinions about a group of people who live and were born in a certain place, and she wants them to leave just because of their ethnicity, that's definitely antipathy towards that group. Helen Thomas was an anti-Semite.

When it comes to other groups like Blacks, Muslims and Arabs, if a statement would be racist against them, it would probably be anti-Semitic too, if it was directed at Jews. I will not provide any example whatsoever, but if you want to post what you consider racism against these groups, be my guest.