Words are symbols for meaning, they don’t possess anything in and of themselves. There are certainly times where it’s useful or interesting to dissect and examine the relationships between signifiers, concepts, and reality, but it’s almost never effective as an offensive tactic. Pushing against semantic drift requires massive social power, of which the little power we have is better spent elsewhere.

The symbols that we use to represent concepts are effectively arbitrary (although not random nor devoid of historical residue and material tensions) and a general term may become specific, or split into multiple more specific terms, as concepts grow more complex.

Antisemitism currently signifies hatred and oppression of Jewish people in the vast majority of people’s minds and has for a long time. This hatred and oppression is a material reality that holds a unique place historically and exists regardless of the symbol used to represent it. Not only that, the zionist entity benefits from its exacerbation, since it helps provide an influx of people for its settler colonial project.

We could argue for a regeneralization of the term, spend countless hours arguing about using a different symbol or whatever, and in the mean time the material currents will flow unabated.

Interestingly, the zionist entity also seems to be pushing for a generalization of the term-- although from the angle of what actions qualify as antisemitism-- attempting to reduce concepts of anti-zionism and antisemitism to the same term. In this case it’s the bad-faith semantic dancing that’s characteristic of fascism.