http://www.ibishblog.com/blog/hibish/2010/12/16/arabs_and_an...

<quote> anti-Semitism is not the optimal term for anti-Jewish sentiment, among other things because there are other Semites than Jews, but it is the one we have, and comes with a long history and a well-established meaning. Rather than critiquing the term or coining a neologism to substitute for it, speakers of English should simply understand the term's history and commonly accepted definition and use it accordingly. </quote>

edit: corrected typos

You can't look at the roots of a word and declare it "wrong" because it doesn't precisely match the original usage. That would wipe out a lot of everyday language.

It's a common failure among the half-educated.

<tongue in cheek> If usage trumps correctness then English with an Indian accent is the canonical accent. After all there are more who use it. </tongue in cheek>

I know it's tongue in cheek and all, but I've heard this repeated a few too many times recently, so for the record: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_languages_by_num...

Summary: 226 million "native" speakers of English, plus 90 million with English as a second language. I'd suggest that the canonical English accent is actually American. And whilst it is true that India will probably overtake the US in this regard in the not too distant future, they too will probably be eclipsed by the Chinese (http://www.economist.com/node/6803197?story_id=6803197) before that happens.

Regardless, the traditional anglo-saxon countries will hold sway as the main proponents of English for a long time, as aside from the US there is also the UK (60-odd million), Canada(35 million), Australia(20-odd million), New Zealand (5 million), and South Africa (50 million) to throw into the mix, giving a total of somewhere around 500 million native speakers.

  but I've heard this repeated a few too many times recently

This whole comment thread has me extremely disappointed with HN.

In any case, while I agree with what you're saying, quite often people say pretty much the same thing as a sort of misdirection to deflect criticism of their own criticism of Israel, no matter how unfair or misleading or just plain dishonest it is. If you go read some reddit comments on Israel you'll see anti-Semitism mentioned at least an order of magnitude more frequently by Israel's critics than by Israel's defenders.

I got thrown off by the terminology "anti-Semitic criticism". From the context it seems to mean: criticism by an "anti Semitic" person, you probably meant "criticism that has no truth in it". Why cloud matters then, with terminology that is already too loaded to begin with ?

Sorry, my other comment skipped this question. What I mean by anti-Semitic criticism is criticism motivated by anti-Semitism, and, separately, criticism that attempts to exploit the emotional weight of the Holocaust (e.g. "the Zionists are the new Nazis" or subtler variations thereof).

The former of these might be legitimate criticism in some cases, yes, but tends not to be, and even when it is, bear in mind that most people are totally clueless about the world. If Joe Sixpack hears ten times as much criticism of Israel as Saudi Arabia, he'll assume that Israel is much worse than Saudi Arabia, even though this is clearly not true (unless you happen to be a Wahhabi Muslim, I guess). I remember hearing of a survey conducted in China where Chinese on the street were asked how big they thought Israel was and some answered that it was probably about as big as China. I can't find it, but I did find an article where the Chinese ambassador to Israel describes something similar: "I explain to [other Chinese] that Israel only has seven million residents – barely a small town in China," he says. "They find it hard to believe. I understand them." (source: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3961612,00.html)

And for the third time, I don't think it's a good test and I don't really like being put in the position of defending it. My mention of it was descriptive, not prescriptive.

The BBC is generally regarded as being anti-Israel: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bbc-fights-to-sup...

When people say a news source is "unbiased" they really mean "agrees with me".

I don't think hiring through a tabloid newspaper would help the integrity of the company. You could have at least said the Telegraph.

The Guardian is also not as far left as the Mail is right, although that is objective and could be debated all day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC

>the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. So while they worked for BBC, they were unbiased; but the moment they started working for AJ, they became biased and completely untrustworthy!!

The BBC is well-known for anti-Israel bias, and there have been investigations to that effect. Here's an article about a long-running legal battle to get the BBC to disclose a report on its ME coverage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/feb/11/balen-report-bbc...; here's some background info on said report: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balen_Report.

Edit: I honestly don't care about my HN karma, but I am curious to know why this was downvoted. I provided relevant information in a civil manner. I'd really feel better if someone could provide an explanation other than that people are using HN downvotes like reddit downvotes now. :/

I am certainly willing to concede, that it is not transparent, but isnt calling them to possess a "well-known" anti-Israel bias exaggerated ?

BTW, the BBC is a public organization, not a private corporation. It's estimated that they spent 200,000 pounds to keep the report from being disclosed. I don't know why they'd spend that kind of money to hide a report that didn't reveal bias - though I'm open to alternative explanations.

[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-451138/Report-BBCs-a...

Well that's the thing, perhaps those who have had the opportunity to carry Al Jazeera decided not to on the prediction that it would not be watched, and decided to avoid any financial loss by not taking the risk.

>Plus: when Al Jazeera started, the staff was almost entirely made up of BBC MiddleEast service people. So while they worked for BBC, they were unbiased; but the moment they started working for AJ, they became biased and completely untrustworthy!!

No one ever said the BBC was immune from being biased. You're right, it's unlikely that the same people automatically went from being non-biased to biased, so if Al-Jazeera is biased, that just means the BBC had been biased all along.

Yes.

To imply that the media has no influence on the general mass of population is ignorant at best. There is a reason most governments censor the media, seed the media with favorable information or outright ban them: they move people to action.

And many people believe that the BBC is biased when it comes to covering Israel.

For example: http://honestreporting.com/bbc-responds-to-flotilla-inquiry-...

Since it's a difficult skill, like it or not the identity of the group espousing the belief does play a role in coloring the credibility. It is one of the multitude of variables by which human's judge potential correctness. My personal coefficient for BBC is higher than most of US cable news (and honestreporting.com as well). The coefficients are issue specific too, though there is a certain issue independent component that different issues inherit from the base.

It so happens that there are issues that I care about, for which there are no US main stream source that has significantly positive coefficient. It is for (not uncommon) situations like this that I need alternative sources like Al Jazeera. In addition to un-affiliated blogs

If you're looking for a solid US based news agency, I would suggest PBS news. They have a pretty high 'coefficient' in my book. They've been covering the various Arab riots quite extensively.

Main site: http://www.pbs.org/newshour

Nightly news: http://video.pbs.org/program/979359630/