Explained: What is anti-Semitism that cost Kanye West his Twitter account?

Kanye West has had a busy day.

On Friday, the rapper known as Ye was suspended from Twitter after posting a picture of a swastika merged with the Star of David.

Ye’s anti-Semitism was all too much for Twitter’s new boss and self-described free speech absolutist Elon Musk.

Musk, confirmed the suspension, saying, “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended.”

That came after Ye posted an unflattering photo of the billionaire on vacation, which Ye claimed was his “final tweet.”

Let’s take a closer look at Ye’s history of prejudicial remarks against the Jews, anti-Semitism itself and the etymology of the word.

Anti-Semitism and etymology of the word

Anti-Defamation League, which describes itself as the world’s leading expert on the subject, defines anti-Semitism as “the belief or behaviour hostile toward Jews just because they are Jewish.”

As per the league, anti-Semitism may take several forms including religious teachings, political efforts or prejudiced or stereotyped views.

The term itself was coined in 1879 by German agitator Wilhelm Marr to designate the anti-Jewish campaigns underway in central Europe at that time.

As pe_r Etymonline.com,_ The ‘anti’ here comes from  the Greek origin meaning “against, opposed to, opposite of, instead” which his cognate with Sanskrit anti “over, against.”

The ‘Semite’ refers to , “a Jew, Arab, Assyrian, or Aramaean” (an apparently isolated use from 1797 refers to the Semitic language group), back-formation from Semitic or else from French Sémite (1845), from Modern Latin Semita, from Late Latin Sem, Greek Sēm “Shem,” one of the three sons of Noah (Genesis x.21-30), regarded as the ancestor of the Semites in Bible-based anthropology, from Hebrew Shem.

The Centre for Holocaust Education explains the term’s invention thus:

“Antisemites claimed to be against a phenomenon they themselves invented – ‘Semitism’. They claimed to combat Semites (speakers of the Semitic family of languages) but in fact not all Semites were targeted – speakers of Arabic and Aramaic were not included though they both speak Semitic languages. Indeed, the target of the new term was Jews and ‘by focusing on their ancestral language and using an abstract, pseudoscientific euphemism to group them, the antisemites purported to (a) differentiate Jews authoritatively from everyone else, (b) root their difference in their very nature and thought processes, and thus (c) assert that opposition to Jews was not a mere prejudice, but a response to a demonstrable reality that had to be dealt with politically’.

“Those who espoused antisemitic ideas claimed that Jews had been shaped over time by their language and their original desert environment to be a fundamentally and unchangeable different species than Europeans; a species that had to be contained and expelled (ibid). Nazis combined such antisemitic ideas with racial doctrines about superior and inferior races, as well as ideas about ‘racial hygiene’ and along with nationalism created the special fusion that was their ideology.”

Ye’s history of prejudicial remarks against the Jews

On Thursday, Ye in a bizarre interview with Alex Jones praised Adolf Hitler and called himself a Nazi.

“I see good things about Hitler,” Ye, appearing with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes aid. “Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler.”

“I like Hitler,” he later added.

When the conspiracy theorist Jones pushed back a little, West remained defiant.

“They did good things too,” he said. “We’ve got to stop dissing the Nazis all the time.”

“The Jewish media have made us feel like the Nazis and Hitler have nothing to offer the world,” West further said.

“I don’t like the word evil next to Nazis,” added said. “I love Jewish people but I also love Nazis.”

An increasingly unhinged West also took aim at Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu by speaking in a high-pitched tone as well as brandishing a small net and a bottle of the chocolate flavoured beverage Yoo-hoo.

“We have to control the history books, we have to control the banks and we have to go and kill people,” West added.

This came days after West stormed out of an interview with right wing personality Tim Pool after the host offered minimal pushback on the rapper’s antisemitic outburst.

West at the time was accompanied by the White nationalist Fuentes as well as right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

“Rahm Emanuel was right next to Obama, and then Jared Kushner was right next to Trump,” Ye began, taking aim at the two high-profile Jewish men.

After Pool told West, “I think they’ve been extremely unfair to you,” Ye responded by asking who he meant by ‘they’.

“The corporate press,” Pool replied.

“Who is ‘they,’ though?” West enquired.

West, unhappy with Pool’s response, then stormed out of the studio.

BREAKING: Kanye West RAGE QUITS Tim Pool's show after Tim Pool pushed back on Ye's antisemitism pic.twitter.com/ZcFqtFIQkZ

— Right Wing Cope (@RightWingCope) November 29, 2022

West in November made antisemitic comments in interviews and on social media including a Twitter post that claimed he would go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE – seemingly a reference to the US military readiness condition scale known as DEFCON.

West in November also posted a picture of basketball star Kyrie Irving, who himself was criticised for sharing a link to an antisemitic movie on his social media.

In October, Ye in an interview slammed “Jewish media” and “Jewish Zionists”.

He claimed that “Jewish people have owned the Black voice” and that “the Jewish community, especially in the music industry…they’ll take us and milk us till we die.”  Referring to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Ye said he was “#MeToo-ing the Jewish culture. I’m saying y’all gotta stand up and admit to what you been doing.”

In another interview on NewsNation, Ye took aim at the “Jewish underground media mafia” and claimed “every celebrity has Jewish people in their contract.”

He also claimed his life was under threat from his “Jewish managers, lawyer and accountant” due to his political beliefs.

He also claimed Black people cannot be anti-Semitic, stating that “we are Semite, we Jew, so I can’t be antisemite.”

He also said his “deathcon remarks” referred to “Black musicians signed to Jewish record labels and those Jewish record labels take ownership” – which he referred to as a form of “modern day slavery”.

Ye also in October shared screenshots of text messages on Instagram claiming  Jews were using their purported control over the music industry to intimidate him.

“No one can threaten or influence me,” he said.

He later deleted that post.

Ye also said that Jewish people “toyed with” him, and that they “tried to black ball anyone who opposes” their “agenda.”

Ye in bits of a 6 October interview with Fox News personality Tucker Carlson that did not air claimed Jews are actually Black people.

He said when he refers to Jews he means “the 12 lost tribes of Judah, the blood of Christ, who the people known as the race Black really are [sic>,”

He added that Planned Parenthood was the product of a collaboration between the KKK and Margaret Sanger “to control the Jew [i.e. Black> population.”

He also said that it is impossible for him to be fairly described as antisemitic, because as a Black person he is actually a Jew.

Ye added that he believed Jared Kushner only arranged peace agreements between Arab nations and Israel “to make money.”

He also said he wished his children had learned about Hannukah instead of “a complicated Kwanzaa,” because Hannukah would at least “come with some financial engineering.”

“I gotta get the Jewish business people to make the contracts fair Or die trying,” West also posted to Instagram in October.

As per Sky News, Ye has also made similar remarks behind closed doors.

At least six people who have worked professionally with West in the past five years claimed to have heard the Rapper praise Adolf Hitler or mention conspiracy theories about Jewish people.

Of these, three are former employees or collaborators, who said West in ‘multiple instances’ used antisemitic language. The three others said West in 2018 went on an antisemitic tirade at the offices of TMZ.

But Ye is hardly alone in his abhorrent sentiments.

The Anti-Defamation League on its website claims its surveys show over a billion people in the world harbour antisemitic attitudes.

The league said it in 2014 conducted a survey of attitudes toward Jews in over 100 countries around the world, with follow up surveys in 2015, 2017 and 2019

While the most infamous persecution of the Jews came during the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis, anti-Semitism has itself existed for millennia.

With inputs from agencies

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