[catlikesshrimp]

All you said is fine as long as you recognize antisemitism is a thing. It is just a branch of racism/xenophobia. Any group with a name can be marked as enemy and attacked if retaliation is not expected.

Now, everything you said.

[sndman]

Indeed, it is a thing, and has been for a long time. But labeling free speech as antisemitic is now quite common.

Here in the US, there is plenty of legislation at the state level that requires individuals and businesses sign agreements in order to gain employment or secure funding (advertisement, in the case of newspapers). For example, the law in Texas prevents an individual from being employed as a teacher (or contractor) if they support boycotts of Israeli companies. I'm not arguing for or against these boycotts but legislation preventing boycotts is now a condition of employment in some states.

There was a good documentary about this recently in DOC NYC: https://www.docnyc.net/film/boycott/

[xbar]

Antisemitism is definitely a thing, a very bad thing with a very long history and lots of horrific things done to semitic peoples in many places over that long history. For sake of discussion, I will stipulate that it is a branch of racism/xenophobia.

Lots of ethnic groups/races in lots of countries have been victims of racism and xenophobia by lots of other groups in their own countries and in other countries.

Israel, as a country, has been very effective at weaponizing its "victim of racism/xenophobia." The ubitquity of the term "antisemitism" and the staunch defenders of the term are part of this weaponization. I have difficulty identifying other words that represent "a specific group that is a victim of racism/xenophobia" as well as antisemitism does.