More "definitionitis" -- this time in my local newspaper:

[A]n edition of Merriam-Webster's dictionary reprinted in 2002 has angered Arab Americans by linking anti-Semitism to Zionism and Israel.

The Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, defines anti-Semitism as: "1: hostility toward Jews as a religious or racial minority group often accompanied by social, economic, and political discrimination - compare RACISM.

"2: opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the state of Israel."

In a letter of protest last Sunday, the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee called on Merriam-Webster to "repudiate" the latter meaning and retract it.

Equating opposition to Israel with anti-Semitism, the Washington-based group said, "smears and impugns the motives of all those who support the human and political rights of Palestinians" and "stigmatizes perfectly legitimate political opinions and activities."

Arthur Bicknell, a spokesman with Merriam-Webster in Springfield, Mass., said the definition was written in 1956, eight years after Israel's founding.

Apparently. From what at least one Muslim scholar has to say, anti-Zionism is the belief that Jews should not own land:

Mohammed, a Muslim from Guyana, is a featured speaker at an international conference on anti-Semitism that opens in Montreal this weekend. He said that "in most Arab and Islamic concepts, Jews are not supposed to have land, ever," which stems from a belief that "God is angry with [Jews] because they had something to do with the killing of Jesus."

Criticism of Israeli policies is not necessarily anti-Semitic, he said. "It becomes anti-Semitic and racist where it's against a Jew as a Jew."

"Nothing personal against Jews; I just don't think they should be allowed to have land, ever!"

"Otherwise I have nothing against them at all!"

That's not anti-Semitic?

I would have been more likely to ignore the above article had it not been preceded by a sympathetic report on muhktars in Gaza -- described as "respected elders in [Palestinian] tradidion-bound Islamic communities" whose "reputations are such that a muhktar's word is accepted as law":

The first order of business was brewing the coffee. Copper urns with spouts shaped like bird beaks were set atop a low-slung brazier's glowing coals.

Waiting for the families to arrive, Hijazi reflected on the changes in his age-old profession brought on, he said, by three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting.

"In the last two years, muhktars are seeing more problems with guns, drugs, thefts and robberies," he said.

In the old days, it was mostly divorces, marriages and property-line disputes. Because drivers often look to the skies at the sound of Israeli gunships, he said, there are more car accidents.

"People get the guns to defend against Israeli incursions," added Gherbawi, "and sometimes they are misused."

I just thought of a brilliant defense strategy for almost any client in almost any case (even domestic disputes): "The Jews made me do it!"

Nothing anti-Semitic about that; after all, they shouldn't be allowed to own land because God is angry at them.

How dare the dictionary imply otherwise!