On this issue of whether we ought use the word "nominate" or not: I hope we can agree to disagree here.

In response to your arguments:

> the use of the word "antisemitic" is really becoming a weak
> arguement to discredit anyone that raises questions or
> concerns about what is happening in the State of Israel

The claim that Baraka was merely raising questions or concerns about government policies in Israel is a weak argument. The claims Baraka makes in "Somebody Blew Up America" are a.) an antisemitic conspiracy theory, much like other antisemitic conspiracy theories; and b.) untrue.

The "facts" that Baraka cited in that poem have been shown to be false over and over again, yet Baraka, to this day, insists that his conspiracy theory is the only logical conclusion (at least in an interview he gave to the New York Times as recently as a month ago.) This places him in the same camp as the American white-supremacist movement-- or at least stormfront.org

He tells a deliberate lie that accuses an ethnic group of engaging in coordinated wrong-doing with no evidence. Were Baraka lacking in leftist, black-nationalist credentials and talking about any ethnic group but "the Jews", no one would hesitate to call him a "racist."

I won't hesitate: Amiri Baraka wrote some good poems many years ago, he was probably kind to his friends and students, but still, Baraka is a racist.

If you want well founded criticism of the Israeli government, you should be reading an Israeli newspaper instead of listening to Amiri Baraka-- try Ha'aretz or the Jerusalem Post.

> remember that both the Palestinian and
> Israelis are of "semitic" hertitage.

The word, "antisemitism" was coined in the 19th century when European racists wanted to place their hatred of Jews upon some "scientific" basis instead of the theological basis that had been promoted by the Church. The European anti-Semites of the 19th and 20th centuries were not thinking of the Arabs and the Phoenicians, so to call racism against Arabs "anti-semitic" is to ignore the history and usage of the word.

This is also why Christians whose bigotry against Jews is not racially based but theologically based call their position "Anti-Judaic."

Arab bigotry against Jews is very well documented phenomena that goes back many centuries before-- and while its roots are in the religious institution of dhimma, in the 20th century it took within itself the components of European antisemitism-- to such a point that "antisemitism" is the proper name.

> [Baraka] could also be of "semitic" hertitage considering that
> he is of African descent and the roots of what is considered
> "Israel" can be tranced to the blood line of King Solomon
> and Queen Sheba which begins in Ethiopia (Amharic - Tigrinya).

The bloodlne of Israel is generally traced back to the patriarch Ya'akov (also known as Yisrael) who was the grandson of Abram (who later changed his name to Abraham) who originated from Ur in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq.) The coupling of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (ten or eleven centuries later) is how Judaism became the official religion of Sheba, and why there were Jews in Ethiopia until most of them fled to Israel in the 1980s to escape slavery and ethnic cleansing.

(Of course, that's assuming you want to believe the Bible. If you are more scientifically minded, then DNA analysis of the Y chromosome indicates that today's Jews are Asiatic in origin and had a common male ancestor with today's Arabs about 4000 years ago-- coincidentally when Abraham is said to have had his two sons.)

Baraka, as the descendent of Africans who were brought over to the Americas by way of the slave trade, would be of West African ancestry. Ethiopia is in East Africa. Anyone with even the slightest familiarity with Africa knows that these are radically different ethnic and cultural regions with very different histories.