And this is exactly why the point about Semites comes into play; Arabs and (Middle-Eastern) Jews are functionally the same race. A Jewish person who converted to Islam would no longer be dhimmi, and would no longer pay the jizya or any other tax levied against non-Muslim populations. None of the discrimination noted would legally apply to him or her. It is not a status built on the race of the individual, but on their religion. Hence, it is literally not racist in the most basic way imaginable - it is not based on race! It's like calling ancient Spartan oppression of helots racism, or the British discrimination against the Irish sexism, or South African apartheid transphobia; it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what those words mean. This is why I said that racism is not the most useful lens to view the relationship between the groups through. They are the same race, with differing religions.