The friend-enemy distinction, not good-evil or beauty-ugliness, defines the political.

Evidence

As to the political sphere, Schmitt writes, “the specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy. ” Schmitt goes on to emphasize that this distinction “denotes the utmost degree of intensity of a union or separation, of an association or dissociation.” — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 535

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures Schmitt’s core criterion for the political as the friend/enemy distinction — essential to the book’s argument that enmity is the grid on which Jew and Arab are constituted.
• XREF: Directly connects to the reading purpose: the genealogical anchor for how antisemitism and Islamophobia both rest on a constitution of collective enmity.