Who argued that the entire haplogroup T originated among Semites?
I argued that some T lineages, probably including the 'Dir' one, has its roots in Semitic Middle East going by the different subclades of Y16897.
T is not prominent among most Semites apart from some Eastern Gulf Arabs, Mizrahi/Kurdish Jews, Assyrians and Northern Iraqi Arabs. Nonetheless, it's overall percentage in the Middle East has no relation with the fact that it entered the Semitic gene pool millennia ago. If it ain't Semitic, neither is Haplogroup J as it precedes it in the Middle East as things stand. T's ancient presence in the Middle is attested to by the T samples found in the Pek'iin Cave ancient burial ground.
The Late Chalcolithic material culture in the southern Levant has unique attributes that suggest spread of people or culture. Here, the authors use genome-wide ancient DNA data from 22 individuals from a Chalcolithic site and show evidence of complex population movements and turnovers.
www.nature.com
No one asserted that all Haplogroup T subclades are Semitic. Heck very ancient T samples are found as far away as Germany demonstrating that it is a widespread Haplogroup that spans the diverse ethno-linguistic labels we have today.
The Ashkenazi Y16897 samples highlight our origins probably stem from an ancient Semitic population in the Levant. For one reason or the other, the Y16897 lineage spread South into Arabia proper and then the Horn eventually.