Many Jewish liberals have been in denial about the anti-Israel and often anti-Semitic tone of much of the Occupy Wall Street movement since its inception. As our colleague Jonathan Neumann wrote in the January issue of COMMENTARY, the leftist hatred for Israel is thoroughly integrated into the Occupy worldview even though some mainstream sympathizers with the movement would prefer to ignore it. But their tolerance for the way this virus has attached itself to a movement that is supposedly about “social justice” will soon be put to the test again.
The so-called U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is organizing an Occupy AIPAC event set to coincide with the annual national conference in Washington, D.C. of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in March. The group, an anti-Zionist organization dedicated to promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) on Israel is hoping to piggyback on the popularity of the Occupy movement to try to sabotage or at least overshadow the AIPAC event. Though the odds are, it will fail, as most such anti-Israel efforts generally do, the manner with which this BDS group has commandeered the Occupy brand name ought to alert liberals to the direction the movement is headed with respect to Israel and the Jews.
Anti-Israel protests at AIPAC are nothing new but the way the BDS coalition has neatly appropriated the slogans and the spirit of the movement praised by Obama could give these outliers a bit more prominence and a more respectful hearing in a mainstream press that has bent over backwards to excuse the excesses of the occupiers.
Even more importantly, the identification of this viciously anti-Zionist group with the mainstream of the Occupy movement ought to shock get the attention of liberals who have refused to acknowledge the connection between the hard left and anti-Semitism. As Neumann points out in his article, far from being a marginal phenomenon, the link between the neo-Marxism of the occupiers and the BDS crowd is far from tenuous. The occupiers and the Israel-haters are natural allies. The only question is when, if ever, are mainstream Jewish liberals who want nothing to do with the Occupy AIPAC leftists going to face up to the fact that there is no distance between this group and the rest of the Occupy mob.
One would think that we nefarious all powerful Jews who secretly control all governments, banks and the media could at least fire up our mind control machines to get the DC police to keep that riff raff away.
I would like to attend in full SS regalia just to see if any of them so much as objected.
Trudy, some might. Last year a similar anti-AIPAC event wouldn't let Helen Thomas speak. It depends on the organizers. And what their self-representation of the (imaginary) Israel is ping-ponging around in their skulls. Israel and Judaism are terra incognita for them, one huge blank on their mental charts filled in by the slogan "here there be dragons" and the odds and ends of anti-Israel/anti-Jewish stereotypes they've built up their conceptual nests with. They want Israel to ultimately disappear but for different pretexts. Some are full-bore haters like the trolls irresistibly attracted here to spill their bile. Some are self-righteous Marxists pining for a Cuban style utopia. None of them could tell an Israel Matzav from a matzoh ball
Never forget entails remembering that fascism also conceived of itself as promoting "social justice" by putting private enterprise into the hands of the government and eliminating individual rights to private property. There is nothing contradictory or even surprising about the the Occupy Wall Street movement harboring deep anti-Semitism. Jewish liberals honestly believe if they can just be nice
Code Pink (an anti-Zionist antiwar, feminist group, and big OWS player) provides speakers for The Nation magazine's cruises. The mainstream left is now clearly in "solidarity with the Palestinian people's struggle".
What I don't get is how the OWS "movement" with its kindgergarten playschool exercises in self-esteem participatory consensual democracy, the drum circle thing, and the decaying squalor of their hobo camps got any traction in the first place. The Occupiers are popular? Really? Who knew the slogan GIVEMEMONEY had such resonance.
Now, I am the kind of person who, after a few weeks in Israel, looks at the US media portrail of Israel and the Middle East and just cringes. (While in the US, I can somehow tolerate it). n nSo I'm likely to agree with Mr. Tobin that any particular focus on AIPAC by the Occupy Movement is misplaced and, like many of the aims of people in the Occupy Movement, uninformed. Equally I will accept "anti-Semetic,' without going into it. n nHowever, the kind of broad-brush denunciation that I see above, makes me long for those days when Commentary derived most of its funding from the CIA. Naive or not, the leadership in many Occupy localities that I know of, is Jewish (if Progressive Jews). Still undeveloped in its thoughts or not– the movement is only a few months old!– the ideas are closer to those of the Bund and the moshavim, than to those who hate Israel and Jews. n nThe solution to ignorance is, as always, education, thought and discussion. I think there is ample time, to educate those in the Occupy Movement who naively do not understand Israel's situation, as well as to root out any true anti-Semintes.
Well, in lieu of Kristallnacht II, I say the arrogant incorrigibles are making all the right bets. But, come Springtime, they better have Michael Bloomberg and Eric Cantor call in the IDF to 'protect' the Wall Street Jewish banksters, yes Empress_Trudy?
People don't want to send their sons to Iran to kill and die for Israel, and it's Kristallnacht? There is no limit to the lunacy of Zionists, is there? There is a limit to the rhetorical hat from which they pull their hasbara–Hitler, Auschwitz, 1938. Pretty bedraggled rabbits.
You guys are exactly correct. Come springtime, the next springtime, the anti-Semites die. Your rabbit skulls will be impaled on the wall.
Again and again, the same record, the same groove, the same inappropriate leaps of incoherent illogic to hobby horse obsessions–the post is not about Iran but the BDS movement– but it all becomes one inseparable taffy pull tar baby cancer of confusion set off by whatever random spark serves as the catalyst (here it is Trudy's comment)–the charge is primed and ready to go off regardless. n nHate the Jews for being Zionists, hate the Zionists for sacrificing Aryan children on Moloch's altar in Iran or, as with BDS, for existing in the first place, it doesn't matter. The neuronal pathways are soldered in place, the mechanical fortune teller's clockwork machinery is irreparably broken, the same dark prophecies about the Jews spit out no matter how many coins you jam into the thing, like yesteryear's gum balls. n nSo again, back to the exhausted rant about how the Zionists wish to shed gentile blood in Iran (nobody here was talking about Iran, were they?")–and backwards to bosom-buddy glue huffing azmidnitecowboy, and Stormfront fanboy threats to kill Jew bankers outright. n nHow special. n nUnfortunately , since anti-Semites present as classic schizotypical obsessives the behavior will never change and the inflexible patterns simply repeat: lather, rinse repeat; the unending cognitive shampoo of the Jew-fixated. The anti-Semites can't get out of the eternal shower of the self-emptied mind. n nWhen the next Springtime comes, for sure, maybe we'll just have to see how the sheep and goats separate out and whose bedraggled rabbit corpses have their throats jammed through the barbed wire.
With General Dempsey in Jerusalem, it is curious that a Commentary writer should turn his attention to the Occupy movment. Are symbolic politics that much more important than the real movement of events at the centers of power? What does Commentary (and the AIPAC leadership) know of and think of the increasingly open determination of the permanent government (CIA and State Department officials, military officers, the supporting casts in universities, Congressional staffs) to attenuate and even reject the alliance with Israel?
I guess a problem today is that we see enemies everywhere. And the response by hard left as well as hard right media is often to define the fringe of a fringe as a maelstrom rather than view it as a bag of hot air that if left alone, (without all the hyped attention), will vanish on its own.
The Education supplement for tomorrow’s New York Times illustrates why college campuses have become the feeding grounds for OWS-there are profiles of students who have no desire to obtain work or a career, but who see their activities for OWS as an outgrowth of the “education” that they received from the tenured left wing radicals on their respective campuses. Thus, an attack on AIPAC and Israel should have been seen as inevitable, considering the origins and openly anti Semitic rhetoric of OWS.
High among the OWS objectives is to stop big money from controlling who gets elected and what gets funded. Wonderfully, that means STOP AIPAC.
Jewish participation in OWS is not just liberal,don`t forget the Purim- fest among the antisemitic mob and the interesting appeal "occupy Judaism" supported by some "rabbis" (in Forward). nJewish communities tolerance of anti-Israel self-hate is the base of open anti-semitism of today`s anti-Zionists.
I’ll be there. I am not anti-semitic but I am anti-Israel and its influence on US politics. The same Israel-Firster neo-cons(Kristol, Feith, Perle, Wolfowitz, and Abrams) that lied our way into Iraq have received pledges from all Presidential candidates, except for Paul, for a war with Iran, on Israel’s behalf, a year before the election. I view this as treasonous. Israel, AIPAC, and the neo-cons have already started a disinformation campaign against Iran just like the lead-up to the Iraq War. Another pre-emptive war against a sovereign government regarding alleged WMD’s, been there, done that, and it sure worked out well. The Zionists feel they can bully the US into this war but our only hope is for OWS and millions of others take to the streets to stop this. It will likely get bloody and we will find out who the Israeli Firsters are. The US is noticing the power of the Israeli lobby and is increasingly appalled. Adelman,Netanyahu’s buddy giving 5 million to Gingrich shortly after Gingrich does Israel’s bidding by calling Palestinians “invented people” shows how corrupt the Israeli Firsters have become and we even have Israel Firsters calling for Obama’s assassination by Mossad.I used to believe in Israel, land of milk and honey and all that, but its clear that it has either lost its way or it was all lies. Israel is now one of the racist countries in the world and increasingly becoming more like Iran with its religious fanatics.
Of course, you'll be there Robbie. Screaming and foaming at the Joos with the rest of your brethren. And of course, you're not an antisemite; no one nowadays is. You are just, er, …."criticial of Israeli policies," right? An "honest broker"? LOL! n nGo on Robbie, have some cojones. You are a bona fide, honest-to-goodness, real, big as life, stinking antisemite. It's just not cool to admit it yet in polite society. Have fun at the trash fest, maybe we'll catch you on CNN.
Are you an American? I often wonder where so many haters of every ilk live….because, if they do live in America, then they are blind deaf and dumb to the realities of the world as it was, is and probably will be.
I love it how anyone who criticises Israel is either an anti-semite or a self-hating Jew. My is that getting trite.
You openly declare yourself as "anti-Israel," not merely critical of its policies–just like the rest of the BDS bunch. As such, you have placed yourself firmly in the camp of those who believe in self-determination, just not for Jews. That makes you an antisemite, sure as anything. You also ignore the US interest, as well as that of US allies in the Arab world, such as Saudi Arabia, in curbing Iranian nuclear ambitions, and the repercussions those ambitions have for regional stability, things you must be well aware of. Yet you ignore them; why? Only because those considerable interests happen to coincide with Israel's interest in surviving. When one adopts a position as hopelessly irrational as yours, and when that position is clearly motivated by antipathy to a particular group, the charge of bigotry is more than warranted, Robert.
From the time I learned about such things as anti-semitism beginning with the Bible, school, history, movies and the news, I often wondered how so many could have been so cajoled to ignore the threat to their existence. I thought that with America and then Israel, the Jews would, finally, stand up to the hatred of those who promoted anti Jewish hate. But, no such thing happened or happens today. What is it about being Jewish that waits until the blade is literally at the throat before decrying the insanity of groups like OWS throughout the world. All any decent human has to do is pay attention to what the Progressive, Liberal and Democratic Leftwing nuts have written and spoken for decades. Now, along comes the disgusting excuse for citizen participation by hatemongers of all things decent and good, and the Jews still do not, as a large group, raise their voices as one people to denounce the hate. Why?
Jewish anti-semitism is the cancer of this people who are not the nation and his rabbis are against his national existance.The fight for the national identity goes within the brains.
Hitler said, while feigning an army with shovels( he actually prepared 14m for war later), if the Brits/USA attack Germany, Jews will be hung. Hitler declared war on the USA, which declared war on Germany. He murdered 6m of our people, innocent except for being born Jewish. 2m children were gassed, hung, shot, experimented upon, thrown into ovens before it ended, with 70 dead Christians. r nr nThe Reich needed a scapegoat to galvanize disparate German opinion and diverse European elements. He used the Jews and Russians., very cleverly as well as pitting one group against another (sound familiar?). r nr nNow, the Occupy Movement, reeling under police arrests and general dismay over its tactics..sees a galvanizein froce among various hate groups. ( The Aryan groups have yet to join). Will it work? What does the Israeli-Palesr nconflict have to do with any of them? Its 11,000 miles away, the result of nationistic goals of each group, going back 100 years. Its a pig in a poke. Yet, AIPACr nwhich is conidered the mother of all Zionist lobbies, is the immediate focus..along with Jews on campuses, etc. r nThey know, Israel cannot be beaten on the battle field, r nsooo, the abuse of our Constitution is encouraged. r n(Speech, assembly, etc.). r nr nMost Americans hate the protestors, seeing them as moochers, radicals, who want to bring down the govt, r nDemocratic or Republican, and set up a socialist or Communist regime. We therefore must not fuel this movement, by acting rash or without discipline or seemingr nirresponsbile. r nr nLet the police do their job and the marines if need be. r nr nTake pictures of protestors…turn them over to the FBI r nReport criminal activity to the Justice Dept or IRSr nstate and federal agencies. Immigration should be notified if illegals involved. r nr nI am also for Jews and concerned Christians havingr nwespons to defend themselves. Dont be shy. Join the NRA. r nTikkun Olam must take a vacation and back seat. r nr nThese people are out for blood, our blood. r nDont be gullible. They are the new SS, SA and SDr nof a movement. Treat them accordingly.
God does not make assumptions, God knows for sure…