The Republican National Committee is joining in with the right-wing bloggers who have sought to paint the Occupy Wall Street protesters as an anti-Semitic mob, condemning Democrats who it says “have spent the last week championing the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement, yet in the midst of protestors’ extreme anti-Semitic, anti-Israel comments, they’ve been silent.”
RNC Communications Director Sean Spicer is sending out a memo asking: “Where’s the outrage? While protestors are seen spewing hate against Jewish Americans, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz have declared their support for the demonstrations.”
“Democrats were quick to single out any instances of perceived extremism among Tea Party supporters,” Spicer continues, “but with Occupy Wall Street, they turn a blind eye. President Obama claimed last weekend that Martin Luther King would support the demonstrations. But surely Dr. King would have called out these ugly displays of bigotry.”
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The right has been saying that the protests are anti-Semitic for a few days now, but the idea is really gaining momentum because of an ad put out by Bill Kristol and Gary Bauer’s Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), which calls on Obama and Pelosi to condemn Occupy Wall Street for anti-Semitism.
It’s true, there have been a few instances of protesters at Occupy Wall Street making anti-Semitic remarks and holding anti-Semitic signs, but even the Anti-Defamation League said that there is “no evidence that these incidents are widespread.”
“Thus far, however, anti-Semitism has not gained traction more broadly with the protestors, nor is it representative of the larger movement at this time,” the ADL said in a statement that condemned the instances of anti-Semitic remarks.
And Dan Sieradski, an OWS protester and spokesman for a group called Occupy Judaism that is trying to rally the Jewish community to the protests, told TPM that the anti-Semitic remarks were exceptions to the generally welcoming attitude the protesters have toward Jews. “There is anti-Semitism everywhere in the world, and no more here than anywhere else,” he said.
