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Forum Post: Anti-semitism at the Wall Street Occupation Protests

Posted 12 years ago on Sept. 26, 2011, 10:07 a.m. EST by RossWolfe (34)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Apparently the childish anti-capitalism on display on Wall Street has already drifted into a perverse form of anti-semitism.  Though I am usually loath to repost anything from the Huffington Post, whose lukewarm "progressivist" prattle tends to bore me to death, I was astonished to come across this article by Nathalie Rothschild: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathalie-rothschild/supporters-of-the-wall-st_b_977505.html

In it, she links to a blatantly anti-semitic web article indicting her as a "Journalist and Jew": http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b20_1316612128

Of course, influenced I am by Moishe Postone's reading of Marx and theory of capitalism, I am in the final analysis unsurprised by the misrecognition of capitalism's abstract, global domination as domination by the cosmopolitan Jewish financier.  Still, that these carnivalesque demonstrations have so swiftly turned produced anti-semitic sentiments should indict these protests even further.

I have included these musings on my more general post in critique of these protests:

http://rosswolfe.wordpress.com/2011/09/25/regressiveresistance-on-wall-street-notes-on-the-occupation/

10 Comments

10 Comments


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[-] 5 points by ColonelCato (19) from Utica, OH 12 years ago

...so because one person called her a Jew, now the entire movement is anti-semitic? Just so everyone knows - I'm not anti-semitic - I've never met an Arab I didn't like.

[-] 4 points by trashyharry (3084) from Waterville, NY 9 years ago

We Americans are tired of Dual Citizens who attain positions of power in our government and proceed to loot our treasury and steer our country into wars that benefit only Israel.The pursuit of policies and programs that inflame anti-semitism is the policy of Israel and they make no effort to hide it.When Jews have had enough of this malarkey,they'll end it.Until then,you will have to suffer for the evil that is done by Israelis,because they are using Jews and Judaism as cover for generalized criminality.And you don't need no Goys telling you the above because you know it.

[-] 2 points by lugano (1221) 9 years ago

"You Have a Head of State Who Happens to be a Maniac'' - Norman Finkelstein

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig1LOzmK2Y0

"We have a leader in Israel, who happens to be a maniac, going all around the world saying he represents all of world Jewry, so then are you going to fault people for taking him at his word?"

Norman Finkelstein, author of ‘Method and Madness - The hidden story of Israel's assaults on Gaza’, talks to Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi about Israel's assaults on the region. He thinks the Goldstone report was 'devastating' and concluded Israel was trying to punish and humiliate the civilian population of Gaza and was guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

After the report, Goldstone was denounced by many people, even being compared to Joseph Mengele. He says that the Palestinians have tried non-violent protest before, in the first entifada, but Israel applied 'pretty brutal repression' and defeated it. Human Rights organisations estimated that between 1988-90 tens of thousands of Palestinian detainees were tortured.

He contrasts this with the recent US Senate report on torture which is only talking about between 39 and 44 cases of torture, and aside from waterboarding, rectal hydration and stripping prisoners to humiliate them, the techniques used are essentially the same.

Whilst reports of human rights abuses have reduced opinion of Israel across the world, this has not meant a positive opinion of Palestinians, and he thinks publics overwhelmingly choose Israel as the more decent party still. He says there is 'no evidence whatsoever' of an increase in anti-Semitism, rather, whenever Israel starts an assault on Gaza, there is a spike in reported incidents, but he questions whether they are actually anti-Semitic.

He says the problem is the state of Israel and their 'maniac' head of state, claiming to represent all of world Jewry whenever they commit atrocities.

The bottom line now is what does the world think of right wing Americans who defend George W. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfelt, Condy Rice, Wolfovitz, Negroponte and the rest of that bunch of gangsters? Also...

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/02/22/bibi-netanyahu-ingrate/ By Justin Raimondo

The blind defence of Netanyahu's murderous right-wing policies and equating any criticisms of that 'ultra-semitism' to ''anti-semitism'' is just b-s and people can see that it is a cul-de-sac on the edge of a cliff on a road to nowhere. AIPAC and 'The Lobby' should see that they can't bully or hoodwink us for ever.

[-] 4 points by Shule (2638) 9 years ago

There are people out there who think all Italians are murdering theives just because there are a few people in a Mafia who claim Italian decent.

[-] 3 points by MattHolck0 (3867) 9 years ago

US weapons companies dump product on #Israel #Jordon #Kurds ... don't mess up the US neighborhood with violence #congress

[-] 3 points by lugano (1221) 9 years ago

''Anti-What?'' - By Uri Avnery: http://www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html

[-] 2 points by RedDread (57) from Bethel, CT 12 years ago

Ahem, a lot of us at the protest are Jews, Lenin was a Jew, Trotsky was a Jew, Marx was a Jew, and I saw nothing at all anti-semitic. Critique of Israel was at a minimum, and anyway, what is wrong with criticizing an oppressive government? I do it all the time.

[-] 2 points by riethc (1149) 12 years ago

Hear, hear!

[-] 1 points by rarara (27) 12 years ago

Ross, You are right to bring up the issue. Anti-semitism is a problem, particularly on the internet, where anti-jewish conspiracy theories run rampant. The attack on the journalist that you mention is a clear example of this. And anti-Semitism is also a problem on the Left. (Here is a good left-wing website on the topic: http://contested-terrain.net) But it appears to me to be a broad generalization to accuse the protesters of this. It appears to be a very marginal phenomenon. Although, when it appears, it should be directly opposed, both on the streets and on the web. Do people have experiences with this that they want to share?