The Occupy Wall Street movement is aimed at the American Establishment, so it is little wonder that it is having resonance in terms of the Jewish presence in the Establishment. Two neoconservative media orgs are trying to smear the movement as anti-Semitic.
First, Bill Kristol’s shop, the Emergency Committee for Israel, has published a scare video trying to paint the protest movement as anti-Semitic. The ad links Obama campaign aide David Plouffe’s support for the Wall Street protesters, and Nancy Pelosi’s and Obama’s too, to anti-semitic statements made on the street by knobjobs. Then says, “Tell President Obama and leader Pelosi to stand up to the mob.”
The Emergency Committee for Israel is funded by a hedge fund manager named Daniel Loeb, who has defected from Obama to Romney, Eli Clifton reports.
Second, here’s Alana Goodman at Commentary arguing that an organizer behind the protests, Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn, is antisemitic because he once did an article pointing out that many neoconservatives are Jewish.
At the heart of this argument is the degree to which the neoconservative establishment has been funded/lifted by Rockefeller Jews– conservative Jews who have made it. And as Clifton implies in his piece, Obama is unable to write these Jews off. They are a swing constituency with an enormous amount of money. Call them neoconservative or neoliberal– Israel is a giant issue for many of them.
Clifton:
The Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), has joined the pack of conservative groups working to discredit the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The ECI — a Bill Kristol–Gary Bauer–Rachel Abrams-conceived organization — launched a YouTube ad this morning, seeking to paint the Wall Street protests as anti-Semitic.
The ad, which was faithfully promoted by ECI’s go-to media outlets — Politico’s Ben Smith, the Weekly Standard, and Commentary — alleges that Democratic party leaders are “turning a blind eye to anti-Semitic, anti-Israel attacks,” and urges President Obama and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to “stand up to the mob.” Watch it:
ThinkProgress reported in June that two-thirds of ECIPAC’s contributions in the past election cycle came from Daniel S. Loeb, CEO of Third Point Management, a New York based hedge fund.
Loeb’s $100,000 in support for ECI follows his track record of falling out of love with Obama after the White House pushed for financial regulatory reforms.
Read David Brooks as well:
“Take the Occupy Wall Street movement. This uprising was sparked by the magazine Adbusters, previously best known for the 2004 essay, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” — an investigative report that identified some of the most influential Jews in America and their nefarious grip on policy.
If there is a core theme to the Occupy Wall Street movement, it is that the virtuous 99 percent of society is being cheated by the richest and greediest 1 percent.
This is a theme that allows the people in the 99 percent to think very highly of themselves. All their problems are caused by the nefarious elite.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/the-milquetoast-radicals.html?_r=2&hp
So a couple of repugnant people saying horrible things about “the jews” is anti-semitic. But Christian Zionists, who support Israel, and who Bill Kristol loves are not – even though in their ideal scenario, all the jews die. OK.
What I have a hard time understanding is how guys like Lloyd Blankfein cease to be jewish when they destroy the economy – but are “leading jewish figures on wall street” during the boom times.
It seems like jewish folks love the collective when sandy koufax was throwing no-hitters, or jonas salk was curing polio – how many times have we heard about “jewish nobel laureates?” – all the time. Part of taking credit for good things, is taking responsibility for bad things.
And part of creating a all encompassing “jewishness” where everything one does is a direct reflection and result of the larger group, is also creating a system where the acts of individuals get blamed on the collective. So, both Salk and Madoff’s actions were “jewish.”
In short, this is the bed zionism made for jews. you want to be a “separate people” viewed through a national lense – your going to have to deal with the generalizing. Thats just the way it is.
What is there to paint? The evidence is in the video. There are some anti-semitic elements in the OWS movement and the movement is doing nothing about them.
Is this going to help you Phil in convincing American Jews that they don’t need Israel as an insurance policy? In fact, the OWS movement is hurting your cause.
The ‘persecution’ theme goes beyond the Jewish element among the elites.
Every time I’ve listened to programs about higher tax rates for the upper imcome bracket, I also hear voices that are not Jewish attempting to paint this whole group as a persecuted social minority. iow, tax the rich and we’re persecuting them.
The video is cheapest propaganda.
We all could see it coming……
The video is such an obiously manipulated propaganda message – who would fall for it?
Is it not interesting / noteworthy and telling that such “counter-argument-propaganda” is being let loose?
And that with the well-tested AS – iron bar of first and last resort!
Of course, the OWS-public slogans in the street can not be fine-tuned to the extent of doctoral thesis.
However, via the intrument of international finance and banking system, who could deny factually that a distinct and powerful Jewish element is to be found there?
The underlying reasons for the fundamental malaise of the international finance and banking system are too complex to reduce them to any single cause. And if some fringe group of the OWS-movement was to voice AS arguments that must be denounced w/o qualification.
As far as i know, spokespeople of the OWS-movement have done exactly that.