contested terrain

#Occupy Wall Street & Antisemitism: some reports and comments

Some of these links have already been in comment threads in previous posts on this topic, but here are extracts from some reports and comments on the Occupy movement.

From Occupy Wall Street

American Jewish Committee: Is “Occupy Wall Street” anti-Semitic? By Kenneth Stern, October 22, 2011

Occupy Wall Street (OWS), and its spinoffs across the United States, is still not fully defined. It cannot fairly be labeled a movement, since movements have core ideologies, agendas and leadership. OWS, launched in mid-September, is a continuing demonstration, focusing anger around the economic status quo and the assertion that people are suffering in ways they perceive corporations are not. It prides itself on its lack of leaders, and, according to the OWS website, points to the non-violent Arab Spring protests as its model.

[...] OWS is slightly different in each city, depending on the local activists. Occupy Boston may have the most significant contingent of anti-Israel veteran protesters, including a person with a history of picketing the Israeli consulate, a co-chair of a group advocating Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and a contingent of Students for Justice in Palestine. Yet, few showed up for an “Occupy Boston, Not Palestine” event on October 18. It was generally ignored except for observers from the mainstream Jewish community.

Individuals holding up signs, like one person in New York’s Zucotti Park whose handmade sign states “Google: Jewish Billionaires,” have been few, and have frequently been countered by other OWS participants. Furthermore, a poster promoted by “Occupy Together,” points to kindred “Occupy” activity in cities across the globe, and specifically lists Tel Aviv.

While the potential for increased anti-Semitic and anti-Israel activity associated with OWS is a concern that requires careful monitoring, and will be an ongoing focus of AJC attention, some recent complaints from partisan quarters and in the media alleging widespread anti-Semitism are unfair. They attempt to paint the episodic incident as routine and ignore both the repudiation in instances of anti-Semitism, as well as the hospitable environment for Jews. Yom Kippur and Sukkot were both celebrated at OWS.

Still, one anti-Semitic sign is too many. We live in a world where an image or moment can be captured by a cell phone camera and put on the Internet within minutes. A picture may be the equivalent of a thousand words, but it should not be taken as reflecting the ideas of thousands of participants.

A Canadian named Kalle Lasn is credited for instigating the call to occupy Wall Street. Lasn was a founder of the anti-consumerist group “Adbusters,” which has promoted projects such as “Buy Nothing Day” and “TV Turnoff Week,” and has been cited as a source of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic material. He may be responsible for initiating the call to action, but OWS is being carried forward by a diverse group of actors. There is no evidence that anti-Israel elements are playing a significant role in this anarchistic demonstration.

Joseph Berger: Cries of Anti-Semitism, but Not at Zuccotti Park, NYT

Among the hodgepodge of signs that have sprouted in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, one man in jeans and a baseball cap has been carrying placards that shout their suggestions: “Google: Jewish Billionaires” and “Google: Zionists control Wall St.” [...]

Marjorie Dove Kent, executive director of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which has taken part in the protests, said that the movement had a diffuse leadership and that individual protesters had indicated their condemnation of the sign-carrying man by shouting him down.

But much as the Tea Party movement initially grappled with accusations of racism, Occupy Wall Street has been consistently confronted with accusations of anti-Semitism. Several conservative Web sites and television programs have shown video of the sign-holder, as well as of a woman at an allied demonstration in Los Angeles who identified herself as a public school teacher and decried “Zionist Jews who are running the big banks and the Federal Reserve.”

[...] “Democrats were quick to single out any instances of perceived extremism among Tea Party supporters,” Sean Spicer, the communications director of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement on Tuesday. “But with Occupy Wall Street, they turn a blind eye.”

An Oct. 13 article on the Web site of Commentary, a politically conservative magazine founded by the American Jewish Committee, though no longer affiliated with it, argued that “it isn’t just a few crackpots engaging in anti-Semitism.” The article said that the “main organizer behind the movement — Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn — has a history of anti-Jewish writing.” Mr. Lasn did not return a message left on his Adbusters office voice mail in Vancouver, British Columbia. But Patrick Bruner, another member of the Occupy Wall Street press team, said the magazine Adbusters had helped prompt the protest movement with a call for action but otherwise had “not been active at all.” He said the Occupy Wall Street movement rejected any kind of racism or hatred, but also was “open source,” meaning that anyone could take part.

ADL statement

We are seeing some individuals holding anti-Semitic signs at the “Occupy Wall Street” rallies, and some videos posted on YouTube from the rallies have shown individuals expressing classic anti-Semitic beliefs such as “Jews control the banks” and “Jews control Wall Street.”  While we believe that these expressions are not representative of the larger views of the OWS movement, it is still critical for organizers, participants and supporters of these rallies to condemn such bigoted statements clearly and forcefully.

There is no evidence that these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories are representative of the larger movement or that they are gaining traction with other participants.  However, history demonstrates time and again how economic downturns can embolden anti-Semites to spread malicious conspiracy theories and promote stereotypes about Jews and money. As a consequence, these statements must not be left unchallenged.

Mark Tracey in the Tablet on whether OWS is antisemitic

• Adbusters has zero visible presence at the rally. If had not read in a few places that it had come up with the initial idea for it, I would have had zero knowledge of its association. The rally is quite clearly composed mostly of Americans raising American issues; Adbusters is just the Canadian in the room who is tangentially involved (much like, ironically, Brookfield Asset Management, the Canadian real estate mega-giant that owns Zuccotti Park).

• I am very sad to see the LaRouchies’ presence at Occupy Wall Street’s D.C. iteration. But I am happy to report I have not seen them in Lower Manhattan. The dominant radical groups are the Bob Avakian Communists and the International Socialist Review; much more happily and more plentifully, there are Teamsters and unionized nurses and teachers.

• I have witnessed zero anti-Semitic signs or chants, and literally maybe two or three having to do with Israel/Palestine, themselves bearing rather bland slogans about liberation and occupation. The most offensive sign I saw was one held yesterday that declared that the people’s revolutions had worked in Egypt, Tunisia, and Venezuela. If Occupy Wall Street falls into a pit of useless Third World radicalism, its heroes will be Che and Chávez, not Arafat and Ahmadinejad. Not that the former scenario would be a good thing (or even a good thing for the Jews), but it is not what many Tablet Magazine readers no doubt fear.

• A clergy-led rally I witnessed featured a rabbi. And, of course, and with the protesters’ consent, a mass Kol Nidrei service affiliated with Occupy Wall Street was held last Friday.

• In fact, most of Brooks’ essay argues not that the protesters are dangerous radicals but rather meek and ineffectual ones: “milquetoast,” as his headline has it. I think if he were actually to come up and see the bustling library and the earnest arguments and, yes, the drum circles and the chanting, a different adjective would come to his mind: the protest is fundamentally haimish.

From Occupy London

Paul Stott: Countering Nonsense In The Occupy Movement

Paul is a British anarchist and former Class War activist.

[...] A more serious debate is now on-going about how to deal with the presence of conspiracy theorists at occupy events. The financial crisis is naturally something easily explained by the likes of David Icke, who has been vociferous in his condemnation of what he sees as Rothschild-Zionism. To Icke, no discussion of 9/11, or the financial crisis, can be made without reference to this conspiracy. Such nonsense makes all protestors easy targets for media exposes, hit-pieces on their ‘racism’ or their portrayal as addled thinkers. The serious questions raised about government economic policy, capitalism, our financial system and government relations with it, are in danger of being ignored in place of arguments about anti-Semitism or the sheer oddness of certain protestors.

There is only two responses to this. I discount ignoring them, because they will not go away, and numerically will form a significant number of the protestors in many cities. For such thinkers, the financial system is one of the issues – they certainly will not abandon it. Icke has been calling on the human race to get off its knees for so long, when they actually see it happening, their movement is energised

One response is to allow the Icke types to dominate. To walk away and do something else instead. The second response, which I know many are now turning to, is to try and counter them. This is difficult, not because their arguments are so strong – they are not – but because arguing with people full of Zeitgeist or Icke thought is not an easy process. They have been exposed to an absolute truth. Those who do not follow it cannot be allowed to simply disagree with them, but become part of the problem as soon as they disagree.

It is neccesary to attack Icke’s anti-Semitism, his ludicrous reptilian fantasies and to ask what Icke has proved in twenty plus years of ‘exposing’ the system. Other than improving his bank balance – the answer is nothing. Events like the banking crisis and 9/11 are actually very simple. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for attacking New York, and the evidence for US or Israeli participation is nil. The banking crisis occurred because the banks gambled lots of money, and governments who had long dropped any pretence of regulation, bailed out their mates with our cash.

Keep it simple. Because it is simple.

Also read: History at Night’s Second Thoughts.

Previous posts

• Jew-hatred and the Wall Street Protests (29 Sept)
  
• Wall Street protests marred by anti-Semitism (7 Oct)
• Doug Henwood: On Occupy Wall Street and the Federal Reserve (15 Oct)
• #Occupy (18 Oct)
• Observations from Zuccotti Park (23 Oct)
  

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Capitalism/anti-Capitalism, U.K., U.S., social movements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.