Israel Matzav

Concern in Israel over #OWS (Occupy Wall Street) anti-Semitism

There's increasing concern in Israel over the anti-Semitism at Occupy Wall Street (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).

Israel's Yediot Ahronot newspaper called the anti-Semitic outbursts "hard to watch," and an Israeli commenter said, "It's just like pre-World War II Nazi Germany. You think blood libels can't happen in America?"

It has been pointed out by many media commentators that the openly anti-Semitic remain but a small portion of those participating in the Occupy Wall St. movement. However, others have noted that Nazi anti-Semitism started out as a fringe phenomenon in Germany before eventually defining that nation's domestic agenda in the 1940s.

More than the few Occupy Wall St. anti-Semites themselves, it is the lack of a clear and firm repudiation of their hateful rhetoric by the mainstream American media and political leaders that has a growing number of Israelis and Jews on edge.

Every time I report on this story, I get some nasty anti-Semitic tweets back. Ironically, some of them come from Arabs whose silence on Bashar Assad's Syria is deafening.

Labels: anti-Semitic stereotypes, anti-Semitism, Occupy Wall Street

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 7:38 AM