The Hate in Zuccotti Park

Pete Sutherland traveled to Zuccotti Park all the way from Georgia Friday, shivering as he wielded a handmade sign that read, “The Reason the Arabs Hate Us.”

“Jews are the smartest people in the world,” said Sutherland, 79. Not in a good way.

“They control the media.”

But no one tells the truth about the Hebrew people, as he sees it, because “the media doesn’t want to commit suicide by losing the Jewish advertisers.’’

“I’m not anti-Semitic,” he finished.

He’s not alone.

From the teacher who vowed to run “Zionists Jews who run these big banks” out of the country to the dude who mocked and danced in the face of a yarmulke-topped “bum,” Occupy Wall Street must no longer deny it.

The movement has a serious Jewish problem.

But organizers are desperate to maintain that acts of bigotry are isolated, carried out by a small cadre of hoodlums who don’t represent the movement. Some have even suggested vocal Jew-haters are “plants” sent by folks who want to take Occupy down.

Sound familiar? Germans dismissed prewar Nazis as a harmless bunch of clowns, too.

Perhaps Sutherland, a self-described “international businessman,” was emboldened by the guy who this month threatened an older, yarmulke-wearing gentleman. “You’re a bum!”

“You can’t even speak English. Go back to Israel!”

Or, maybe he appreciated the message of Los Angeles Unified School District substitute teacher Patricia McAllister. She told Reason TV, with the urgency of a gal suffering from a gaping head wound:

“The Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our Federal Reserve — which is not run by the federal government — they need to be run out of this country!”

She told Fox TV, “Jews have been run out of 109 countries throughout history, and we need to run them out of this one.” She was fired last week. Hooray?

Sutherland got props from a Queens woman who walked by the park with her 10-year-old son, expressing fear that her three kids, not Jews, didn’t have a prayer for the future. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I actually agree.”

The ugliness on the march is going viral. This month, a man trolled Zuccotti hoisting a sign that read, “Hitler’s Bankers.” He shouted, “Jews control Wall Street!”

“Free speech! Free speech!” he yelled as someone feebly asked him to stop. “This isn’t Israel!”

Another man has been seen frequently with a sign urging fellow protesters to “Google Wall Street Jews. Jewish Billionaires. Jews and the Fed. Reserve Bank.”

So it’s no surprise the American Nazi Party broke its rule against standing beside Communists. It urged members of the “pro-white” movement to join Occupy Wall Streeters’ fight against the common enemy: “Judeo-capitalist bankster.”

“WHO holds the WEALTH and POWER in this country — the JUDEO CAPITALISTS,” chief Nazi Rudy Ruy Shayda wrote on the org’s Web site.

“WHO is therefore the #1 ENEMY who makes all this filth happen — the JUDEO-CAPITALISTS.

“Even Adolf Hitler’s NDSAP had to vote with open communists on some issues to achieve their goals.”

In tough economic times, scapegoating is hot. The anti-Semitic libel that says Jewish bankers control the world’s purse strings has found a loving home.

Tragically, the Anti-Defamation League put out a weirdly enabling statement. While condemning acts of bigotry, the ADL assured there is “no evidence that these incidents are widespread.”

“Thus far, however, anti-Semitism has not gained traction more broadly with the protesters, nor is it representative of the larger movement at this time.”

It took the Emergency Committee for Israel, whose board includes conservative Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and President Ronald Reagan adviser Gary Bauer, to sound the alarm. The group put out a video calling on Occupy-friendly President Obama and Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi to condemn anti-Semitism. “Hate is not an American value,” the video concluded.

No reply.

The Republican National Committee issued a statement. “Democrats were quick to single out instances of perceived extremism among the Tea Party supporters, but with Occupy Wall Street, they turn a blind eye.”

Deafening silence.

It’s as if good folks believe that if you don’t acknowledge hate, it will simply vanish.

This will never happen.

Occupy Wall Street Chase Away Men with Hateful Signs: MyFoxNY.com