Like most American Jews, my father tends to vote Democratic. Jews have chosen Democrats over Republicans in every presidential race since Woodrow Wilson. But when my dad votes for a Republican, he explains his decision in simple terms: “He’s a friend of Israel.”

Republicans desperately want to win the Jewish vote and the clout it brings with it. So I was not surprised to see Bill Kristol, Fox News commentator and cheerleader for the War in Iraq, had started a right-wing organization called “Emergency Committee for Israel” (as opposed to the “C’est la Vie Committee for Israel”).

What did surprise me was the video the group released to uncover the burning, vicious truth about the Occupy Wall Street protests. OWS, it turns out, is just a bunch of anti-Semitic anarchists. The video shows a few signs about Jews running the financial system and an orthodox Jew arguing with just about the most pathetic little pecker in New York.

The point of the video is to show that the movement is not based in middle-class frustration over decades of wealth inequality. In fact, it’s a neo-Nazi training camp bent on tearing down civilization, waiting for the first opportunity to throw the Jews against the wall.

Let me preempt conservative readers. “Don’t tell us he’s is going to suggest we ignore the hateful fringe showing up at OWS when he was among the first to use the hateful fringe in the Tea Party to paint that movement as racist.”

I am. Here’s why:

OWS was borne out of a well-documented, 20-year attachment to Reaganomics that left middle-class income stagnant and gave the wealthiest Americans the best ride of their lives.

The great irony is that the main criticism of OWS is its lack of well-articulated goals and grievances. The Tea Party couldn’t even get that far-its goals are self-contradictory and its grievances are mostly imagined. The Tea Party wants: government to tax less and spend less (except tax dollars spent on programs they use); to limit government power (except when it needs to intervene to defend their interpretation of God’s plan); to stop our slide into socialism (or is it fascism? Anarchy? Sharia Law?); to deport all undocumented immigrants (though calling them “illegals” makes it easier to forget their humanity); and to defend our interests at home and abroad (except when Obama’s hawkishness reminds them of their isolationist roots).

Motivation matters. The Tea Party didn’t bat an eye while the Bush administration turned a healthy budget into the worst deficit in our history. They didn’t protest the Bush administration when it bailed out Wall Street. Tea Party anger has always been directed toward President Obama, and it was only after the black man moved into the White House that they decided to take their country back.

Google away, you’ll find a dozen racist Tea Party signs for every anti-Semitic OWS sign. You’ll also come across a good number of anti-Semitic Tea Party signs.

Let me be clear: I’m not excusing anti-Semitism anywhere, by anyone-not at OWS or Tea Party rallies. The conspiracy fringe in America is where the far-left and far-right come full circle and agree on the insipid delusion of a world run by a cabal identical to that described in the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the text upon which modern anti-Semitism is based.

I only echo fellow American Jews at the Anti-Defamation League in their assertion that the handful of anti-Semites are not “representative of the movement.” I also join the ADL in commending the movement’s response and condemning Kristol’s video for distorting the truth.

Now, if only I could find a response to the Tea Party from a similar organization like, say, the NAACP.

Dave Balson is a senior journalism major.

He can be reached at 581-7942

or DENopinions@gmail.com.