The Republican National Committee is calling on top Democratic leaders to denounce the displays of anti-Semitism at the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Where’s the outrage? While protestors are seen spewing hate against Jewish Americans, President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz have declared their support for the demonstrations. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Steve Israel even circulated a petition saying he’s “standing with” Occupy Wall Street. …

Democrats were quick to single out any instances of perceived extremism among Tea Party supporters, but with Occupy Wall Street, they turn a blind eye. President Obama claimed last weekend that Martin Luther King Jr. would support the demonstrations. But surely Dr. King would have called out these ugly displays of bigotry.

The issue here isn’t that the Occupy Wall Street movement is inherently anti-Semitic. Jew-bashers at the protests are a very small, very fringe – though still troubling – element of the movement. The main issue, which the RNC touches on in its statement, is the hypocrisy of Democrats, who smeared the entire Tea Party movement as racist based on a couple of its fanatical outliers.

What may hurt OWS more than the occasional anti-Semitic outburst are the violence, mass arrests, and overall crime at the protests. One of the latest incidents even involves a reported rape. The movement is attractive to anarchists and petty criminals, and those are the people Democrats should be most worried about aligning themselves with politically.