White supremacy and Zionism converge in deleted Times of Israel post on Ferguson

Following an uproar on social media, a viciously racist blog post was removed from The Times of Israel. Titled “Nine Parallels between Palestine and Ferguson,” the post attacked African American protestors in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson and Palestinians as violent, “savage,” irrationally “angry” and deserving of the institutionalized state violence wielded against them.

(A web cache of the article can be found here. A copy is also included at the bottom of this post.)

In the now-deleted post, the writer, Robert Wilkes, a member of the advisory board and media response team at StandWithUs, embraces the increasingly popular comparison between Ferguson and Palestine. But Wilkes does so by proudly likening anti-Palestinian Jewish Israelis to American police, the real victims according to him.

The post was removed despite its author being defended as an “amazing guy” by a staffer at StandWithUs, a right-wing group that works closely with the Israeli government.

StandWithUs director of Israeli education Hen Mazzig initially praised Robert Wilkes and his article in a tweet that was favorited by the official StandWithUs Twitter account:-

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http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/white-supremacy-and-zionism-converge-deleted-times-israel-post-ferguson

In response to a request for comment, Mazzig told The Electronic Intifada that he and his organization disagree with Wilkes’ analysis.

“We do not endorse the article. Neither do I,” insisted Mazzig.

Asked why he initially tweeted praise for Wilkes, Mazzig replied, “It was not an endorsement. I didn’t read [Wilkes’ post] all the way through.”

Mazzig went on to disassociate his organization from Wilkes, saying, “We had no prior knowledge that he was going to publish it. He is on the advisory board of Seattle. He is not on our board. We are not responsible for the actions of our board members.”

It appears to be unprecedented for StandWithUs to publicly distance itself in this manner from one of its insiders.