Black Lives Matter must rescind anti-Israel declaration
By
It
is a real tragedy that Black Lives Matter — which has done so much good
in raising awareness of police abuses — has now moved away from its
central mission and has declared war against the nation state of the
Jewish people. In a recently issued “platform,” more than 60 groups that
form the core of the Black Lives Matter movement went out of their way
to single out one foreign nation to accuse of genocide and apartheid.
No,
it wasn’t the Syrian government, which has killed tens of thousands of
innocent people with barrel bombs, chemicals, and gas. Nor was it Saudi
Arabia, which openly practices gender and religious apartheid. It wasn’t
Iran, which hangs gays and murders dissidents. It wasn’t China, which
has occupied Tibet for more than half a century. And it wasn’t Turkey,
which has imprisoned journalists, judges, and academics. Finally, it
wasn’t any of the many countries, such as Venezuela or Mexico, where
police abuses against innocent people run rampant and largely unchecked.
Nor was it the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the police are a law
unto themselves who act as judge, jury and executioner of those whose
politics or religious practices they disapprove.
It was only Israel, the nation state of the
Jewish people and the only democracy in the Middle East. The platform
accuses the US of being “complicit in the genocide taking place against
the Palestinian people” by providing aid to “an apartheid state.”
To be sure, Black Lives Matter is not a
monolithic organization. It is a movement comprising numerous groups.
Many of its supporters have no idea what the platform says. They cannot
be faulted for supporting the movement or its basic mission. But the
platform is the closest thing to a formal declaration of principles by
Black Lives Matter. The genocide paragraph may well have been injected
by radicals who are not representative of the mainstream. But now that
it has officially been published, all decent supporters of Black Lives
Matter — and there are many — must demand its removal.
Criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic. Like
other democracies, including our own, it has faults. Criticizing
Israel’s settlement and occupation policies is fair game. But singling
Israel out and falsely accusing it of “genocide” can be explained in no
other way than blatant hatred of Jews and their state.
In
defending its citizens against terrorism since before its establishment
as a state in 1948, Israel has killed fewer Palestinians than did Jordan
and Syria in two much shorter wars. The relatively low number of
civilian deaths caused by Israeli self-defense measures over the past 68
years compares favorably to the number of civilian deaths in other
conflicts. This is because, as Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of
British Forces in Afghanistan, put it: There has been “no time in the
history of warfare when an Army has made more efforts to reduce civilian
casualties...than [the Israel Defense Forces].” Though Kemp was
specifically referring to the wars in the Gaza Strip — which are also
the apparent focus of the Black Lives Matter Platform — his conclusion
is applicable to all wars Israel has fought.
Genocide
means the deliberate extermination of a race, such as done by Nazi
Germany to Jews and Sinti and Roma or by the Hutu against the Tutsi in
Rwanda. It has no application to deaths caused by self-defense measures
taken to protect citizens against terrorism. To falsely accuse Israel of
“genocide” — the worst crime of all, and the crime whose very name was
coined to describe the systematic murder of 6 million Jews — is
anti-Semitic.
Until and
unless Black Lives Matter removes this blood libel from its platform and
renounces it, no decent person — black, white, or of any other racial
or ethnic background — should have anything to do with it. We should
continue to fight against police abuses by supporting other
organizations or forming new ones. But we must not become complicit in
the promotion of anti-Semitism just because we agree with the rest of
the Black Lives Matter program.
To
support an organization or movement that promotes anti-Semitism because
it also supports good causes is the beginning of the road to accepting
racism. Many racist groups have also promoted causes that deserve
support. The Black Panthers had breakfast programs for inner-city
children, while advocating violence against whites. And the Ku Klux Klan
organized summer camps for working-class families, while advocating
violence against blacks.
There
must be zero tolerance for anti-Semitism, regardless of the race,
religion, gender, or sexual orientation of the bigots who promote,
practice or are complicit with it. Being on the right side of one racial
issue does not give one a license to be on the wrong side of the oldest
bigotry.
To
give Black Lives Matter a pass on its anti-Jewish bigotry would be to
engage in racism. Black anti-Semitism is as inexcusable as white
anti-Semitism or white racism. There can be no double standard when it
comes to bigotry.
I write
this column both in sorrow and in anger. In sorrow because I support the
goals of the Black Lives Matter movement — I have long been involved in
efforts to expose and prevent police abuses — and worry that this
obnoxious and divisionary platform plank may destroy its credibility
with regard to police abuse in America by promoting deliberate lies
about Israel. It is also alienating Jewish and other supporters who
could help them achieve their goals here at home — as many such
individuals have historically done in actively supporting all aspects of
the civil rights movement.
I
write it in anger because there is never an excuse for bigotry and for
promoting blood libels against the Jewish people and their state. It
must stop. And those who engage in it must be called out for
condemnation.
Black
Lives Matter should rescind the portions of the platform that falsely
accuse Israel of genocide and apartheid. If it does not, it risks ending
in the dustbin of history, along with other discredited bigoted groups.
It
would be sad if the good work done by Black Lives Matter were now to be
sidetracked by the mendacious and irrelevant accusation of “genocide”
and “apartheid” against one foreign democracy — Israel.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dershowitzis full of shit when he says BLM "has
done so much good in raising awareness of police abuses." What BLM has
really done is spread hatred of the police. BLM is only concerned
about white cops killing black men, an occasional occurrence. BLM is
not at all concerned about the daily killings of black men by black men
in our inner-cities.
I don't think Dershowitz actually believes BLM has done so much good. He's just saying that to avoid being called a racist.
I don't think Dershowitz actually believes BLM has done so much good. He's just saying that to avoid being called a racist.
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