In platform, Black Lives Matter accuses Israel of ‘genocide,’ backs BDS

[Little Tich]

Source: Times of Israel

Ahead of elections, umbrella group releases document labeling Jewish state an ‘apartheid state,’ calls for stopping US support

WASHINGTON — Following the Republican and Democratic national conventions, groups associated with the Black Lives Matter movement released a platform Monday that labels Israel an “apartheid state” and excoriates the United States for its alliance with a country it alleges systemically perpetrates a “genocide” against the Palestinians.

The platform, which demands “an end to the war against Black people,” marks the campaign’s first official entry into America’s debate over specific federal policies. In the past, Black Lives Matter has been noted for its protests against disparities within the nation’s criminal justice system that disadvantage African-Americans and other minorities.

The document makes 40 specific policy proposals, including abolishing the death penalty, providing free tuition to public universities, and enacting reparations to Black Americans, and addressed matters of US foreign policy in a section titled “Invest-Divest.”

Highly critical of the Jewish state — which it said “practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades” — the platform devoted a section to the US-Israel relationship. “The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people,” the text said.

Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-platform-black-lives-matter-accuses-israel-of-genocide-backs-bds/

[Little Tich]

1. The relevant parts in the BLM Platform about Israel:

PLATFORM
Source: The Movement for Black Lives Matter
INVEST-DIVEST
(snip)

What is the problem?
The US military accounts for over 50 percent of discretionary federal spending, a total of 598.5 Billion dollars spent annually, as compared to 70 billion spent on education, 66 billion spent on healthcare, $63.2 billion spent on housing and 29.1 billion spent on social security and unemployment. In addition, approximately 3 billion dollars in US aid is allocated to Israel, a state that practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades. Together with aid to Egypt — Israel’s most important regional ally — this figure represents nearly 75 percent of all US aid dollars. As these figures demonstrate, resources and funds needed for reparations and for building a just and equitable society domestically are instead used to wage war against a majority of the world’s communities.

The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people. The US requires Israel to use 75 percent of all the military aid it receives to buy US-made arms. Consequently, every year billions of dollars are funneled from US taxpayers to hundreds of arms corporations, who then wage lobbying campaigns pushing for even more foreign military aid. The results of this policy are twofold: it not only diverts much needed funding from domestic education and social programs, but it makes US citizens complicit in the abuses committed by the Israeli government. Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people. Palestinian homes and land are routinely bulldozed to make way for illegal Israeli settlements. Israeli soldiers also regularly arrest and detain Palestinians as young as 4 years old without due process. Everyday, Palestinians are forced to walk through military checkpoints along the US-funded apartheid wall.

Federal Action:
Build invest/divestment campaigns that ends US Aid to Israel’s military industrial complex and any government with human rights violations.

State Action:
Fight the expanding number of Anti-BDS bills being passed in states around the country. This type of legislation not only harms the movement to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but is a threat to the constitutional right to free speech and protest

Read more: https://policy.m4bl.org/invest-divest/

[brush]

2. Things just got even more serious. This is a whole new ballgame.

[oberliner]

3. Do they list any of the other governments with human rights violations?

The next five recipients of US aid after Israel are:

Egypt, Jordan, West Bank/Gaza, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.

Are these countries listed in the platform? They don't appear at the link you provided.

Aid to Egypt, Jordan, and the West Bank/Gaza was equal to the amount of aid given to Israel in 2013.

[6chars]

5. or governments that enslave blacks and others today?

Here is where slavery is a problem. The little yellow spot, indicating no slavery, in the map of the middle east is Israel, http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/index/

they state that this particular plank of their platform - "cutting military funding" is to be implemented by, among other things, cutting all aid to Israel (this is the first point they list on implementing the plank!), supporting BDS by overturning laws against it, etc. And then for each of their planks they say how it will benefit black people. This one will free up funding for black LGBT youth, among other things.

Yes, trade with the Jewish state is the cause of the hardships of black LGBT youth. You heard it hear first.

Or, perhaps, BLM has allied itself with radical anti-Israel activists or been infiltrated by them. In any event, this detracts a lot from their pursuit of other stated goals that directly and clearly do involve improving conditions for blacks in America.

[oberliner]

6. Black Egyptians decry daily racism

Black, non-Arab Africans say the case reveals long-standing racism that threatens the security and livelihoods of Egypt's sizeable sub-Saharan population. While refugees in the country face an overburdened and highly bureaucratic asylum system and aid organisations are underfunded and ill equipped to help them, non-Arab refugees face much more serious problems.

"You can be here 15 years as a recognised refugee and not for a moment of that will you ever be recognised legally or have a home," said Christopher Eades, director of legal programming at AMERA, a British NGO for refugees.

Aid workers believe sub-Saharan refugees are treated by different informal rules than those of Arab origin - excluded from schools, facing hurdles opening businesses and finding work, and hampered in legal cases.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/07/201371817106275826.html

You would think Egypt might get a special mention. it is the right behind Israel in terms of US aid.

[aranthus]

4. They lost all credibility when they posted that Orlando was because of White Supremacism

and Capitalism. http://blacklivesmatter.com/in-honor-of-our-dead-queer-trans-muslim-black-we-will-be-free/

They don't care about Palestinians anymore than they care about Blacks. They are just another group looking to tear down. One more faction of the great Oedipus Complex that is the Left.

[socket_wrench]

7. One small section of an otherwise amazing platform

The Movement for Black Live's policy platform is fantastic, not just for black lives, but as one of the most comprehensive progressive policy platforms I've read.

I think the point we should be taking away is that we should reduce military spending in favor of investing in black communities.

I'm a little disappointed by the lack of nuance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - which I believe leads to neither liberation for Palestinians or peace for Israelis - and I understand the reasons it may concern Jewish anti-racist activists (and black members of the Jewish community supporting Israel) - but it's one small section of an amazing platform.

[aranthus]

11. Depends on whether you're a Leftist or a Liberal

If you're a Leftist, then sure, it looks great. As a Liberal, it looks as if Black Lives Matter is just using a very serious situation to promote a radical agenda. BLM is writing itself into irrelevance.

[Little Tich]

8. Jewish Allies Condemn Black Lives Matter’s ‘Apartheid’ Platform

Source: The Forward

A new platform associated with the Black Lives Matter movement that describes Israel as an “apartheid state” committing “genocide” against the Palestinian people has triggered critical responses from Jewish organizations — even its allies.

“(We) are extremely dismayed at the decision to refer to the Israeli occupation as genocide,” a statement from T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, read.

Since Black Lives Matter took shape in 2013 to protest police killings of African Americans, Jewish groups across the country have struggled to strike the right tone in their responses to the movement. Activists aligned with Black Lives Matter have frequently visited the occupied Palestinian West Bank in what some call “solidarity tours,” as recently as July 30.

Black Lives matter has again risen in prominence in the run-up to the presidential election and amidst a spate of video-taped killings, grimly detailed, of African Americans by police. Now the platform, announced on July 3, has prompted several Jewish organizations to more precisely define their relationship to the movement.

T’ruah is one of several Jewish organizations that have stood with the grassroots movement to end police brutality against African Americans.

Read more: http://forward.com/news/346828/jewish-allies-condemn-black-lives-matters-apartheid-platform/

[cali]

9. Disregarding personal opinions re Israel, it's a big fat tactical mistake

It muddies the waters and however much I may condemn certain Israeli actions- they are not committing genocide. Not by any legal or philosophical definition.

[aranthus]

12. It's who they are. n/t

[geek tragedy]

10. Dumb on a number of levels. nt