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American Jews and BLM: Antisemitism Must Sharpen Focus on Jewish Alliances
A poster from a protest in London linking Black Lives Matter movement to the situation facing the Palestinians. Photo: Apartheid Off Campus via Facebook.
Speaking in somber, contemplative tones, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) recently delivered a 40-minute floor speech on the current rise of antisemitism in the United States. “Not long ago, many of us marched together for black and brown lives,” Schumer said nostalgically, “out of the recognition that injustice against one oppressed group is injustice against all. But apparently, in the eyes of some, that principle does not extend to the Jewish people.”
Schumer’s invocation of the Black-Jewish solidarity that characterized both the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the post-George Floyd racial upheaval of 2020 hearkened back to the American tradition of coalition-building around shared civic values.
It also summoned the doctrine of intersectionality, which holds that minority categories are interconnected and that systems of oppression overlap. This feeling of empathy for African-Americans was on full display in the Jewish community when more than 600 Jewish organizations hastened to sign a letter contained in an August 2020 New York Times ad in support of Black Lives Matter (BLM).
“The Black Lives Matter movement is the current day Civil Rights movement in this country, and it is our best chance at equity and justice,” the letter read. “By supporting this movement, we can build a country that fulfills the promise of freedom, unity, and safety for all of us, no exceptions.”
But despite the rosy optimism of the Jewish organizational letter, there have indeed been exceptions to the promise of safety for all groups — namely, the American Jewish community, represented by the more than 600 organizations that signed the ad.
Antisemitism is exploding on university campuses and in urban centers in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli defensive military operation. And the response from BLM chapters? Support for the terrorists.
The BLM D.C. chapter accused Israel of apartheid, while casting doubt on the veracity of Hamas atrocities. The Chicago chapter posted an image of a terrorist paragliding into Israel to attack civilians, along with the caption, “I stand with Palestine.” And the BLM Grassroots division justified the Hamas attack as a response to “75 years of settler colonialism and apartheid.”
A BLM Phoenix social media account declared that Hamas terrorists were “freedom fighters.” A BLM Detroit account bizarrely demeaned Israeli hostages by asserting, “The few Israeli ‘hostages’ are in fact Israeli soldiers and Israeli army generals who are responsible for keeping Palestinians hostage in the world’s largest open air prison.”
American Jews often have actively worked to support the plight of an African-American community that suffered centuries of slavery and segregation and still struggles for equality today. The awareness of this history may have caused Jews to sometimes temper their responses to antisemitism, out of a deferential sense that there may be worse injustices that merit greater attention and outrage.
But the current explosion of antisemitism in the United States begs the question of why the world’s oldest and most persistent social illness merits less opprobrium than offenses against other marginalized groups. Moreover, it prompts one to ask why other communities that have felt the sting of bigotry themselves resist the obligation to defend Jews against the greatest of all hatreds.
Some of this undoubtedly is due to the lingering conception of Jews as a white, privileged group undeserving of victim status, even following the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, in which white supremacists carried tiki torches and chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”
Another contributor is the revisionist history of Israel as a white, colonial settler project whose central aim is to displace an indigenous people, notwithstanding the fact that the Jews originated in the Land of Israel and that many of them subsequently lived in Arab and Muslim countries from which they were forced out in the 20th century. Furthermore, more than 50% of Israeli Jews would be considered BIPOC in America today.
But the eagerness of Jews to find common cause with other oppressed minorities, and to gain acceptance from such groups, has led to costly mistakes. Jewish organizations that signed the 2020 pro-BLM New York Times ad prioritized racial justice in the wake of the George Floyd killing. But it is possible to commit oneself to racial justice and the principle that Black lives matter without issuing a full-throated endorsement of a movement that never has confronted the antisemitism in its own ranks.
The experience of the 2020 BLM endorsement and the disappointment that followed it suggest that Jewish groups should cultivate allies that will reciprocate the respect Jews have shown for the civil rights of others. The Jewish community should demand that activists and organizations that profess to support civil and human rights reject not only terrorist groups such as Hamas, but the extreme ideologies that paint Jews as colonial occupiers deserving to be extirpated from their homeland.
Black lives will always matter, and the cause of racial equality must always be a priority for Jews and other Americans. But combating antisemitism and acknowledging Israel’s obligation to defend itself must never again take a back seat in the search for democratic allies.
Rabbi Eric Fusfield is B’nai B’rith International’s Director of Legislative Affairs and Deputy Director of its International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy.
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Rabbinical Council of America Slams Canada’s Trudeau for Agreeing to Comply With ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Oct. 29, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Blair Gable
The Rabbinical Council of America, one of the world’s largest organizations of Orthodox rabbis, has penned a letter to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, slamming the leader over his promise to comply with the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense chief, Yoav Gallant.
In the letter dated Monday, the council expressed “profound outrage and disappointment regarding your recent statement that Canada will comply with the ICC indictment of democratically elected leaders of Israel, who stand accused of crimes against humanity.”
“This decision reflects a deeply troubling moral inversion, legitimizing a politicized institution increasingly marked by bias rather than a commitment to impartial justice,” the letter continued.
The council added that Trudeau’s backing of the ICC decision “tarnishes [Canada’s] reputation as a nation committed to human rights and democracy,” stating that support for the “antisemitic” ruling represents a “betrayal” to Jews within Canada and across the world.
The Hague-based ICC issued arrest warrants last week for Netanyahu, Gallant, and a Hamas leader, Ibrahim Al-Masri (better known as Mohammad Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
Israeli leaders have lambasted the ICC’s decision to issue warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant as “antisemitic” and politically motivated, calling the allegations false and absurd. US lawmakers have said they intend to push legislation to sanction the ICC over its move.
This week’s letter from the rabbinical council said that its members were “deeply alarmed” by recent anti-Israel protests in Montreal, which included an “effigy” of Netanyahu” being set on fire. Though Trudeau condemned the demonstration, the council claimed that the Canadian government has exhibited a pattern of “selective enforcement” regarding hate speech laws. The group also urged the Canadian leader to take decisive action against Iran, citing the Iranian regime’s recent attempted assassination of former Justice Minister Irwin Cotler.
Following the ICC ruling, Trudeau confirmed that Canada would comply with the decision and arrest Netanyahu if he arrived on Canadian soil.
“We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts,” Trudeau said during a press conference last week. “This is just who we are as Canadians.”
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, which established the court. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
In the year following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7, Canada has been rocked with protests condemning the Jewish state. Last Thursday, for example, more than 85,000 Quebec students participated in a “strike for Gaza” to demand their universities divest from Israel. The demonstration quickly escalated into violence, with students engaging in vandalism. Trudeau issued a statement condemning the protests as “acts of antisemitism, intimidation, and violence.”
Though Trudeau has repeatedly condemned the Oct. 7 slaughters and reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself, he has also implemented arms restrictions on the Jewish state. Earlier this year, Canada canceled 30 arms exports permits for Israel.
Meanwhile, over the past year, Jews have endured a rising tide of antisemitism and targeted violence in Canada. In 2023, Jews were the victims of 78 percent of religious-based hate crimes in Toronto, according to police-reported data.Overall in Canada, Jewish Canadians were the most frequently targeted group for hate crimes, with a 71 percent increase from the prior year.
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Israeli Foreign Minister Looks to Washington to Punish the ICC
An exterior view of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, March 31, 2021. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday he believed the United States would punish the International Criminal Court for having issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister.
Israel has said it will appeal the ICC decision to move against Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict.
But during a visit to the Czech Republic, Saar said other countries were also dismayed by the decision, including the United States.
“I tend to believe that in Washington, legislation is going to take place very shortly against the ICC and whoever cooperates with it,” Saar told a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar added that Israel would finish the 14-month-old war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas and ensuring the Islamist terror group no longer controls the Palestinian enclave.
Saar said Israel did not intend to control civilian life in Gaza, adding that peace was “inevitable,” but couldn’t be based on “illusions.”
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US Enovy Hochstein: Delinking Lebanon, Gaza Conflicts ‘Key’ to Securing Ceasefire Deal
A man walks past rubble of destroyed buildings which was previously a market area, in the southern Lebanese town of Nabatieh, on the second day of the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon, Nov. 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
JNS.org — US presidential envoy Amos Hochstein, who played a pivotal role in brokering this week’s ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, on Wednesday emphasized the importance of delinking Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah from the war against Hamas in Gaza.
In an interview with Channel 12 News, Hochstein said that “the real issue was the linkage that Hezbollah had made between Lebanon and Gaza, and being able to break that linkage, delinking the two conflicts, was the key to solving this one.”
However, in a Wednesday briefing for the American Jewish community, Hochstein said that the Lebanon deal could pave the way to a deal to release the hostages still being held by Hamas.
“The Lebanese deal here opens an opportunity on the hostage deal,” he said. “They [Hamas] wake up this morning at 4 am with Hezbollah, that used to be actively supportive of Hamas in the northern front, cutting a deal and ending that conflict.”
Hochstein in the Channel 12 interview also addressed reports that he had told Jerusalem and Beirut that it was “now or never” to get the deal done, denying that he used that language.
“I did say that there is a window of opportunity to do this now and either we did it — and I thought that all the conditions were there — and that if they did not want to do it now, they would have to wait for a new president to come in, which probably meant March or April, as a new administration doesn’t do things right away and that could come as an opportunity loss. So it was a moment of opportunity here,” he said.
He also addressed concerns about the agreement’s implementation, given the failures of UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War and was supposed to disarm Hezbollah and force it north of the Litani River.
“I’ve been openly critical of Resolution 1701 […] because I thought it was very nice words but there was nothing that was set in place to enforce it, frankly, on either side […] so we were determined to be able to bring about a change in that, and created a mechanism here that will be chaired by the United States together with France and others, and bring in other allies who will support the LAF [Lebanese Armed Forces],” he said.
While the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) will be “part of” the enforcement mechanism, complaints of violations will not be going to UNIFIL for review, he said.
“The United States will have, one, the ability to share information quite immediately [regarding] a suspected violation on either side with the other party, being able to work with the LAF […] and other security services in Lebanon to investigate it, monitor it, dismantle it if necessary, discontinue it, and those are all things that we are now putting together, literally in these hours and day, to put this effort together,” he said.
“And we’re not going to stop; it’s not a temporary effort. It’s an enduring mechanism that will look at these violations and address them immediately,” he added.
He addressed former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett’s criticism that the agreement doesn’t go far enough in terms of establishing a buffer zone to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its terrorist infrastructure and forces along the border, and also concerns that the Iranian terror proxy has not been weakened enough.
“Hezbollah is weakened. It is degraded. And at some point, you have to say, what’s the point of degrading it [more],” he said.
He went on to say that a buffer zone and a ceasefire agreement were mutually exclusive.
“There are fantasy deals, that are utopia, where you get a ceasefire agreement with a security zone, etc…. but those won’t ever happen,” he said. “There will never be an agreement that also has Israel as an occupying force in another country. That country will not sign that deal. You have to choose. If you choose to have a dead zone or a demilitarized zone, then you’re there as an occupier and you are not there in agreement, which means that while you may have two, three kilometers inside Lebanon, or maybe even four or five, there is no agreement to stop shooting at Israel from longer ranges,” he added.
The US envoy also denied reports that the Biden administration had threatened not to veto a UN Security Council resolution if the deal wasn’t signed.
He said he had briefed President-elect Donald Trump’s senior national security advisers about the details of the ceasefire deal “because it’s very important for them to understand and support it, because they are going to have to carry it going forward and implement it as they take office in just a few weeks.”
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