Joseph Lane
Earlier this month, the Movement for Black Lives released a new platform outlining a number of topics including, “Reparations,” “Community Control,” and “Political Power,” just to name a few.
But the most reported-upon components of the movement’s platform is the section titled “Invest/Divest.” In this section, among a number of other requests, the movement calls for the end of federal government support for Israel’s military and for state-level governments to “fight the expanding number of Anti-BDS bills.”
In other words, the movement is searching for divestment in Israel in order to use those funds to further black liberation efforts domestically.
The Movement for Black Lives is a large umbrella organization encompassing many well-known liberation groups, including the viral and extensive network of Black Lives Matter chapters. Black Lives Matter is only one of the more than 50 organizations that are “members of the United Front.”
But as these movements have grown together, they seem to have ventured away from their core competency in a dangerous way.
In the past, I have written columns criticizing organizations that seek financial assistance from the government without a proposal for where those funds will be taken. So while I laud the Movement for Black Lives’ attention to detail, I find fault with its alignment in the conflicts in the Middle East. And furthermore, I question if the Movement for Black Lives should be concerning itself with foreign issues at all.
For more than a decade, companies, countries, and organizations — in an attempt to protest Israel’s existence — have joined the “BDS Movement.” BDS, which stands for “Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions,” works “to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law,” according to the movement’s website.
Despite attempts to undermine Israel’s place in the world, this movement has not succeeded because time and time again, Israel has proven to be a valuable ally of the United States and others.
The Movement for Black Lives refers to Israel’s relationship with Palestinians as “genocide.” The irony and ignorance of referring to a Jewish state as perpetrators of genocide is important, but that is not the point.
The point is that in an attempt to elevate their own issues in the social conscience of America, the Movement for Black Lives should focus on domestic issues regarding civil rights for black individuals in America, not on divesting in foreign aid — particularly for one of the United States’ most important allies.
As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” But what the Movement for Black Lives seems not to understand is that, contrary to its platform’s rhetoric, Israel is the nation facing continued threats to its very existence.
If the Movement for Black Lives wishes to align itself with the fight against injustice, it should do so with a minority group being persecuted by dozens of countries around the world. Injustice is when Hamas builds a complex network of terror tunnels to attack and murder Israeli citizens. Injustice is when Israel is blamed for the firing of rockets into civilian areas when Palestinian terror organizations store their rockets in hospitals and in schools. Injustice is Hamas using its citizens as shields for its weaponry rather than its weaponry as shields for its citizens.