The wide-ranging new platform of a coalition growing out of the Black Lives Matter
movement includes harsh criticism of Israel, which it describes as an
“apartheid state” that, it claims, perpetrates “genocide” against the
Palestinian people, endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions
campaign.
Released
Monday, the platform of the Movement for Black Lives calls for “an end
to the war against Black people” and is the campaign’s first
comprehensive document addressing specific federal policies.
Black Lives Matter Network is one of over 50 black-led organizations in the coalition.
While the majority of the document addresses issues other than Israel, the section on foreign policy,
titled Invest-Divest, objects to U.S. military aid to Israel, which it
describes as “a state that practices systematic discrimination and has
maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades.”
While
the section addresses other foreign policy issues, particularly the
movement’s objections to the drug war and the war on terror, it
criticizes no foreign country other than Israel.
The
section also argues that the U.S., because of its alliance with Israel,
is “complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian
people.”
According
to the platform, “Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the
books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people.”
The
platform claims Palestinian property is “routinely bulldozed to make
way for illegal Israeli settlements” and that Israeli soldiers
“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
U.S.-funded apartheid wall,” the platform adds, referring to the
security barrier Israel erected in response to a wave of terrorist
attacks committed by Palestinians from the West Bank.
The
section expresses support for the BDS campaign against Israel, and
credits Adalah-The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, as
one of its “authors & contributors.”
Formed
in response to growing outrage over the criminal justice system’s
treatment of African Americans — particularly police violence against
them — the Movement for Black Lives describes itself on its website as
“a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of
Black people from across the country.”