Black Lives Matter, the revolutionary, anti-American and anti-Semitic movement at the heart of the riots and the intellectual terror in the United States today first published its charter in August 2016. Jewish organizations from left to right condemned it for its slanderous accusation against Israel which it accused of committing “genocide: and claimed was an “apartheid” regime that had passed 50 discriminatory laws against Palestinians. BLM’s charter also endorsed and joined the movement to the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment and sanctions operation against Israel and its American Jewish supporters.
Contemporaneous accounts of the American Jewish community’s responses were published in a number of Jewish publications. Tablet online magazine for instance noted that the far-left Truah organization, the Anti-Defamation League and Peter Beinart all condemned the platform.
Today, the original link for the platform published four years ago is out of commission.
I have been asked multiple times over the past several weeks for proof that the platform is still active and that it still says what it said in 2016. In response, a couple weeks ago, I published the following on my Facebook page. Following my column last Friday describing BLM’s structural anti-Semitism, I have again been flooded with requests from people for documentation of my claims.
To satisfy demand, I am republishing my Facebook post here, where it will be easier to find and link to.
Here is the link to the platform. https://m4bl.org/
The sections on Israel can be found under the “Invest-Divest” link. https://m4bl.org/policy-platforms/invest-divest/
Before I quote the precise passages in the paper that specifically discuss Israel, I want to note something newsworthy which has been largely overlooked to date. Recently, in response to the BLM calls to defund the police, Sen. Tom Cotton asked rhetorically whether their next demand would be to defund the U.S. military.
The answer is that this is already their demand. Its in their platform.
The brief, which opens by asserting, “America is an empire that uses war to expand territory and power,” calls for the defunding of 50% of the U.S. military budget. The specific passage is quoted below, because it is followed by a demand to end military support for Israel.
It bears noting that BLM gained legitimacy after spurring rioting in Ferguson, MO in 2016 when then president Obama hosted them at the White House in February 2016. At the time, Obama lauded the group saying “They are much better organizers than I was when I was their age, and I am confident that they are going to take America to new heights.”
The meeting lasted for four hours.
Here is a link to one write-up of the meeting: https://www.theguardian.com/…/black-lives-matter-meet-presi…
Here are the excerpts from the BLM platform that relate to Israel:
From the opening section titled “What is the problem?”:
“The US military accounts for over 50 percent of discretionary federal funding, a total of 598.5 billion dollars spent annually…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 Egypt — Israel’s most important regional ally — this figure represents nearly 75 percent of all US aid dollars.”
“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.”
The platform then lists a serious of goals its implementation will achieve, under a section titled, “What does this solution do?”
Among its promised achievements:
“Cuts the US military budget by 50%, which will lead to the closure of over 800 US military bases [in] the US [and] around the world, the elimination of the sale of weaponry to violators of human rights, reduces the use and stockpiling of nuclear weapons and return all troops back from the current theaters of war.”
Among the Federal actions the platform calls for, the first is:
“Build invest/divest campaigns that ends US aid to Israel’s military industrial complex and any government with human rights violations.”
Among the State action the platform demands:
“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 it is a threat to the constitutional right to free speech and protest.”
Its call for local action includes:
“Map out local infrastructure needs and pass resolutions calling for the necessary reinvestment and rebuilding efforts. Coordinate direct actions of solidarity with South Africa, Palestine, Columbia and liberation movements across the globe.”
It bears noting that one of the organizations cited as working on BLM policy is Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.
Another is The US Campaign to End the Occupation. Another is The American Friends Service Committee.
These are all groups that take leading roles in the anti-Semitic BDS campaigns in the US and worldwide which target Jewish Americans for sanction and ostracism for daring to support the Jewish state.