The Black Lives Matter movement has decided to take their struggle to the streets of Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs. What the correlation is between the two movement isn’t exactly clear. The Black Lives Matter activists claim to see many correlations between the African-American struggle against police brutality and systemic racism in America and the security apparatus that exists in Judea and Samaria.
“Going through checkpoints, seeing rubber bullets, reminds us what our comrades and some of us experienced in Ferguson, IDF soldiers totally remind me of the cops that brutalized me,” said Ash-lee Henderson, a Black Lives Matter movement member. Henderson was left severely injured by an altercation at a rally with a cop.
The Black Lives Matter movement supports BDS and is 100% behind the Palestinian National movement. Yet, given the Arab history of being behind the African slave trade and continuing to trade in slaves until today, one wonders why BLM wants to associate itself with the very people who have been and in many ways still responsible for oppressing Africans.
Some estimates puts the numbers of slaves taken from Africa by Arab slave traders as 20 million. Often times these slaves were taken as young boys who were castrated in order to prevent reproduction. In many Arab countries one can still find slaves. In fact Mauritania only recently criminalized slavery.
The alliance between the Black Lives Matter movement, BDS, and various pro-Palestinian groups have not been lost on pro-Israel African-Americans and there is a growing concern that BLM and its many offshoots are being drawn into completely non-connected cause. Chloe Valdary, a Black Zionist spoke out against this very phenomenon on widely watched video.
“You want to exploit my people’s history?” Valdary said. “You want to exploit Jewish people’s history and twist and turn it to use towards your political gains? Don’t act like you have solidarity with my people,” Valdery said, adding: “You need to stay in your lane.”
How @NYUSJP blame Jews for police brutality but ya’ll still trafficking African slaves? #haveseveralseatshttps://t.co/96OOG6O6Cd
— Chloé Simone Valdary (@cvaldary) July 12, 2016
Will Black Lives Matter stop themselves before they become to too attached to a movement that has little to do with theirs and in fact contributes greatly systemic racism in the Arab world? One can only hope.