Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein issued the following release:
It is deeply disappointing that the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt are still continuing to misleadingly promote the Black Lives Matter movement (#BLM) in statements and in ADL’s “lesson plans,” “curriculum resources” and “family discussion guides” aimed at impressionable students – even after #BLM published its new platform falsely accusing Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinian people, “abuses,” “apartheid,” “discrimination” against Palestinians, bulldozing “Palestinian” land, and detaining four-year-old Palestinian children without due process; – and even after #BLM’s new platform endorsed and promoted anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and assigned the major BDS organizations to work on #BLM’s policies; – and even after #BLM launched a campaign to condemn and end IDF anti-terrorism training for American police officers; – and even after #BLM made another trip in late July to again support anti-Israel BDS and accuse Israel of “genocide” of Palestinian Arabs and “occupation” of Palestine.”
Despite all this, ADL’s “What is Happening in Ferguson, MO” lesson plan still encourages high school students to join protests and engage in other activism protesting the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson — the very same protests that demand an end to Israel’s existence.
In addition, ADL’s “educational materials” promoting #BLM still ignore the anti-Semitism that permeates #BLM; repeat #BLM’s false “hands up” claim – while omitting the multiple comprehensive investigations (by the Department of Justice, FBI, the U.S. Attorney, and the grand jury) that concluded that Officer Wilson shot Michael Brown in self-defense; present misleading selective police shooting statistics that ignore crime rates; frequently fail to present self-defense claims, or present self-defense as an example of “racial profiling”; and complain about (so-called) “unearned white privilege” (a racist theory that has been used against innocent Jews).
In other words, ADL’s “educational materials” are anti-police, pro-#BLM propaganda that ignores #BLM’s vicious blood libels against Israel.
The ZOA previously documented #BLM’s and its co-founder’s prior accusations (including falsely accusing Israel of massacres and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians), and ZOA urged the ADL to stop promoting #BLM in ADL’s statements and educational materials. See “ZOA: ADL Supports/Promotes the Anti-Israel, Pro-BDS #BlackLivesMatter Group,” June 28, 2016), and Critical of #Black Lives Matter by Morton Klein (Jewish Week, July 20, 2016).
In response, ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt stated that ADL does not “endorse” or have an “official relationship” with #BLM. Of course, whether or not ADL has an “official” endorsement relationship with #BLM is totally irrelevant. The relevant fact is that ADL statements and misleading ADL educational materials promote #BLM.
In his response, ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt also falsely downplayed and tried to excuse #BLM’s anti-Semitic, anti-Israel agenda and activities as attributable to “a small minority of leaders within the Black Lives Matter movement.” (We wonder if the ADL would propagandize for some other movement if “a small minority” of that movement’s leaders were accusing LGBT people of committing genocide and ethnic cleansing.) ADL’s Greenblatt then insisted that ADL would continue promoting its #BLM “educational materials” because #BLM’s concerns “are critical civil rights issues that merit attention [including] police brutality, mass incarceration, racial profiling and the school-to-prison pipeline.”
It is the epitome of foolishness for the ADL to continue promoting #BLM in schools and elsewhere – when #BLM is spreading anti-Israel blood libels.
Jabotinsky Warning:
Over ninety years ago, the great prescient Jewish leader Vladimir Jabotinsky (who warned Jews of the impending Holocaust in the 1930s) wrote in the widely circulated Russian newspaper Rassviet that Jews who support movements that are harming Jews, out of some perverted sense of “higher purpose,” are fools. Jabotinsky explained, in words that are as true today as they were back then:
“It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life, that you must not “meet halfway” those who do not want to meet you. There was a typical example in old Russia, when one of the oppressed nations, with one accord, launched a crusade against the Jews, boycotting them and pogroming them. At the same time, this nation was fighting to gain its own autonomy, without any attempt to conceal it means to use its autonomy for the purpose of oppressing the Jews. Worse than before. And yet, Jewish politicians and writers, (even Jewish nationalists) considered it their duty to support the autonomist efforts of their enemy, on the ground that autonomy is a sacred cause.”
Rassviet (Paris), 11/11/23, reprinted in The Jewish Standard, 5/9/1941, reprinted at http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Zionism/ironwall.html.
#BLM’s New Anti-Israel, Anti-Semitic Platform: On August 1, #BLM published its radical, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, anarchistic policy platform entitled “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom and Justice.” The #BLM platform falsely accuses Israel of “genocide” against the Palestinian people, “abuses,” “apartheid,” “discrimination” against Palestinians, bulldozing “Palestinian” land, and detaining four-year-old Palestinian children without due process.
The #BLM platform also demands divestment from Israel, and the elimination of aid to Israel, and misleadingly exaggerates the percentage of aid dollars sent to Israel by lumping U.S. aid to Egypt and Israel together. The #BLM platform also opposes laws to stop anti-Israel boycotts, and calls for and of the “occupation of Palestine” – which is a call for the elimination of Israel.
The #BLM platform also complains about the Israeli security fence (which the #BLM falsely calls an “apartheid wall”) and military checkpoints – without mentioning that these security measures are needed to curb Palestinian terrorism, and were built after Palestinian terrorists murdered close to 2,000 innocent Jewish civilians and wounded close to 10,000 innocent Jewish civilians in bombings of pizza stores, buses and other public venues during the Second Intifada.
Anti-Israel accusations and action plans are a key part of the #BLM platform. (See the #BLM platform’s “divestment” plank – which is one of only six platform planks.)
The #BLM platform also reveals that major virulent anti-Israel, pro-BDS (anti-Israel boycotts, divestment and sanctions) organizations are “working on #BLM policy,” including: The US Campaign to End the Occupation; Adalah, IMEU; the so-called “United for Justice with Peace; the Green Party; and the American Friends Service Committee.
In addition, the #BLM platform contains prominent “resources” links to the major U.S. anti-Israel BDS website, and to the vicious anti-Israel “Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine.” The “Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine,” signed by #BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors, falsely accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing,” “brutal” conduct, conducting a “Gaza massacre,” “apartheid,” “theft,” and “one-sided slaughter” and “wholeheartedly endorses” anti-Israel anti-Semitic BDS.
The #BLM platform also promotes racist, lawless, communist-style demands, including, among many others: ending public jails and prisons as we know them; ending what it calls “the war on Black immigrants” including ending all deportations; depleting U.S. military funding; immediately releasing from jail and expunging the records for all drug-related offenders (#BLM does not explain why releasing drug offenders is necessary if there are no more jails); “demilitarizing” (a euphemism for disarming) police; paying government and corporate reparations to Black people including giving free college tuition to all Black people, free lifetime education to all Black people, and “guaranteed minimum livable income for all Black people”; providing subsidies and other financial support to “Black alternative institutions”; and “progressively” restructuring federal, state and local tax codes “to ensure a radical and sustainable redistribution of wealth.”
Incredibly the ADL/Jonathan Greenblatt statement regarding the #BLM platform started by praising the #BLM platform as a “transformational policy frame for many ideas that previously have been articulated by activists, scholars and writers.” The ADL/Greenblatt statement eventually condemned the #BLM platform’s extreme “genocide” and “apartheid” accusations against Israel and the platform’s promotion of BDS.
Unfortunately, however, ADL/Jonathan Greenblatt’s statement also downplayed the #BLM platform’s anti-Israel planks, by falsely (and irrelevantly) asserting that “Israel is far from a principal focal point in the more than 40,000-word document.” ADL/Greenblatt then urged working on mutual “racial justice” concerns such as ending “racial profiling.” (“Eyes on The Prize: In Pursuit of Racial Justice, Stick to the Facts and Avoid the Fiction,” by Jonathan Greenblatt)
It is extremely disappointing that the ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt continue to try to find ways to support #BLM – even after issuing a statement acknowledging the vicious hatred for Jews and Israel that is part and parcel of the #Black Lives Matter movement.
#BLM’s Latest Anti-Israel Visit: A #BLM delegation traveled to Israel at the end of July to malign “Zionists,” support anti-Israel BDS; affirm #BLM’s “solidarity” with Palestinian Arab terrorists; and join the defamatory, riotous Arab demonstrations against Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Bil’in, in Samaria. (Palestinian Arabs hold weekly violent demonstrations in Bil’in, during which they throw rocks at the IDF and demand the release from prison of Palestinian Arabs who murdered, stabbed and bombed innocent Jews. See Palestinian PM Evacuated from Bil’in Protest, Times of Israel, 3/1/2013.)
Israel National News reported that the #BLM delegation in Israel expressed “opposition to what it described as the “genocide” of Palestinian Arabs at the hands of “Zionist vigilantes”, as well as capitalism, and the “occupation” of Palestine,” and committed to solidarity with and support for global anti-Israel BDS. (See David Rosenberg, Black Lives Matter Movement Arrives in Israel, Israel National News, July 31, 2016.) The BLM movement’s Facebook page on Friday August 29 posted a picture of its #BLM delegation in what they called “occupied Palestine,” showing #BLM members wearing Palestinian keffiyeh scarves (identical to the keffiyeh worn by arch-terrorist and murderer of innocent Jewish children Yasser Arafat). #BLM members also clenched their fists in the air, and held a Palestinian flag and signs such as “From Ferguson to Palestine” and “Black Lives Matter in Solidarity With Palestine.”
The #BLM Facebook post on its delegation’s trip to Israel also stated that “the Movement for Black Lives is committed to the global shared struggle of oppressed people, namely the people of occupied Palestine and other indigenous communities who for decades have resisted the occupation of their land, the ethnic cleansing of their people, and the erasure of their history and experiences.”
As far as we know, ADL did not even comment on #BLM’s anti-Israel visit.
#BLM’s “Blame IDF Training” Campaign: #BLM is also running an ongoing campaign to blame Israeli (IDF) counterterrorism training of American police forces for police shootings of black Americans. For instance, Atlanta #BLM-aligned activists demanded that Atlanta’s mayor should end IDF counterterrorism training of the Atlanta police, in what the #BLM activists called “Apartheid Israel.” Fortunately for Atlanta’s citizens who may need protection from radical Islamist terrorism, Atlanta’s conscientious mayor courageously turned down #BLM’s outrageous demand. (See Sam Kestenbaum, Atlanta Mayor Pushes Back Against Black Lives Matter on Israel Boycott, The Forward, July 20, 2016.)
As far as we know, ADL has also not bothered to respond to this #BLM anti-Israel campaign. Instead, ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt are complaining about “police brutality.”
ZOA thus again urges the ADL and Jonathan Greenblatt to stop promoting #BLM and to unequivocally condemn the anti-Semitic, Israel-hating #BLM.