ZOA Urges Retraction of Reform Movement’s Rick Jacobs & Conservatives’ Blumenthal & Others’ Support/Praise of BLM & an Apology for Their Wrongly Condemning ZOA’s Anti-BLM Stance

Zionist Organization of America National President Morton A. Klein and ZOA Director of Research & Special Projects Liz Berney, Esq. released the following statement:

ZOA praises, and hopes all Jewish organizations will join us in praising Black leaders and celebrities who are standing with the Jewish people at this harrowing time. These include Nicole Avant, Chris Rock, Tyler Perry, Tyler James Williams, Angela Robinson, Tiffany Haddish, Dawn Porter and others, who joined in signing a letter demanding the release of the “220 [now 240] innocent people, including 30 children, [who] remain captive by terrorists, threatened with torture and death . . . . taken by Hamas in the savage massacre of October 7, where over 1,400 Israelis were slaughtered—women raped, families burned alive, and infants beheaded.”

Horrifically, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) organizations’ numerous hateful antisemitic, anti-Israel, pro-terror actions and statements after Hamas and Gazan civilians massacred over 1,400 innocent Jews should compel every Jewish organization and all decent people to finally come together to condemn the BLM/M4BL organizations’ hateful anti-Jewish bigotry.

When ZOA previously documented and condemned the BLM/M4BL organizations’ vicious anti-Jewish and anti-Israel platform, blood libels, pogroms, days of rage, collaborations with terrorist front groups, and other activities, certain Jewish organizations, led by Reform movements Rabbi Rick Jacobs and Conservative Jewish movements’ Rabbi Blumenthal and Reconstructionists and Jewish Women’s groups and JCRC Boston, committed Lashon Harah by falsely smearing ZOA and ZOA’s president Mort Klein as “racist” and many demanding Klein and ZOA be thrown out of the Conference of Presidents simply because ZOA told the truth about BLM’s Jew-hatred and Israel-bashing. Jacobs falsely stated that “BLM is at the center of one of the most critical fights for justice in our country.” See “ZOA Demands Apology from URJ’s Rick Jacobs & Others for Denouncing ZOA’s Condemnation of BLM Org’s Antisemitic Israel-Hating Platform,” June 29, 2020.)

And, incredibly, 600+ left wing Jewish organizations signed a statement supporting the BLM movement “uprising.” The statement ignored the bloody chaos BLM created, and accused anyone who dared to mention BLM’s Jew-hatred of “using antisemitic dog whistles.” BLM/M4BL’s newest wave of anti-Israel antisemitic actions and statements and collaborations with terrorist front-groups leaves no doubt as to what the BLM/M4BL organizations stand for.

It is time for those who condemned ZOA and Mort Klein to retract their support of the antisemitic BLM/M4BL and apologize to ZOA and Mr. Klein and to join us in condemning BLM/M4BL’s libels and Jew-hatred.

BLM/M4BL’s History of Jew-Hatred: For years, the ZOA has exposed and condemned the vicious, dangerous Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred perpetrated by the Black Lives Matter organization (BLM) and its parent/umbrella organization, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). ZOA’s The BLM Organization Files contains extensive information, including:

• Photos of the Jewish schools, synagogues and businesses that BLM damaged, looted and burnt during BLM’s pogrom on Los Angeles’ Fairfax Jewish community;

• Information on the antisemitic M4BL platform (invest-divest plank, “cut military expenditures” brief) which falsely accuses Israel of perpetrating genocide and other libels, and promotes antisemitic BDS including by promoting BDS “resources” and BDS groups including USPCR and Adalah. Note: This is all still in the M4BL Platform!;

• BLM and M4BL social media posts promoting the same libels and antisemitic actions;

• BLM joining with anti-Israel Palestinian hate groups’ antisemitic “days of rage”; and

• BLM posts, collaborations and joint events with designated foreign terrorist organization PLFP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and PFLP front groups DCI-Palestine (the deceptively named Defense of Children International-Palestine).

In May 2021, when Hamas launched 4,500 rockets at Israeli civilians, BLM sided with the terrorists, and tweeted: “Black Lives Matter stands in solidarity with Palestinians. We are a movement committed to ending settler colonialism in all forms and will continue to advocate for Palestinian liberation. (always have. And always will be ). #freepalestine.”  [#freepalestine means destroy Israel.]

And now, BLM and M4BL are once again siding with the forces of Jew-hating evil in the wake of terror organization Hamas’ and eagerly-participating Gazan civilians’ barbaric massacre of innocent Jews. BLM/M4BL is siding with Hamas, and supporting front groups of terror organizations PFLP, Hamas and PIJ (Palestinian Islamic Jihad), including Al Haq, Al Mezan and PCHR-Gaza (the deceptively named Palestinian Centre for Human Rights).

BLM/M4BL activities since October 7th have included the following:

• The official Chicago Black Lives Matter chapter posted a graphic of a paragliding Hamas terrorist with a Palestinian flag and the caption “I Stand With Palestine.” (Hamas terrorists used paragliders to launch their slaughter of over 1,400 Jews.) BLM Chicago also posted a cartoon blaming Israel and justifying the slaughter of Jews, saying; “This isn’t about Hamas — this is about Palestinians right to resist 75 years of Israeli settlers colonizing their native land.”

• After BLM Chicago’s paraglider post engendered outrage, BLM Chicago deleted it, claimed that it wasn’t proud of its previous messages, but then promptly replaced it with another post “standing with Palestine” that justified the anti-Jewish massacres by portraying the Palestinians as “doing what they must to be free.”

• In addition, BLM Chicago continues to tweet and retweet outrageous anti-Israel posts virtually every day. These include calling to “end colonialism, free Palestine”; reposting “over forty [anti-Israel] solidarity images for free public use!” (such as images portraying Israel as an apartheid snake); a retweet “bringing back to life a gem” video of former Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez condemning and damning Israel as terrorists and murderers; calling for freeing Palestine; and calling Palestinian Arabs “heroic” and “pacifists.” Another Chicago BLM retweet is a sign calling Israeli PM Netanyahu “You big fat nasty smelling fat bi—, killing Palestinians with ur triffun [sic] dirty white ass. Big fat bi—.”

• The National Movement 4 Black Lives (the parent group of BLM and similar groups) issued a grotesque, libelous statement entitled “The Movement for Black Lives Calls for an Immediate End to the U.S.-Backed Occupation of Palestine.” The M4BL statement blamed Israel for the violence and demanded “an immediate ceasefire and end to the U.S.–backed occupation of Palestine” [an end to Israel’s existence].

The M4BL statement was filled with every imaginable anti-Israel calumny. It accused Israel of causing Palestinian Arabs to “suffer[] the nearly century-long genocidal occupation of Palestine by the right wing Israeli government”; described “Israeli Zionism as an imperial project upheld by “white western colonial governments”; accused Israel of “war crimes” and “colonization, occupation, and racial terror”; described Israel as an “authoritarian Israeli apartheid regime” that “threatens the occupied civilian population of Gaza and deploys the violence and velocity of settler colonialism to devastating effect”; and called for “an immediate end to Israel’s lethal settler-colonial project and its enforced displacement, human-rights desecration, cultural erasure, and outright genocidal agenda against the Palestinian people and spirit.”

• The National Movement 4 Black Lives also posted or reposted dozens of tweets in the aftermath of October 7th, libeling Israel; demanding Israel’s demise and defunding; and promoting actions to bring this about. The M4BL tweets falsely accuse Israel of perpetrating genocide and massacres (totally reversing what occurred); call Israel an “apartheid regime,” “occupier,” “colonialist” – all the typical Palestinian Arab lies. (e.g., M4BL posted: “Everyone who “stands with Israel” will be recorded as endorsing racism, apartheid & genocide.”)

• The National BLM Grassroots coalition of 33 BLM chapters in the U.S. and U.K. posted a “Statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian People” on its Instagram page spouting anti-Israel blood libels and excusing and justifying anti-Jewish “resistance” (meaning, raping, beheading and murdering Jews and Jewish babies). The post stated: “Black Lives Matter Grassroots stands in solidarity with our Palestinian family who are currently resisting 57 [clarified to 75] years of settler colonialism and apartheid. . . . [Palestinians] have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned, but understood as a desperate act of self-defense.” The BLM Grassroots post also called for “dismantling the entire apartheid system” [their libelous euphemism for destroying Israel]; made the false accusatory demand that “the war on the Palestinian people must cease”; and called for ending U.S. funding for Israel.

• Black Lives Matter Phoenix Metro tweeted soon after the massacre of Israelis: “We stand in solidarity with Palestine. Join Students for Justice in Palestine ASU this Thursday, October 12 to rally in support of Palestinian resistance [raised fist emojis] #westandwithpalestine.” The post also included a pro-Hamas poster that proclaimed: “Palestinian Freedom Fighters are Not Terrorists!” The poster also proclaimed that the Palestinians [Hamas and Gazan civilian murderers of Jewish children] were just “exercising self-defense against a hostile government” and that “Palestinians have a right to defend themselves from Apartheid.”

• And a few days later, BLM Phoenix Metro posted and held another joint event entitled “All Out for Palestine; No 2 Sides in Genocide” with extreme anti-Israel organizations, including SJP and Code Pink.

• Black Lives Matter Philadelphia joined with the “Philly Palestinian Solidarity Coalition” a few days after the massacre of 1,400 plus Jews, to condemn Israel and excuse Hamas’ massacre of innocent Jewish families as merely a “response.”

• BLM Philly also joined a “Live All Eyes on Palestine: Rally Against Media Suppression of Palestinian Resistance” demonstration on October 12, 2021, and also promoted the event on BLM Philadelphia’s Facebook page. The event outrageously claimed that Israel is “solely responsible for the violence since October 7th”; libelously accused Israel of “violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide and 75 years of occupation” [i.e., BLM opposing Israel’s existence]; celebrated Hamas’ and other terror groups’ atrocities as the “escalation in Palestinian resistance across the Occupied territories” and “resistance to colonialism”; and absurdly claimed that the media uses “false balance journalism to create biased pro-Zionist narratives which subvert necessary context for the ongoing resistance to Zionist occupation of Palestine”; etc.

• Black Lives Matter DC has been posting multiple daily tweets and reposts condemning Israel; calling for Black-Palestinian solidarity; falsely accusing Israel of committing genocide, apartheid, war crimes, and similar blood libels; calling for #freepalestine [ending Israel’s existence]; demanding an end to funding for Israel; demanding a ceasefire to prevent Israel from protecting her citizens; joining with anti-Israel demonstrations; and justifying and fomenting anti-Israel and anti-Jewish violence. Here are just a few more of these numerous BLM DC tweets:

• On October 20, 2023, BLM DC posted in response to Biden’s speech condemning Hamas’ atrocities: ““BIDEN, BIDEN you can’t hide, We charge you with genocide!” DC Rally to #FreePalestine” along with a video of BLM demonstrators chanting this slogan, waving Palestinian flags, and holding a huge sign saying, “Black Movement Demands a Ceasefire.” [A “ceasefire” would mean that Israel would suffer more Hamas atrocities. Hamas violated every single ceasefire it had with Israel.]

• On October 29, BLM DC posted a video of a demonstration showing a Palestinian Arab falsely accusing Israel of killing his Palestinian neighbor and “treat[ing] us like we’re animals; they don’t give a f— about us,” along with a slogan “Sat. DC Rally to #FreePalestine End #Gaza_Genocide.”

• BLM DC also tweeted (on October 28) “Quds News Network” videos of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations in London accusing Israel of perpetrating a “genocide campaign.” (Quds News Network (QNN) is a propaganda arm of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israel designated QNN as a terrorist organization.)

• In addition, BLM DC’s multiple false anti-Israel apartheid and genocide accusations included BLM DC’s own posts defending their use of these libelous terms (e.g., “We are intentional and principled in their usage”); BLM DC’s own statements that Israel’s efforts to defend itself from Hamas were “a textbook case of genocide”; BLM’s reposted videos from anti-Israel propagandists and an October 11 BLM DC tweet that Israel plans to treat Gazan Palestinians as “human animals.”

• And on October 23, BLM DC tweeted “URGENT! Fight disinformation!,” provided the link to a Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) anti-Israel “Palestinian Liberation Resource List,” and recommended that followers use and “share widely” the PYM resource list. The PYM resource list includes 69 anti-Israel propaganda articles and videos defaming Israel, plus links to eleven anti-Israel media outlets (such as QNN and the notorious “Electronic Intifada”). The articles and videos include pro-Hamas protestors screaming “Long live the Intifada” [terror wars against Jews], and articles praising and attempting to justify Hamas’ “Al Aqsa Flood” operation as successful “resistance” actions against “settlers and the IDF”, “justice,” and “the most powerful hit on the Israeli occupation.” [“Al Aqsa Flood” is Hamas’ name for Hamas’ and Gazan civilians’ October 7 slaughters of innocent Jews.]

Unfortunately, BLM/M4BL has posted much more of this horrendous incitement and Jew-hatred.