Black and Palestinian issues have nothing in common (Daled Amos)

 

Yesterday, Elder of Ziyon described what Palestinians hijacking George Floyd look like, when they claim there is an equality between the current protests in the US in response to the police killing of George Floyd and the Palestinian cause. Dumisani Washington, National Diversity Outreach Coordinator for Christians United for Israel (CUFI), wrote about the differences he saw between these two causes. Six years ago. Washington listed 7 reasons why the Palestinian crisis and the Black struggle for freedom are absolutely nothing alike.

1. While the Palestinian Arabs have UNRWA --

Black Americans from slavery to Jim Crow to the civil rights era never had anything that vaguely resembled UNRWA or any type of international relief agency.

2. While the Palestinian Authority continues to receive enormous amounts of money in international aid every year, money that is used on racial programming and propaganda --

Black Americans received no international aid during centuries of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Neither did we receive domestic aid...Money to help fund our quest for freedom came almost exclusively from private donors including Black businesses and families, White abolitionists, churches, synagogues and other Jewish organizations and individuals.

3. There are many Arab states in the Middle East who have the potential to help the Palestinian Arabs, not with money, but by offering to accept them as full citizens. The Arab states refuse to do this, and the few states that do have Palestinian Arab -- Like Lebanon and Syria -- treat them as second-class citizens. Black Americans are in a different situation --

Black Americans had no Black nations to which we could turn for help or shelter. While we were enslaved in America, our continent had been colonized by the Europeans. Further, all of North Africa is currently being occupied by Arabs, who stole it from our people. But that’s another list.

4. Washington notes that another difference between Black Americans and the Palestinian Arabs is with regard to terrorism:

Other than Nat Turner and a few rebellious slaves whom history has forgotten, Black victims of oppression never possessed the means to offer armed resistance to our oppressors during slavery. After slavery (and due to the legal right to purchase guns), Black Americans were able to arm themselves, but had no access to rockets, rocket launchers, IEDs or other explosives.

Even so, he adds another point:

If Black Americans had been able to fight with weapons, you can be certain that blowing up our sons and daughters would not have been a strategic option. Ever. Under any circumstances. [emphasis added]

In a post this month, Dumisani Washington's son, Joshua Washington -- Director of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI) -- continues on this theme of the use of terrorism in the context of the current protests -- and riots -- which Palestinian Arabs claim as similar to their cause. In The Palestinian appropriation of black pain, he writes:

...our struggle could not be any more different. One of the biggest differences is terrorism. The Palestinian Authority encourages and incentivizes Palestinians to kill Jews. Palestinians who successfully kill Jews are awarded with a monthly stipend from the PA. Palestinians who commit suicide while killing Jews have a monthly stipend sent to their families. Palestinian children are trained to kill Jews by any means, including suicide bombing, and they are taught this through terrorist traning camps and Hamas TV shows. Streets are named after Palestinians who commit suicide bombings if they kill enough Jews. As heightened as the black community has ever been, never have we as a people resorted to killing white people everywhere just because they are white. Never have we encouraged the death of our own children for our cause. Never have we ever produced television shows to teach our children how to kill white people. What the Palestinian Authority is engaged in is not a struggle against oppression; it is pure and simple Jew hatred, and Palestinian leaders will do anything they can to legitimize it including exploiting black pain to do so. [emphasis added]

5. Noting that his grandmother would have called Arabs throwing rocks at motorists "hoodlums," Washington writes

During the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s our ‘weapon’ was non-violent resistance. This was by choice and by necessity, as we were vastly outnumbered and outgunned by the White majority.

6. He notes how the UNHRC has consistently made Israel its number one target for condemnation. However, he is unimpressed by that UN body --

Not only did Black Americans ever have something like a League of Nations to condemn our enemies, the UNHRC further insults us by largely ignoring the suffering of African people in places like Sudan, Eritrea or Congo; or Egypt/Sinai where African slavery and organ harvesting is taking place.

7. In his final point, Washington points out the Arab representation in the Israeli Knesset and Supreme Court, noting that some continue to be anti-Israel, under protected free speech. Again, contrast with that the situation of Blacks --

Black Americans did not become a part of the legislative system until after slavery during Reconstruction. We were exclusively Republican by default, as the Democrats were the party of slavery, Jim Crow and the KKK. We never called for the destruction of America. We have a long, proud tradition of working within the American legal system to address violations of civil and human rights — for everyone.

Yet with all the differences that separate the Black struggle for equal rights with the situation of Arabs in Israel, Washington recognizes their need for justice -- and offers to point them in right direction:

Lastly, I do not spurn the Palestinian fight for self-determination. Every fight for justice is a righteous struggle. I would just say that, what made the Black historic struggle effective was our remembering who our enemy was — and who it was not. In the interest of defending Palestinian human rights, one may want to start with the main perpetrators: The Palestinian Authority and Hamas. [emphasis added]

The Jewish community is very fortunate to have Black leaders who are outspoken in defense of Jews and Israel and, just as importantly, who defend the history of help and cooperation that they share. As much as Jews may have helped the Black community in the past, the Jewish community is now in need of the aid of such strong Black leaders in the face of the riots and antisemitic attacks on synagogues that are taking advantage of peaceful protests.