How Progressive anti-Zionism Seeks to Exploit the Black Community

On Wednesday, May 10, 2023 — while Israel supporters were celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Jewish State — Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) led the first-ever Nakba event at the State Capitol. Nakba (catastrophe) is what Syrian historian Dr. Constantin Zureiq called the defeat of the Arab armies who tried to destroy Israel in 1948. Arab violent resistance to the state of Israel was organized decades before the state of Israel was a reality. This includes the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928. As author, Sir Martin Gilbert explained in his seminal work In Ishmael’s House:

A populist movement with a strong Islamic fundamentalist message, the Muslim Brotherhood stirred up hatred not only against Zionism as a political and national movement, but against Jews as bearers of an alien and destructive religion and ideology. Its very first topic for debate was ‘The Subject of Palestine and the necessity of Jihad.’

Along with other members of the Squad, Rep. Tlaib’s disdain for and libel against the Jewish State as an apartheid regime guilty of genocide against Arab Palestinians is well-documented. What Ms. Tlaib also does is drag the Black community into her anti-Jewish, anti-Israel blood libels. As she tweeted on May 5, 2023, “Detroit is the most beautiful Blackest city in the country and taught me to always speak truth to power. From Detroit to Gaza, I will continue to demand equality and justice for all.” The only thing that remotely connects the plight of Gazans and poor Black residents in Detroit (or Flint) is inept, corrupt local and national leadership. In Gaza’s case, that would not be the Israelis but Hamas, the third wealthiest terror organization in the world; whose leader Khaled Mashaal has a net worth of $2.6 billion. Sadly, Rep. Tlaib has consistently avoided the challenge to “speak truth” to that “power.” Rather, she raises money for groups connected to Hamas.

Rep. Tlaib’s demonization of Israel (which is antisemitism) is part of a broader effort she considers a staple of her progressive identity. As she stated in an online forum organized by American Muslims for Palestine:

“I want you all to know that among progressives, it’s become clear that you cannot claim to hold progressive values, yet back Israel’s apartheid government, and we will continue to push back and not accept that you are progressive except for Palestine.”

Tlaib is not alone in these sentiments. While Jew-hatred is at all-time levels in the U.S. across all political spectrums, Jew-hatred embedded in progressive anti-racist dogma — Critical Race Theory (CRT), Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI), Critical Ethnic Studies Curriculum (college and grade school), etc. — is a driving force for America’s historic rise in antisemitism. Challenging any of these measures to ensure racial equity (already a flawed goal), will result in the challenger being labeled a racist or white supremacist — or even a Zionist. According to this progressive illogic, anyone who is against racism is against Israel (pro-Palestinian) and, therefore, an ally to all Black people and a person of good moral standing.

This foul, systematic conflation of the Palestinian and Black American realities began in the 1960s with the formation of the KGB-created Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Soviet Union and other communist states like Cuba focused their anti-American, anti-Israel disinformation on Black and African leaders in order to gain legitimacy for their cause. By the late 1960s, the effects of this propaganda were being felt to the degree that Dr. King, Israel’s most stalwart ally in the Black community and in the African diaspora, had to publicly address it.

In 1968, just days before his death, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. explained to the annual convention of the Rabbinical Assembly that anti-Zionism and antisemitism were present but not widespread in the Black community. In the question and answer portion of their meeting, Rabbi Everett Gendler asked,

“What would you say if you were talking to a Negro intellectual…and were told…that he supported the Arabs against Israel because color is all important in this world?… What seems to you an appropriate or an effective response?”

This is a portion of Dr. King’s reply:

On the Middle East crisis, we have had various responses. The re­sponse of some of the so-called young militants…does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed and they see a kind of mystique in being colored, and anything non-colored [White] is condemned. We do not follow that course in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and certainly most of the organizations in the civil rights movement do not follow that course.

As Dr. King stated, this refusal to demonize all things White (or Jewish) was the prevailing wisdom of “most of the organizations in the civil rights movement.” In the spring of 1963, just months before the March on Washington, Dr. King along with four other leaders of national civil rights organizations made this statement on national television:

I think it’s very important to have (White) participation (in the quest for civil rights). I think it would be very dangerous and even tragic if the struggle in the United States for civil rights degenerated to a racial struggle of Blacks against Whites, so to speak. It is a tension between justice and injustice, and we enlist consciences in the struggle. We appreciate the participation in this movement of White persons of goodwill and we have many of them, fortunately, and I think the number’s growing every day and this helps to keep the struggle on the level that it should be on.

Today’s progressive anti-racism crusade is far too often marked by a Marxist-inspired class and race war that will always see Jews (and by extension, Israel) as the No. 1 target. In 1968, Dr. King was addressing the beginnings of this warped thinking that was attempting to infiltrate the Black community.

Many on the left and right sides of the political aisle do not understand that the progressive policies that have decimated Black families (the War on Poverty, expanded welfare state, deficient public schools, and more) are now attached to the progressive anti-Zionist ideology that has exploited the Black community. The antisemitic Black Lives Matter is a perfect example of this exploitation. BLM does not speak for the Black community on any relevant issue including family (they disparage Black men/fathers), education (BLM is against school choice), entrepreneurship (BLM espouses anti-capitalism), and law enforcement (BLM started the Defund the Police movement that over 80% of Black Americans oppose). This also includes BLM’s blatant anti-Israel, antisemitic stance.

In June 2021, San Diego Unified School District featured teaching aids for Pride Month in conjunction with Black History in conjunction with Israel-Palestine. For many progressives, these topics are all related. For everyone else, they are not. But that is not the most concerning part. Here is how these topics were listed in the SDUSD newsletter.

This newsletter includes:

• Resources for centering and celebrating LGBTQIA+ Pride and Juneteenth

• Resources for learning about the Tulsa Race Massacre and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict

• Important dates & information about our ES Microcredential Summer Cohorts

• Spotlights on Cohort II, Teacher Collectives, Ethnic Studies Presentation to the School Board, and Bell Middle School

Observe the same mixing of Black and anti-Zionism that Rep. Tlaib employs in Washington, D.C. as it poisons the minds of American schoolchildren. This progressive-led attack on Israel using the cover of Black history and Black people will only persist if more leaders do not truly “speak truth to power.” The onus is on Democratic leaders to answer this call. As my colleague Caroline Glick wrote about Rep. Tlaib’s Nakba Day in a recent Newsweek article:

Statements, campaign pledges, and voting records of Democratic lawmakers attest to the fact that most Democrats remain supportive of Israel and the U.S.-Israel alliance. But [Nancy] Pelosi's support for [Rashida] Tlaib's rise and [Chuck] Schumer's failure to oppose her antisemitic antics in the Senate make clear that the power in today's Democratic Party resides in the Tlaib-Omar wing. So long as the pro-Israel majority of elected Democrats remains silent, the position of antisemites in the Democratic Party will grow stronger—and the future of pro-Israel politicians in the party will grow dimmer.

Though the onus is indeed on Democratic leaders to answer this call, we at IBSI will not wait for that to occur. There is too much at stake.