The organization
The Movement for Black Lives is self described as “a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country.” This is an umbrella organization for the many disparate Black Lives Matter groups as well as a number of other organizations concerned with the quality and inequality of Black lives in America.
The platform
The platform, released August 1, 2016, is broken into six sections, each section is further broken into sub-sections. Each sub-section ends with a list of resources, a list of organizations currently working on policy, and a list of authors/contributors. This is a large platform written by many different authors, it greatly expands the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement past the call for reform of police forces to stop the killing of unarmed Black men and reform in our justice system.
New platform goals
Some of the goals the general public might not associate with the Black Lives Matter movement: Overturn capitalism in the U.S. – cut military spending by 50% and close 800 military bases worldwide – provide “reparations to countries and communities devastated by American war making, such as Somalia, Iraq, Libya and Honduras” – renegotiate all trade agreements – many varied environmental goals – break up the large banks.
The controversy
As with the platforms of most organizations, the release of this platform would have gone largely unnoticed outside the movement’s leadership. That changed due to the inclusion in a sub-section titled, A Cut in US Military Expenditures and A Reallocation of those Funds to Invest in Domestic Infrastructure and Community Wellbeing, written by Ben Ndugga-Kabue of Black Alliance for Just Immigration and Rachel Gilmer of The Dream Defenders. This can be found under the section labeled Invest-Divest.
The authors included statements attacking the state of Israel. They accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians and being an apartheid state. This attack has been the subject of a number of editorials and has brought the new platform to the attention of the mainstream media.
Organizations currently working on policy
Each sub-section in the platform has a list of “organizations currently working on policy.” We tried to contact all the organizations listed in this particular subsection for a comment on the controversial statements regarding Israel. These organizations are not necessarily represented by The Movement for Black Live. We asked the question, “Does your organization agree with the statements in the platform that claim the state of Israel is an apartheid state and that the government of Israel is conducting genocide against the Palestinian people?”
AFL-CIO – Tiffany Loftin, Human and Woman’s Rights Department Coordinator, said the AFL-CIO does not support those statements
NAACP – Would not return telephone calls.
Green Party – Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, said the party supports the use of the word apartheid but does not support the use of the word genocide.
United for Justice with Peace – Ann Glick, made it clear her organization supports all accusations against Israel.
The Dream Defenders – Published a paper titled Statement on the Condemnation of M4BL Platform by Some Pro-Israel Groups. This paper makes clear they support all the accusations against Israel. It further seems to declare war on any defenders of Israel with the statement: “We’ve been dealing with this type of hypocrisy with our supposed “allies” for generations. On the American left, there are many wolves in sheeps clothing. You have revealed yourselves. And now that we know who you are, we will not forget.”
The US Campaign to End the Occupation – Ramah Kudaimi, Director of Grass Roots Organizing, said the organization agrees with all statements in the platform.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding – Would not return telephone calls.
American Friends Service Committee – Raed Jarrar, Government Relations Manager, said that while they support the new platform in general they have not made a determination about the accusations regarding apartheid and genocide.
The Black Alliance for Black Immigration – Would not return telephone calls.
The Black Immigration Network – Did not return phone calls.
Adalah – Could not be reached.
Response to the accusations
Malcolm Hoenlein, Executive Vice Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, explained:
“This is a libel against Israel.” Apartheid is an institutionalized system of oppression and racism, “there is no such system in Israel” the conditions are completely different from the apartheid in South Africa. “Israeli Arabs are moving up in every respect in (Israeli) society.” Many Israeli Arabs are enlisting in the Israeli army and the number of Arabs in colleges and graduate programs are increasing faster than that of the general population.
“This is not to say that there aren’t problems that would be inherent in any society, as in our own. But, certainly there’s no systemic policy and practice as was true in apartheid.”
“Genocide is such an outrageous charge. Israeli’s are not going around killing people for the sake of killing people, their opposition lives to kill, Hamas, Hezbollah, killing is to them the objective. It is considered their mandate. You could accuse them of attempted genocide because they want to wipe out the state of Israel. How do we know? Because they say so. Israel has shown repeatedly that it will compromise for peace, including giving up territory three times its own size” in reference to returning the Sinai for peace with Egypt.
“The fact is, the enemy of the Palestinians is not the Israeli’s, it’s their leadership.” It is the Hamas leaders that were just exposed diverting money from charities for military purposes. This was money meant to improve the lives of Palestinians living in Gaza.
There was no response to both telephone calls and emails to the three founders of the Black Lives Matter movement, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi, asking for their response to the accusations in the platform.
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