Linking Black Lives Matter to Israeli affairs is inaccurate and dishonest.
By Zac Schildcrout, CAMERA on Campus Managing Editor
On Oct. 8, the Jewish News online published an op-ed by IfNotNow Detroit activists Rebecca Driker-Ohren and Zak Witus titled “Palestinian Lives Matter.” Of course, Palestinian lives matter — that is not in dispute.
What one can dispute is Driker-Ohren and Witus’ conflation of one-sided denunciation of Israel with the movement for racial justice in the United States. Indeed, the authors seem to believe that the Metro Detroit Jewish community’s alleged reluctance to sufficiently admonish Israel renders its leaders nothing more than moral hypocrites.
As Driker-Ohren and Witus describe it, “We in the anti-occupation movement were left questioning whether this enthusiasm for [Black Lives Matter], with its attendant principles of universal equality and freedom, would extend to the arena of Israel/Palestine.”
To the authors, the fight for “universal equality and freedom” seems to necessitate myopic and context-free censure of Israel. Unfortunately, the piece employs myriad falsehoods to make its case.
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