Two Dreadful Massacres
Trumpet Sounds - June 1, 2021

Tuesday, June 1 2021, marked the anniversary of two dreadful massacres. Regarding one, you may have heard much lament; regarding the other, perhaps not much at all. In one, the victims were blacks, and in the other, Jews.

100 years ago, scores or hundreds of African-Americans were cruelly murdered during the Tulsa race riots. 20 years ago, twenty-one Jews, most of whom were teenagers, were cruelly murdered by a Hamas terrorist in a discotheque bombing on the Tel-Aviv beachfront.

We need not venture, as some unwisely do, into a pointless discourse about which horrific tragedy may be worse. Both are reprehensible beyond measure. Both represent an irrational hatred of a targeted people group, a hatred which is unthinkable to decent, civilized people.

Such horrific crimes do not happen in an ideological vacuum, of course. They are systematically rationalized by the perpetrators and their allies through the demonization of the "undesirable" others.

Coincidentally, another event which touches both of these groups also occurred on June 1 2021. It was widely reported that Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors called for an end to Israel, in a 2015 panel discussion at Harvard Law School.

By advocating to "end the imperialist project that's called Israel", Cullors unquestionably went far beyond legitimate criticism of Israel's policies, crossing the forbidden line into an antisemitic genocidal rant. The slogan "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" is a frequent refrain at BLM related rallies. It also is code for the expectation of the ultimate elimination of the Jews from the entirety of Israel.

BLM has frequently expressed solidarity with the Palestinian cause, including during the recent conflict in which Hamas showered Israel's cities with 3700 rockets. That salvo is part of Hamas' (and other other jihadi group's) ongoing campaign to "free Palestine". During the peak of that terror episode BLM tweeted on May 17, "We are a movement committed to ending settler colonialism in all forms and will continue to advocate for Palestinian liberation." Not a word was heard from them about the injustice being inflicted upon Israeli civilians.

"Settler colonalism", for you who are not well-versed in the odious intersectional ideology which has infected many college campuses, is code word for the villain Israel. This extreme anti-zionism is the latest trendy manifestation of the age-old scourge of antisemitism. For BLM and others who spout that ideology, the Jews in the Levant are only illegitimate usurpers of Arab/Muslim land.

"Black Lives Matter" is a wonderful slogan and principle, to be enthusiastically embraced without reservation. But the BLM organization itself has devolved into a repugnant group, based on their hateful ideology. It is much closer in spirit to the violent criminals who inflict cruel injustice on the innocent than to those who actually stand for true social justice.