In platform, Black Lives Matter accuses Israel of ‘genocide,’ backs BDS [View all]
Source: Times of Israel
Ahead of elections, umbrella group releases document labeling Jewish state an ‘apartheid state,’ calls for stopping US support
WASHINGTON — Following the Republican and Democratic national conventions, groups associated with the Black Lives Matter movement released a platform Monday that labels Israel an “apartheid state” and excoriates the United States for its alliance with a country it alleges systemically perpetrates a “genocide” against the Palestinians.
The platform, which demands “an end to the war against Black people,” marks the campaign’s first official entry into America’s debate over specific federal policies. In the past, Black Lives Matter has been noted for its protests against disparities within the nation’s criminal justice system that disadvantage African-Americans and other minorities.
The document makes 40 specific policy proposals, including abolishing the death penalty, providing free tuition to public universities, and enacting reparations to Black Americans, and addressed matters of US foreign policy in a section titled “Invest-Divest.”
Highly critical of the Jewish state — which it said “practices systematic discrimination and has maintained a military occupation of Palestine for decades” — the platform devoted a section to the US-Israel relationship. “The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people,” the text said.
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/in-platform-black-lives-matter-accuses-israel-of-genocide-backs-bds/
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