Black Lives Matter activists celebrate Hamas crimes

The image is unambiguous: in addition to a slogan proclaiming “I support Palestine», the X account (ex-Twitter) of the Black Lives Matter movement in Chicago relayed a drawing showing a Hamas fighter infiltrating within Israeli borders on a motorized paraglider. This is in fact how some of the men who carried out the massacres of Israeli civilians crossed the fence separating Israel from the Gaza Strip by air.

Black Lives Matter activists are thus displaying a clear message of support for the terrorist actions that devastated Israel this weekend. It was in particular the men in motorized paragliders, glorified by this drawing, who murdered numerous participants in a rave party in the desert.

In another post, this time published on Facebook, the same branch of Black Lives Matter in Chicago published a series of drawings, featuring two young women discussing the events of this weekend. While the first seems scandalized by the capture of Israeli civilians, taken as hostages by Hamas, her interlocutor retorts that it is in fact a disinformation campaign fomented without proof by the media for Islamophobic purposes.

In the rest of the conversation, while the first young woman asks her friend if there are not non-violent methods for Palestinian resistance, she is told that South Africa has not put an end to to the apartheid regime without violence, just as Algeria was not decolonized peacefully; and that we must stop dictating to the Palestinians the right way to free themselves from the Israeli yoke. In other words, Black Lives Matter Chicago legitimizes massacres and hostage-taking in the name of the liberation of Palestine.

Is this a position shared by all supporters of the Black Lives Matter cause in the United States? It is difficult to judge, given the decentralized and protean nature of this political movement born in 2013, and whose importance increased after the death of George Floyd in 2020. No one can completely claim its spokesperson. But according to the Telegraph the Black Lives Matter Chicago group is affiliated with the Black Lives Matter Network Foundation, the international network that coordinates the activism of all local variations of the movement.

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The Palestinian question divides the American left

This message on Twitter from Black Lives Matter Chicago caused many Internet users to react, starting with the boss of the social network, renamed X: Elon Musk, known for his regular stances against the woke movement in the United States, responded in particular : “Your position has the merit of being clear“.

Tamar Schwarzbard, head of digital communications at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, also responded to the Black Lives Matter movement: “So you support the Hamas terrorists who paraglided onto Israeli soil, committing massacres and burning children alive?»

In the United States (as in France), the Palestinian question divides the left. While Joe Biden has provided unwavering support for Israel, movements and organizations close to decolonial theses have gradually moved closer to groups campaigning in support of the Palestinian cause.

One of the leading figures of Black Lives Matter and former member of the Black Panthers, African-American activist Angela Davis, notably published a book in 2015 entitled Freedom is a constant struggle, in which she compares the deaths of black Americans killed by police officers with the fate of the Palestinian populations. She writes in this book that “focusing on the violence of a movement for justice contributes to making the problems that this movement wants to resolve invisible.“. After comparing the situation of the Palestinians to that of South Africa during the apartheid regime, she continues: “The cause of the Palestinians, and their struggle for freedom and self-determination, are made invisible by those who equate their fight against apartheid established by Israel with terrorism.“. She participated in numerous campaigns to boycott Israel.