“The parallels between the ongoing racial discrimination experienced by Black people in the US and the treatment of Palestinians and denial of their human rights by the Israeli government can no longer be ignored,” says Ajamu Baraka, founding executive director of the US Human Rights Network and an editor and columnist with Black Agenda Report.

Baraka took part in the African Heritage delegation to Palestine last October which this month released its findings and demands (these are summarized in the infographic above).

In the wake of last month’s election victory for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, members of the delegation are also urging Black US political leaders to take a stronger stance in favor of Palestinian rights.

In a press release from Interfaith Peace-Builders, which organized the delegation, the participants call on the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to “support moves to hold Israel accountable to international law,” including at the UN and the International Criminal Court.

In an unprecedented step, many members of the CBC were among dozens of lawmakers who boycotted Netanyahu’s controversial speech to the US Congress in March.

A recent report in Newsweek quoted a Democratic Party aide observing that as a result of Netanyahu’s policies, CBC support for Israel was “gone.” A poll by Bloomberg Politics this week also showed that support for Israel is eroding among the party’s base.

Support Palestinian liberation

The African Heritage delegation set out its findings and demands in a statement released earlier this month, which builds on the findings of earlier African Heritage delegations in 2011 and 2012.

These include:

• Israel’s policy of settlement expansion amounts to ethnic cleansing and 21st century colonialism.

• The US must end billions of dollars in annual support it gives to “Israel’s settler-colonial project.”

• The delegation condemns “the campaign Israel’s government has waged to court Black religious and political support” and calls “on the Black community to give unconditional support and solidarity to Palestinian Liberation.”

• The Black community in the United States must support the plight of African refugees in Israel.

• The global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement “is an essential tool in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.”

• Activists and non-activists should “join initiatives in their communities that support and work in solidarity with Palestinian resistance movements,” including traveling to Palestine on similar delegations.

Common bond

Following their return from Palestine, two delegates, Baraka and Trina Jackson, a longtime social justice organizer based in Boston, spoke to The Electronic Intifada’s Nora Barrows-Friedman about their experiences.

Jackson emphasized the situation of African refugees, predominantly from Sudan and Eritrea, held in the Holot internment camp Israel built in the southern Naqab (Negev) desert.

They are “there really for no other reason than they’re Black people that Israel does not want in the country,” Jackson said. “They are isolated, they have no freedom of movement, no one’s communicated to them how long they’re going to be there, and again it just spoke to the level of racist ideology that is fueling Israeli policies.”

Baraka spoke about the growing recognition of the connections between the struggles of Black people in the United States against entrenched racism – particularly killings of African Americans by police – and the situation of Palestinians under occupation.

“There is a recognition that the common bond for both of us is the struggle against oppression, the struggle against racialized societies in which the humanity of African American people and the humanity of Palestinians are not recognized,” Baraka said.

“There’s also a recognition that our struggles go beyond just our immediate struggles for our own liberation – but that those forces that are conspiring to deny us our humanity are the same forces that are conspiring to deny the humanity of peoples all over this globe,” Baraka added.

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Comments

Palestine

Permalink Carl Booth replied on Sat, 04/18/2015 - 02:46

Great to see such a combined effort from similarly affected "victims" of apartheid with impunity. Only with such massive team effort can we reverse the evil process now taking place in the Palestine occupied territories.

ABOUT TIME ----

Permalink william replied on Sat, 04/18/2015 - 16:56

ABOUT TIME ----
https://desertpeace.wordpress....
“We came here to say we’re devoted and committed to continue the battle till the last (Black) illegal resident from Africa will (go) back to his home in Africa,” said Marzel.
When asked about allegations of “racism” being leveled by leftist sources against the struggle with illegal immigration, he remarked “if saving the state of Israel from millions of Africans coming in and destroying the state of Israel is racism, that is the problem of (those) saying it. ..”
Israel was White RACIST, APARTHEID, South Africa's ONLY ally, trading weapons, torture techniques, NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY, with them. Today Israel continues Racist APARTHEID with it's wall. Israel enforces laws that are straight out of Nazi Germany such as Palestinians must have different colored ID cards and license plates, JUST like the yellow stars the Jews WAIL about having to wear. Palestinians have to use separate roads, IDENTICAL to Black OR Whites Only drinking faucets.
Israel and South Africa were virtually twinned as military allies for Pretoria helped supply Israel militarily in the immediacy of its 1973 setback and Israel came to support apartheid South Africa at the height of sanctions with weaponry and technology – from naval ships and the conversion of supersonic fighter planes to assistance in building six nuclear bombs and the creation of a thriving arms industry. Israel resembles apartheid South Africa at its zenith – even surpassing its brutality, house demolitions, removal of communities, targeted assassinations, massacres, imprisonment and torture of its opponents and the aggression against neighbouring states.
Israel just PRETENDS to care about African Americans (but look how Israel treats Blacks at home), so they can STEAL the taxdollars that SHOULD have been repairing schools and infrastructure and providing police protection in the Cities.

Year after year BILLIONS of

Permalink william replied on Sat, 04/18/2015 - 16:58

Year after year BILLIONS of African American Tax dollars buy more APARTHEID-suppression for the NATIVE PEOPLE of PALESTINE instead of improving life for the Black American People who earned those dollars.
http://newobserveronline.com/i...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Thu, 26 Aug 2010 20:15 CDT © Jewish Middlesex
Ethiopian Jewish student - not allowed to study at new school
Several months ago, a religious school in the illegal Israeli settlement of Immanuel was criticized for segregating white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students in classes. Originally, the school was fined for this policy of racial segregation, because the school was state funded. Now, the Israeli education ministry has agreed with the white parents' request to allow the school to continue with its racial discrimination under private funding.
There is no law preventing racial discrimination by priyvate organizations, even schools, in Israel.
The Israeli court has interpreted these laws to also apply to illegal West bank settlements, like Immanuel, which are located in areas that are supposed to be under Palestinian control. The Palestinian Authority does not allow racial discrimination, but due to the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, it has no authority over the area in question. 74 white girls who have been studying in a building next to the school will now be allowed to study in whites-only classrooms that are privately funded, as their parents claim they do not want their girls to study in racially-mixed classrooms.