A Daily Mail article in the Sept. 6th print edition (“Players Split Over BLM”) included the following:
…a series of tweets from a Black Lives Matter UK’ account included anti-Israel messages
However, the tweet in question wasn’t merely “anti-Israel”, but, as Campaign Against Antisemitism and other UK Jewish groups correctly observed, was antisemitic.
Here’s the tweet:
As Israel moves forward with the annexation of the West Bank, and mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler colonial pursuits, we loudly and clearly stand beside our Palestinian comrades.
FREE PALESTINE.
— #BlackLivesMatterUK (@ukblm) June 28, 2020
The tweet promotes the antisemitic trope that Jews exercise a dangerous degree of control over their country’s political system, such that the right to criticise Israel is stifled. The IHRA working definition defines as antisemitic conspiratorial accusations about “Jewish power”, including the charge that “Jews control the media, economy, government or other societal institutions”.
Finally, it’s telling that BLM UK responded to widespread criticism over their tweet by complaining, in an article on their website, that they were victims of right-wing “media antisemitism slurs” – evoking a variation of defence often used by Corbyn’s apologists during the Labour antisemitism crisis. The group also used the article to insist that it was still “not known” whether George Floyd died because of restraint methods taught by Israeli police, when, in fact, that conspiratorial accusation has been thoroughly debunked and discredited.
We complained to Daily Mail editors over their misleading characterisation of the BLM UK tweet.
Related Posts
- BBC News coverage of terrorism in Israel – Aug. 2020 (CAMERA UK)
- Black September Remembered (CAMERA)
What a bunch of illiterate communists these BLM comrades are. It’s as if the USSR never went away. That these are antisemitic comments coming from them is beyond dispute. BLM is a racist outfit to begin with.
BLM UK are themselves just a bunch of racists riding on the back of the USA chapter.