Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Rabbis’ Human Rights Group Criticizes Black Lives Matter For Israel ‘Genocide’ Accusation

NEW YORK — A rabbinic human rights group has criticized the platform of the Black Lives Matter movement for accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians.

The platform, published Monday by a coalition of more than 50 organizations called the Movement for Black Lives, includes a section criticizing United States aid to Israel, as well as Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. It calls on the U.S. to end military aid to Israel and Egypt, and accuses Israel of practicing apartheid.

“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 platform’s “Invest/Divest” section reads. “Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people.”

In a statement Wednesday, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights endorsed many of the platform’s demands concerning economic justice, mass incarceration and law enforcement, but criticized its section on Israel. T’ruah’s statement condemned Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, but said the group was “extremely dismayed at the decision to refer to the Israeli occupation as genocide.”

T’ruah also criticized the platform for not mentioning Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians, including rocket attacks from Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza. The statement added that T’ruah does not support BDS, the campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel.

“While we agree that the occupation violates the human rights of Palestinians, and has caused too many deaths, the Israeli government is not carrying out a plan intended to wipe out the Palestinians,” Truah’s statement reads. “One can vigorously oppose occupation without resorting to terms such as ‘genocide,’ and without ignoring the human rights violations of terrorist groups such as Hamas.”

Although the Movement for Black Lives platform does not explicitly endorse BDS, it does call on activists to “build invest/divestment campaigns that ends [sic] US Aid to Israel’s military industrial complex and any government with human rights violations.” The platform includes a link to the BDS movement website and credits Adalah-The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, as one of its “authors & contributors.”

Formed in response to growing outrage over the criminal justice system’s treatment of African Americans — particularly police violence against them — the Movement for Black Lives describes itself on its website as “a collective of more than 50 organizations representing thousands of Black people from across the country.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.