Progressives who divide the world into ‘oppressors’ and ‘the oppressed’ are not our allies.
Liberal Jews have fought for equal rights for Black Americans since the days of Martin Luther King, and many joined the demonstrations of Black Lives Matter after the death of George Floyd. During the rallies of 2020, it came out that BLM’s platform carried more than a touch of antisemitism and that some of its activists were promoting blood libels, such as the claim that Israel taught American police how to deal with Black activists. But many liberal Jews dismissed these red flags as irrelevant. Even if we don’t agree with BLM about everything, they argued, we must set our differences aside and unite in the struggle against racism.
On Oct. 7, however, BLM ignored the massacre of over 1,000 Jews. Many of its chapters went even further, hailing Hamas’ murderous rampage as the beginning of a worldwide liberation movement.
Members of these groups are not necessarily bad people. Individually, many are friends and even allies. But they have adopted a worldview that is fundamentally at odds with both liberal values and Jewish identity. Liberalism asserts the primacy of the individual and affirms that human beings are of equal moral worth. Progressivism, as it is understood today, compromises individual rights and asserts the moral superiority of the oppressed over everyone else.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/our-false-partners
