And I thought Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson were race hustlers!
Hamas and Black Lives Matter in Chicago
Progressives disrupt the City Council to block a pro-Israel resolution.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
Oct. 16, 2023 6:32 pm ET
For a preview of the Democratic Party’s coming brawl over Israel, have a look at Chicago. On Friday the City Council passed a resolution expressing solidarity with Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas attack, but the hearing devolved into a spectacle of the moral equivocation now rampant on the progressive left.
The resolution, brought by Alderwoman Debra Silverstein, the only Jewish member of the Council, notes that the attack was “shocking in its brutality and cruelty.” It added that “Hamas terrorists kidnapped dozens of innocent civilians, including women, children and infants, from Israel and forced them across the border into Gaza to be used as human shields.”
The resolution also notes that “Hamas is an internationally recognized terrorist organization” and that “Israel, like any other sovereign nation, has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens.” The resolution also says that the attack included victims from countries around the world, and that the resulting violence has “caused the death of many innocent Palestinians as well as Hamas fighters.” And don’t forget at least 29 Americans.
In saner times, those true statements would have been ratified by acclamation. But on Friday the City Council became a political shouting match in which Mayor Brandon Johnson had to clear the room after repeatedly warning protesters who booed and chanted during the proceedings. The resolution passed only after many leftwing Council members left the meeting in protest.
The scene captures the tide of anti-Israel sentiment rising on the left, even in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 slaughter of innocents. A 25-year old Palestinian named Nadia summed up the crowd’s Hamas apologia when she described the Palestinians’ protests in Chicago as “trying to fight for a voice when someone’s stepping on your neck,” according to Block Club Chicago.
The goal is to align Palestinian claims of Israeli “occupation” with the moral architecture of Black Lives Matter, thereby ending further discussion. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement already shares social-emotional space with BLM on college campuses. Within hours of the attack, BLM Chicago tweeted a picture of a paraglider like the ones used by Hamas killers to surprise and murder the young revelers at a music festival. The tagline said: “I stand with Palestine.”
New York Mayor Eric Adams spoke forcefully last week to condemn the attack on Israel, but Mayor Johnson took no position for or against the resolution. His floor leader, Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, has been reposting tweets from Minnesota Democrat Ilhan Omar, who has accused Israel of “child genocide in Palestine.”
Mr. Johnson has been eager to turn Chicago into a vanguard of the progressive left. Is apologizing for murdering children supposed to be part of this new political morality?
Comments