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<div class="header reader-header reader-show-element"> <font
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href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200722-the-pro-israel-lobby-is-smearing-black-lives-matter-as-a-terrorist-movement/">https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200722-the-pro-israel-lobby-is-smearing-black-lives-matter-as-a-terrorist-movement/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The pro-Israel lobby is smearing Black
Lives Matter as a ‘terrorist’ movement</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Asa Winstanley<span> - July
22, 2020 </span></div>
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<p>The global Black Lives Matter movement has become a
major strategic threat to Israel. At least, that’s how
the pro-Israel <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-sees-black-lives-matter-major-strategic-threat"
target="_blank">lobby increasingly views it</a>.</p>
<p>One obscure lobby group recently ratcheted up its
anti-BLM rhetoric a notch. Something calling itself the
“Zachor Legal Institute” has started to attack BLM
online for supposed links to “terrorist organisations”.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of Zachor before. This “institute” <a
href="https://zachorlegal.org/biographies/"
target="_blank">appears</a> to have only two staff,
Marc Greendorfer — a right-wing American lawyer who has
<a
href="https://casetext.com/analysis/the-felling-of-federalism"
target="_blank">argued against</a> same-sex marriage —
and Ron Machol, an <a
href="https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/author/ron-machol/"
target="_blank">Israeli</a> “hi-tech professional”.
Looking at its sparse website and minimal social media
presence, Zachor looks to me to be yet another front
group for Israel’s “Ministry of Strategic Affairs”.
Greendorfer’s <a
href="https://twitter.com/ZachorLegal/status/638411587275980800"
target="_blank">apparent ties</a> to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/censored-film-names-adam-milstein-canary-mission-funder/25356"
target="_blank">Adam Milstein</a> also seem to suggest
this. Milstein is a multi-millionaire financier of the
pro-Israel lobby who is known to coordinate closely with
this ministry which has, for the past five years, led
Israel’s semi-covert war on the Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid.</p>
<p>Without citing any evidence whatsoever, the “Zachor
Legal Institute” <a
href="https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/521261053/zachor-legal-asks-doj-to-investigate-blm-for-terror-connections-and-other-criminal-activity"
target="_blank">claimed in a press release</a> earlier
this month that “BLM is rapidly incorporating the
international terror playbook for its US insurrection.”
To support this outlandish claim, the “institute”
adduced the BLM movement’s support for Palestinian human
rights in the form of the BDS campaign.</p>
<p><strong>READ: <a title="Far-right Jewish terror group
leads hate campaign against pro-Palestine shop "
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200713-far-right-jewish-terror-group-leads-hate-campaign-against-pro-palestine-shop/">Far-right
Jewish terror group leads hate campaign against
pro-Palestine shop</a></strong></p>
<p>In the statement, Greendorfer called for the US
government to look into the alleged ties between BLM and
Palestinian “terror” groups: “We urge the Department of
Justice to take action to fully investigate the ties
among Black Lives Matter, their BDS partners and foreign
terror groups that are promoting violence and unrest in
the United States.”</p>
<p>Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace
responded to these outrageous smears by saying, “If you
weren’t expecting this you weren’t paying attention.”
This is clearly part of a pattern.</p>
<p>Zachor’s social media accounts have fewer than 500
followers combined. It seems unlikely, therefore, that
this particular smear has had any kind of wide impact.
The “institute” is simply one of the breed of Israeli
operations involved in what is called “lawfare”, a sort
of legal warfare in which pro-Israel and Israeli lawyers
use local courts to push and enforce a pro-Israel agenda
in countries around the world.</p>
<p>Thanks to a combination of lawfare and political
lobbying, more than 30 states in the US have now passed
anti-BDS laws. Moreover, British Prime Minister Boris
Johnson, in his first Queen’s Speech in December,
declared that his government intends to pass a new law
preventing local authorities in Britain from divesting
from companies involved in Israel’s occupation of
Palestinian territories.</p>
<p>Lawfare has a history, but such laws are often all bark
with little bite. For all the state laws that have been
passed in the US, the Israel lobby has so far failed to
get a federal law passed by Congress. And the state laws
are likely to be overturned for the same reason that the
federal law was never passed in the first place, because
they violate First Amendment protections of free speech.</p>
<p><strong>READ: <a title="BLM UK accused of
anti-Semitism after airing support for Palestinians"
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200629-blm-uk-accused-of-anti-semitism-after-airing-support-for-palestinians/">BLM
UK accused of anti-Semitism after airing support for
Palestinians</a></strong></p>
<p>Nevertheless, it’s no surprise to see the lawfare
strategy being extended to the Black Lives Matter
movement by right-wing groups. Just as the current
solidarity between Black and Palestinian liberation
struggles has <a
href="https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200701-the-black-lives-matter-movements-stand-with-palestinians-has-a-history/">a
long history</a>, so too have the oppressors of these
struggles often been linked closely.</p>
<p>Israel, for example, backed and armed the white
supremacist regime that ruled apartheid South Africa
until 1994. And the Anti-Defamation League, a
high-profile pro-Israel lobby group, <a
href="https://psmag.com/news/kings-garbage-76228"
target="_blank">rang a spy ring in the US</a> which
infiltrated activist groups working against both Israeli
and South African apartheid in the 1980s and 90s.</p>
<p>It’s an appalling smear to attack Black Lives Matter as
“terrorist” merely for expressing solidarity with
another group of oppressed people. However, fidelity to
the truth has never been a strong point of Israeli
propagandists. The fact that the latest disgraceful
attack is part of a long running pattern makes
internationalist solidarity with oppressed peoples all
the more important.</p>
<p>The views expressed in this article belong to the
author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial
policy of Middle East Monitor.</p>
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