Its Zionists, not ”Jews”₋History
Summary
During the 1970s, both the U.S. Black Panther Party and the Israeli Black Panthers (a Mizrahi Jewish social justice movement) publicly opposed Zionism as it was practiced by the Israeli state. Their critique was not rooted in antisemitism, but in a shared analysis of racism, colonialism, and state violence.
According to scholarship on the Israeli Black Panthers, the movement emerged from the experiences of Mizrahi Jews—primarily from North Africa—who faced systemic discrimination in housing, education, and employment in Israel. Inspired by the U.S. Black Panthers, they adopted a radical anti‑racist framework and built solidarity with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), arguing that both Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians were marginalized by the Ashkenazi‑dominated state.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Black Panther Party openly supported Palestinian liberation, viewing Zionism as part of a global system of imperialism. Their writings and speeches framed the Palestinian struggle as parallel to Black liberation movements in the United States, emphasizing shared experiences of police violence, displacement, and racial oppression.
Why This Matters
This history matters because it challenges simplified narratives about identity and solidarity. The fact that Arab Jews in Israel and Black activists in the U.S. aligned themselves with Palestinian liberation shows how human rights struggles often transcend national and ethnic boundaries.
Their critique of Zionism was fundamentally a critique of state power, militarized policing, and racial hierarchy—issues that remain central to global human rights debates today. Understanding this history helps us see how marginalized groups have historically resisted systems that exclude or oppress them.
Putting It in Perspective
The Israeli Black Panthers’ alliance with the PLO was groundbreaking: it demonstrated that Jewish identity is not monolithic and that many Mizrahi Jews saw Zionism not as liberation, but as a structure that reproduced racial inequality within Israel itself.
Similarly, the U.S. Black Panthers’ solidarity with Palestinians reflected a broader anti‑imperialist worldview that connected struggles from Oakland to Beirut. Their stance anticipated today’s global movements linking racial justice, anti‑colonialism, and human rights.
This history reminds us that solidarity is not predetermined by ethnicity or nationality—it is shaped by shared experiences of injustice and a commitment to collective liberation.
APA Citations
Black Panthers (Israel). (n.d.). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panthers_(Israel)
Shohat, E. (2013). Black Panther Palestine. Studies in American Jewish Literature, 35(1), 77–98. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/studamerjewilite.35.1.0077
Pien, D. (2018). Israeli Black Panther Party (1971–1977). BlackPast. https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/israeli-black-panther-party-1971-1977/
Thomas, G. (2021). The Black Panther Party on Palestine. Hampton Institute. https://www.hamptonthink.org/read/the-black-panther-party-on-palestine
This is fascinating to me because I wasn't aware that there was a Israeli Black Panther, Mizrahi Jewish social justice, movement that took the Black Panther name from the US Black Panthers. This shows how much social movements borrow and inspire each other. The #MeToo movement that started in the US, for example, inspired women (and even men) in other regions, even Europe, Asia, and Africa to speak up about sexually harassment and exploitation. The same is true for the Black Lives Matter movement after the George Floyd murder. Some BLM protests were even held in faraway Japan and in France.
ReplyDeleteI guess the Israeli Black Panthers pointed out that solidarity wasn't just a matter of being Jewish but, as they felt excluded in Israeli society, there was a need to assert their common ethnic bonds that were holding them back from being fully embraced by the mostly European Jewish majority, which saw itself as being superior and, perhaps as the true founders of the Jewish State, which formed as the ashes of the Nazi death camps in Europe were still cooling (figuratively).
Ethiopian Jews emigrated en masse to Israel later than most North Aftrican Jews and they, sadly, experienced racial prejudice and disadvantages as well. Some of them were inspired by the BLM movement in the US to speak out. See: https://www.google.com/search?q=prejudice+again+ethiopian+jews+in+Israel%3F&oq=prejudice+again+ethiopian+jews+in+Israel%3F&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRiPAtIBCTE4MjUwajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:38f1312a,vid:ki-6IK5NCdQ,st:0 .
In Japan, Burakumin started their own groups to encourage solidarity when they faced discrimination in employment and in marriage prospects in Japan. Social movements crop up everywhere in the face of oppression.