{"id":413097,"date":"2021-12-01T18:35:53","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T18:35:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=0ecbd3e1264c4dc96114c8bce8642064"},"modified":"2021-12-01T18:35:53","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T18:35:53","slug":"black-and-palestinian-unity-is-powerful-jamaal-bowman-should-support-bds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/12\/01\/black-and-palestinian-unity-is-powerful-jamaal-bowman-should-support-bds\/","title":{"rendered":"Black and Palestinian Unity Is Powerful. Jamaal Bowman Should Support BDS."},"content":{"rendered":"\"Jamaal<\/a>

If U.S. Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) truly believes that Palestinians deserve \u201cself-determination\u201d<\/a> and that the \u201coccupation must end,\u201d<\/a> then he must review some of his most recent votes in Congress and other decisions regarding the question of Palestine, which are throwing into question his progressive bona fides.<\/p>\n

Bowman recently went on a congressional delegation to Israel with the liberal Zionist lobby group J Street, where he met with the ultra-right-wing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. He voted in favor of U.S. taxpayers funding Israel\u2019s Iron Dome military system to the tune of $1 billion and is a fierce opponent of the Palestinian civil society\u2019s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is modeled after the nonviolent component of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa. <\/p>\n

These actions have sparked outrage within some chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), as well as within its BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group, which is formally calling on the DSA\u2019s National Political Committee to expel him from its ranks<\/a>. They insist that Bowman is violating the group\u2019s political platform on Palestine. <\/p>\n

Regardless of which way the DSA\u2019s deliberations on Bowman might go, he has thus far shown himself to be another progressive congressperson who betrays those values in regards to Palestine. In doing so, he is eschewing the principled stances taken by prominent Black- and Palestinian-led organizations such as the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression<\/a> and the Chicago chapter of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For decades in this country, Black liberation movement organizers and their Palestinian counterparts have committed themselves to joint struggle and unity. Despite government repression, constant surveillance, and other attempts to thwart their organizing and activism, these organizers continue to work together to expose and eradicate racism, sexism, white supremacy and colonialism, here and abroad. With words and actions, numerous Black institutions, activists, artists, academics and writers have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the liberation of Palestine.<\/p>\n

After the police-perpetrated killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, Palestinians from all over the U.S. descended on Ferguson and joined the massive Movement for Black Lives protests. The Palestinians were there in solidarity, of course, but also because they understood that the struggle against police crimes here holds many parallels with — and is entwined<\/a> with — the struggle against Israeli military crimes against their people in Palestine.<\/p>\n