The violence that erupted in Israel and Palestine this spring has activated a powerful sense of solidarity among many African-Americans. Well-known Black public figures, from Brooklyn Nets point guard Kyrie Irving to actress Viola Davis, have been outspoken in support of Palestinians. Black Lives Matter activists have played an active role organizing and promoting pro-Palestinian protests all over the country. A Black Lives Matter organizer in New Jersey summarized the movement’s sentiments by saying, “we know occupation, we know colonization, we know police brutality.”
This spring’s rise in violence came amid a notable shift in American public opinion. According to a February Gallup poll, a majority of Democrats now believe the United States should put more pressure on Israel than on the Palestinians to resolve the conflict—the highest level of support for pressuring Israel since Gallup began tracking this question in 2007. Part of that change, according to commentators who both celebrate and lament it, may owe to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has encouraged Americans to view the Israel-Palestine situation through the prism of racial justice. While Israelis and U.S. supporters of Israel’s government have challenged this framing, identifying Israel’s bombing of Gaza as a legitimate response to a terrorist threat, it is clear that many Americans are seeing the conflict differently.
This shift in public sentiment may portend a new phase in the decades-long history of Black Americans’ solidarity with the Palestinian cause—a history that has been poorly understood, in part, because its effects on national debate have thus far been limited. In years past, Black activists have drawn other social movements’ attention to the Palestinian cause, and Black politicians have advocated for it in U.S. foreign policy debates. But rarely have these two forms of influence operated simultaneously. Today, there appears to be a connected effort by grassroots organizers and lawmakers with activist roots to push national opinion and U.S. policy toward a stance more friendly to Palestinians. Shared experiences of state violence and oppression have always animated Black-Palestinian solidarity. If the Black Lives Matter movement continues to shape debates about racial injustice in the United States as it has over the past year, it may also help transform Americans’ approach to the question of Palestine.