Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Black Lives Matter Take Note: Apartheid Israel Targeting Everyone that Questions Its 'Legitimacy'
24 Feb 2016
🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

It is a given that the U.S. national security state is engaged in surveillance, infiltration and disruption of the emerging Black Lives Matter movement, but they have doubtless been joined by the Israelis, who have launched a global digital war against supporters of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement. "The Israelis have already targeted, and made to disappear, web pages that are linked to BDS websites."

Black Lives Matter Take Note: Apartheid Israel Targeting Everyone that Questions Its “Legitimacy”

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“In addition to the dirty tricks and hyper-surveillance of the U.S. national security state, activists are also in the crosshairs of the Israeli secret services.”

The Israeli government is pouring $26 million and tasking many of its secret service scientists and dirty tricks operatives to wage a digital war against BDS – the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement. An Associated Press article, picked up by AlterNet, reports the Israelis have already targeted, and made to disappear, web pages that are linked to BDS websites. An Israeli corporate executive said the mission is to dismantle the digital infrastructure of groups in Europe, the United States and South America that Tel Aviv considers to be anti-Semitic. The Israeli government position is that everyone that supports the BDS movement is anti-Semitic, because they want to “delegitimize” the Zionist state.

Hillary Clinton agrees with Israel. In a letter to a billionaire fundraiser, Clinton said, “I know you agree that we need to make countering BDS a priority,” and she promised to help “fight back against further attempts to isolate and delegitimize Israel.” Clinton has collaborated in Israeli cyber wars before. She was Secretary of State in 2010 when the Stuxnet program, a joint U.S. and Israeli digital assault against Iranian centrifuges, was discovered. This time around, the cyber war will not be targeting Iran, or the Chinese, but Americans, Europeans and anyone else that challenges the “legitimacy” of the world’s sole surviving colonial apartheid state. American supporters of the BDS movement cannot expect that their rights to free speech and association will be protected by Democrats or Republicans in Washington – not when it comes to the "legitimacy" of Israel.

Decent Humankind vs. Israeli Apartheid

The emerging movement that goes under the heading of Black Lives Matter should take note. In addition to the dirty tricks and hyper-surveillance of the U.S. national security state, activists are also in the crosshairs of the Israeli secret services. Israel was white-ruled South Africa’s closest military ally for the simple reason that they were both white settler, apartheid states rooted in an ideology of ethnic supremacy. In 1975, the Zionist regime in Tel Aviv offered to sell the white regime in Pretoria nuclear weapons “in three sizes.” The Israelis feared that, should white minority rule collapse in South Africa, Israel would be the only apartheid regime left standing on the planet. They could no longer claim to be, at least, not quite as bad as South Africa. But, as Bishop Desmond Tutu and others have concluded, apartheid Israel is actually worse than apartheid South Africa, both in its genocidal policies against the Palestinians, and as a constant threat to the survival of the planet.

The term “illegitimate” doesn’t comes close to describing a state that is an affront, an insult, to the very notion of civilization. All decent people must oppose Israeli apartheid. Unfortunately, Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez and Lisa Keys are not decent people; they have no problem performing in Israel. The Congressional Black Caucus is not composed of decent people; their junkets to Israel are must-attend events, and they joined with all the other members of Congress in a Resolution in support of Israel at the moment the apartheid regime was slaughtering thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. But, a Black Lives Matter movement must be decent – and internationalist. And, to that extent, its activists will be targeted by the world’s last apartheid state.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20160224_gf_IsraelTargetsBDS.mp3

More Stories


  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Minnesota 9 — now say their names: pastor, lawyer, journalists and resistance leaders
    04 Feb 2026
    "Minnesota 9 — now say their names: pastor, lawyer, journalists and resistance leaders" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Marisa Solomon’s Book, “The Elsewhere Is Black”
    04 Feb 2026
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Marisa Solomon. Solomon is Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and…
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    The EPA’s Zero Sum Game Surfaces a Dialectical Paradox That Should Be Celebrated, Not Decried
    04 Feb 2026
    The debate over the EPA's new math misses the point. The agency hasn't changed its values, it has simply stopped pretending to account for communities it was never built to protect.
  • Isaac Saney
    Cuba Must Not Fall! Imperialism, Resistance and the Global Stakes of Defending the Cuban Revolution
    04 Feb 2026
    The survival of Cuba's socialist project remains one of the most critical holdouts against hemispheric domination, making its defense a global litmus test for sovereignty.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    On the Anniversary of the Declaration of a ‘Zone of Peace’, the U.S. Heightens its Murderous Assault on the Cuban People and Revolution
    04 Feb 2026
    Branding Cuba an "extraordinary threat" on the anniversary of a regional peace declaration, the U.S. has escalated an assault designed to destroy hemispheric solidarity and justify hybrid war.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us