Portside

Maryland lawmakers are considering a bill that would violate free speech rights in order to continue a culture of impunity for violating Palestinian human rights. Maryland’s first anti-BDS bill had enough co-sponsors that it they had all voted in favor of the bill it would have passed. Yet, thanks to popular mobilization it died in committee. This bill can be defeated as well.

2016 began with a bang: French telecommunications giant Orange announced in early January it was dumping its Israel affiliate. Meanwhile, churches, student unions and local activists continued to organize strong boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns that caused panic among Israeli leaders.

Critics of solidarity between the Movements for Black Lives and the Palestinian struggle miss how concepts like apartheid are not meant to apply only when there is perfect equivalence between two situations. They also apply when the experiences of two oppressed groups share common features.

Reader Comments: Douglas and Lochte- Tale of Black and White; Temp Organizing Gets Big Boost; New Memorial Will Honor Victims of Lynching; Black Lives Matter; Progressive Groups Demand Clinton Publicly Oppose Lame-Duck TPP Vote; Henry Kissinger; More response to Portside post on Syria; Announcements: Labor Journalism Award-Apply Now; Thirty-six Views of One World Trade Center; Peace in Colombia - What Can I Do?; Faculty Condemn New McCathyite Canary Mission Blacklist

Those who previously claimed to be allies of the Black lives matter movement have shown us that they are comfortable with our resistance so long as it fits within particular confines. It is convenient to endorse black lives matter when it benefits you. And as long as we stay silent about Israeli apartheid, they will "stand" with Black liberation in the US. Now that our movement has taken a stand against all forms of white supremacy...Black lives no longer matter.

Reader Comments: 2016 Elections, Supreme Court, All In To Defeat Trump; Nagasaki - The World Did Not Need US's Experiment; A.J. Muste - An Inspiration for Today; Labor Must Take on Capital; Black Lives Matter takes on Education and Police Unions; Jewish Support for #BlackLivesMatter; Palestine Removed from GoogleMaps - What You Can Do; Announcements: New Book - Women Fight the Islamic State;Rock Against the TPP Concerts - Seattle, Portland and San Francisco; and more.

Reader Comments: Orlando - Attack on LGBTs; Criticism of Portside and Moderators response; Gov. Cuomo's Anti-Free Speech Move Against BDS; Alina Nurses Strike; Why White Workers Left the Democratic Party; Announcements: US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation - 15th Annual National Conference - October 14-17; New Edition of Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching; BROADWAY FOR ORLANDO - "WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW IS LOVE" - solidarity recording....more

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, signed an executive order essentially creating a blacklist of entities that boycott or divest from Israel or encourage others to do so, banning those companies from receiving taxpayer funding. The movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel, known as B.D.S., is a strategy intended to combat Israel's nearly 50-year occupation of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza, a situation akin to apartheid if allowed to continue.

Executive orders are meant to avert imminent or existential crises that cannot await legislation. It's as if we are being asked to believe that BDS is some deplorable enemy endangering our very existence as a free society, and that only those who really care, take action on behalf of the rest of us, who have not yet awoken to the grim reality. For Cuomo, fighting this fight on behalf of Israel is all about "freedom, liberty and democracy".

Reader Comments: Obama changes course on Social Security due to primary campaign and sharp debates - thank you Bernie; Muhammad Ali remembered; Voter Repression; Reason right is on the rise - is it beginnings of fascism?; New York labor activism - teachers, taxi drivers, B&H workers solitary June 14; radical leisure and denial of summer vacations; opposition to Gov. Coumo anti-BDS executive orders - smacks of McCarthyism; Dixie Chicks new tour hits out on Trump; more...