March 21, 2021

Seeking ties with the black community, Erdan visits U. S. civil rights sites. But it’s not the first time

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by Jacob Magid

Jacob Magid is the American correspondent for the Times of Israel in New York.

Erdan said he was transferred through his to the former Charleston plantations, where visitors notice the history of slavery and the upcoming struggles of black libertarians.

“I come from a circle of relatives of Holocaust survivors, so I hesitate to compare the Holocaust to other tragedies, but when you move on to the plantations and pay attention to their stories. . . in a way, they were like concentration camps,” he told the Times of Israel.

“In fact, we are informed here about the phenomena that justify their struggle for equivalent rights,” he continued. “I believe that our cooperation between Israel, the Jews and them can be very hard to combat racism and anti-Semitism together. “

– Ambassador Gilad Erdan – Giladerdan1 24 February 2021

Referring to the reasons for the new awareness initiative, Erdan lamented that pro-Palestinian activists “seek to take credit for intersectionality, [claiming] that their fight against Israel is the same as what is happening here with blacks. Americans, which obviously isn’t the reality.

Black lawmakers have supported Israel, but some are increasingly seeing the Palestinian struggle for a state as a parallel to the American civil rights movement. In 2019, civil rights icon John Lewis voted for the right to boycott Israel, though he also said he was strong. Some Black Lives Matter militant leaders have also been linked to pro-Palestinian activism, component through a 2016 political platform of the Movement for Black Lives organization that has called Israel a “Heid member state,” claiming that the country has consistently carried out a “genocide” opposed to the Palestinians.

Erdan himself has been criticized for his comments against Israel’s Arab minority, calling a Bedouin instructor killed by the police as an Islamic State-linked terrorist in his former role as Minister of Public Security, who oversees the police.

During his tenure as minister, there were several waves of protests through Israelis of Ethiopian origin, who accused the police of serial discrimination and abuse. In 2019, the murder of a 19-year-old black boy disarmed through an off-duty police officer. unleashed days of unrest.

– Ambassador Gilad Erdan – Giladerdan1 22 February 2021

But the accusations of discrimination are erdan.

“There is nothing to compare,” Erdan said, “No country is the best and it is imaginable that even in Israel mistakes have been made through the police or army, yet we know our criteria and believe in equivalent rights. “

He said it makes the difference between the broader struggle for racial justice and the teams within it than the boycott of Israel. “Of course, the lives of black people matter . . . and that’s why I can definitely and do everything I can to cooperate,” he said.

Erdan’s tour organized through the Philos Project, a conservative pro-Israeli organization that aims to publicize positive Christian engagement in the Middle East.

Project Philos’ African-American affairs director Kristina King said she was moved when Erdan told her after he “would be a bigger ambassador to the United States and a bigger person” for that.

– Ambassador Gilad Erdan – Giladerdan1 24 February 2021

“As an African-American, I can expect more American politicians to be asking for the same adventure so we can share African-American history and relate to them,” she said.

“It was an ordinary gesture of its component because it will be located in places where many of us will never pass and be able to speak on behalf of the African-American community,” he said, reflecting the feeling that many propose. Israel’s activists describe it as one of their reasons for conscience.

Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute in North America, said Erdan’s efforts to interact with teams deserve to be applauded.

“I can see why those who are deeply immersed in the verbal exchange about racial justice look at this and say, ‘Well, you’re late for this party’ or ‘you’re just looking at this from a non-public point of view, “However, that’s exactly what countries are doing,” he said.

King said the scale was a vital step in the reorganization of black-Jewish relations, which he said had softened in the decades since the civil rights movement. Syria – “if you have ever made a stopover in Israel, perceive that the Golan Heights are a climax” – for others who do not perceive the delight of black Americans.

Many of the demanding situations facing the black network “come from a history of slavery, Jim Crow, of racism that has been codified in American law,” he said. “If you don’t have that context, then [there too] you have a big misunderstanding. “

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