The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 28 (2017)
Copyright © 2017 Katsuyuki Murata. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with thisnotice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed,
electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author.

Solidarity Based Not on Sameness:
Aspects of the Black-Palestinian Connection

Katsuyuki MURATA*

Solidarity does not mean our struggles are the same. Solidarity means
all struggles matter.
—Robin D. G. Kelley at National Organizers’
Conference of the US Campaign to End the Israeli
Occupation, September 21, 2014
INTRODUCTION
Police brutality is not a new phenomenon in the United States. Although
the social context—that is, political, judicial, economic, cultural, and soon—in which it has occurred is not always the same, African Americans andother populations of color have long faced police officers who haveinstinctively regarded them as a public enemy or a threat to society. Even so,
there is a contemporary aspect to movements protesting police brutality thatfinds solidarity across the oceans by addressing the interconnectedness
among those movements.
Black-Palestinian solidarity, which has grown since the summer of 2014,is a development that shows that police brutality cannot be limited to a local
or national framework anymore. Although relations between the two groups
date back more than half a century to the birth of Israel as an independent
state, scholarly focus on the historical significance is relatively recent.
Among many works focusing on this relationship, the 2015 Letters to*Professor, Hokkaido University

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KATSUYUKI MURATA

Palestine, an anthology edited by Vijay Prashad, gives us a meaningful
opportunity to discover how both groups have seen their predicament andstruggles in the other.1 More evidence that Black-Palestinian relations is nota marginal topic is a special issue featured in the December 2015 American
Quarterly. The issue included nine “essays by authors working in diverse
fields who address the relevance of the question of Palestine to the projectsof American studies” and emphasized Black-Palestinian solidarity.2 The
purpose of my article is not to summarize how Black-Palestinian solidarity
has developed but to critically address the monolithic—in some instances
ahistorical—image of the global connection in multiple contexts. As ahistorian working on contemporary cases of police brutality in New York, I
attempt to show how a specific case of brutality has led to greater solidarity
both on a national and global level, and how global solidarity characterizes
the local incident.
PRECEDING THE SUMMER OF 2014
CASES OF RACIST VIOLENCE WITHIN THE UNITED STATESThere have been far too many incidents in which black individuals—
predominantly young males—have been killed by police or members ofvigilant groups to enumerate in full, even if we just talk about cases in New
York City since the turn of the twenty-first century. Amadou Diallo, Patrick
Dorismond, Sean Bell, and Ramarley Graham are among the many nameson the list of police-on-black killings.
We can draw two historical lessons from the cases mentioned above; oneis that it is very difficult—or almost impossible—to hold on-duty police
officers accountable for their killings of civilians, especially when thevictims are nonwhite young males; the other is that police brutality has
never been an exceptional issue but rather an everyday problem that
nonwhite residents have long had to deal with. For black New Yorkers,
Michael Stewart, Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Sean Bell, Ramarley
Graham, Eric Garner, and others are martyrs of police brutality whosenames are etched in their collective memory.
Although neither a police brutality case nor a New York hate crime, theshooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012 is highly representative of racist
violence in many ways.3 The tragic fate of Trayvon Martin, a seventeenyear-old African American in a hoodie, stands for what living as a black
youth means in contemporary US society and how the nation’s criminal

SOLIDARITY BASED NOT ON SAMENESS

27

justice system operates for the nonwhite population. Trayvon BenjaminMartin was profiled as a criminal because of his black skin when he visited
his father’s fiancée at her townhouse located inside a gated community in
Sanford, Florida. George Zimmerman was a twenty-nine-year-old
neighborhood watch volunteer, who testified that he had been concerned
about burglaries in his townhouse complex, when he spotted an unfamiliar
black face on a rainy evening. He explained later in court that he shot Martin
in self-defense after Martin knocked him down to the ground, punching him
and slamming his head against the concrete sidewalk. Zimmerman was not
charged by the Sanford Police Department, who contended there were no
legal grounds to arrest him as they lacked evidence refuting his claim ofself-defense. Almost immediately following Trayvon Martin’s death, protest
marches and rallies across the nation and media coverage of the incident
prompted a widespread debate on racial profiling or “stand your ground”
laws, which allow someone with a reasonable fear of bodily harm or death
to resort to lethal force irrespective of the possibility of retreating from theperceived danger.4
Largely thanks to mounting pressures from the public and the consistentefforts of civil rights leaders, George Zimmerman was arrested six weeks
after the incident. From the beginning of the trial by jury, however,prosecutors’ prospects were gloomy. Although Zimmerman’s actions were
never appropriate, in that he disregarded a police dispatcher’s advice not tofollow Martin and there are some who heard Zimmerman’s racist words andpart of the struggle, no one saw the scene of the shooting with their own
eyes. Strictly speaking, defense lawyers did not make a “stand your ground”
argument in this case, but because of Florida’s laws, not defense lawyers but“prosecutors had to persuade jurors beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr.
Zimmerman did not act in self-defense.” A shortage of material evidence inthe case and some photographs of Zimmerman’s injuries might have beenenough for jurors to understand the incident according to the Zimmerman’s
version of events. Late Saturday night, on July 13, 2013, after the six jurors
deliberated for sixteen hours and twenty minutes over two days to conclude
the nationally famous trial that started on June 24, George Zimmerman was
acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter, a lesser charge.
Although immediately after the not guilty verdict, the Civil Rights Divisionof the Department of Justice announced it would take over the case, themove did not change the result. The DOJ terminated its investigation into
the violation of Trayvon Martin’s civil rights on February 24, 2015. The
DOJ’s decision was based on the conviction of Attorney General Eric

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Holder Jr. that the “standard for a federal hate crime prosecution cannot be
met under the circumstances here.”5
No doubt protesters shouting “No justice, no peace!” after the not guilty
verdict at the state courthouse believed race was an important factor in thedecision and that a shortage of material evidence was not essential to be able
to characterize the incident as a whole. In a statement released on July 14,
2013, on behalf of Trayvon Martin’s parents, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy
Martin, their attorney, Benjamin Crump said, “Trayvon Martin will forever
remain in the annals of history next to Medgar Evers and Emmet Till as
symbols for the fight for equal justice for all.”6
Indeed, African Americans’ fear of police brutality has never been an
illusion but rather a matter of solid statistical fact. In April 2013, theMalcolm X Grassroots Movement, “an organization of Afrikans in
America,” issued the updated version of its report entitled “Operation
Ghetto Storm”—originally published in July 2012.7 As journalist Adam
Hudson indicates in an article in AlterNet that analyzes the report, “mostpolice officers, security guards, or vigilantes who extrajudicially killed black
people, about 47% (146 of 313), claimed they ‘felt threatened,’ ‘feared fortheir life,’ or ‘were forced to shoot to protect themselves or others.’” He
continues:
Police recruitment, training, policies, and overall racism within society
conditions police (and many other people) to assume black people are
violent to begin with [and] this leads to police overacting in situations
involving African-American suspects. It also explains why so many
police claimed the black suspect ‘looked suspicious’ or ‘thought they
had a gun.’
What counts more is the judicial reality that police officers—and selfappointed vigilantes—have rarely been forced to be accountable for theirkillings of black people. All of this ends up justifying and solidifying the“domestic pacification” by the police. In summarizing the report’s
implications for the police’s tactics, Hudson emphasizes, “They come toview themselves as soldiers fighting against a foreign enemy rather [than]police protecting a community.” Hudson concludes that an increase in thenumber of those killed by police is “the inevitable result of institutional
racism and militaristic tactics and thinking within America’s domestic
security apparatus.”8

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29

INTENSIFIED PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAELBlack-Palestinian solidarity is not a new phenomenon. Although asequence of racial incidents in the United States during the summer of 2014
seems to have triggered a global linkage of protest movements of African
Americans and Palestinians, its history traces back to the formation of Israel
as a state in 1948. As a pivotal moment, however, the year 1967 marked asea change for Black-Palestinian relationships. As historian Matthew Frye
Jacobson notes, “the discourses of civil rights and of Jewish identity
diverged sharply after 1967, when the African-American canon of liberatory
narratives set aside the Mosaic legend of Exodus in favor of thecontemporary plight of displaced Palestinians.”9With that history in mind, I would like to comment on the interconnection
between racial oppression in the United States and settler colonialism in
Israel. Among the several figures who have long been vocal on this subject
is journalist and activist Kristian Davis Bailey. He had an opportunity tovisit the West Bank in 2012 as a journalist for his university newspaper andto cover the arrest and detainment of Fadi Quran, a Palestinian protesting
nonviolently there. In spring 2014, Bailey explained why and how he got
involved in the issue of Black-Palestinian solidarity:
Fadi’s 2012 arrest occurred two days before Trayvon Martin’s murder,
and both of these events pushed me to become active in the Black
movement for freedom at home and justice for Palestinians abroad. In
educating myself about what Palestinians experience, I began to see theinterconnectedness of our struggles. . . . My five-week visit to Palestine
last summer occurred less than a month after George Zimmerman’s
verdict was released. Outside of Bethlehem, I was shocked to find amemorial to Trayvon Martin painted on the 24-foot separation wall
Israel builds on Palestinian land. I was even more shocked at how
viscerally I noticed similarities between Stand Your Ground laws athome and Israel’s justification for its treatment of Palestinians.10
It can be argued that “the interconnectedness of our struggles” is a byproduct of the close US-Israeli connection, especially in terms of law
enforcement and military technology. Since 2001, thousands of law
enforcement officials from US cities have gone to Israel for several
exchange programs with Israeli soldiers on policing and counterterrorism.
Some of the programs were hosted by the Jewish Institute for National

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Security Affairs, “a neoconservative think tank that claims to have organized
Israeli training sessions for some 9,500 law enforcement officials since 2004
through its Law Enforcement Exchange Program.”11 JINSA sponsored avisit by the Baltimore Police Department’s officers to Israel for learning
such skills as “crowd control” and “coordination with the media” in 2002
and to participate in training sessions with Israeli soldiers in 2007.12
Another institution that has hosted similar exchange programs is the AntiDefamation League. In April 2011, the ADL sponsored the National
Counter-Terrorism Seminar, which dispatched top officers of the largest US
police departments, mainly from the northeast, and leaders of the FBI and
Immigration and Customs Enforcement to Israel to participate in binationalsessions. “Israel has been the target of terror since the nation was founded,”David Friedman, director of ADL’s National Law Enforcement Initiatives,
explained.13 He added, “NCTS enables Israel’s counterterrorism experts toshare their knowledge and lessons learned, to help American law
enforcement better protect America, and prevent us from having to learn thesame lessons the hard way.”14 In the institution’s own words, “more than 115
federal, state and local law enforcement executives have participated in the
ADL program since it was first launched in 2003.”15 Similar visiting
programs took place around the pivotal year of 2014—in 2013 by ADL andin 2015 by JINSA.16
THE BLACK-PALESTINIAN CONNECTION SINCE 2014
FROM GARNER TO BROWN, FROM BROWN TO GARNER
The summer of 2014 is remembered as the time when it became clear that
it would not be possible to deal with specific cases of police brutality
without exploring sociohistorical contexts and their interconnectedness.
Before examining Black-Palestinian solidarity across the ocean, I would liketo summarize a historical process by which the Eric Garner case, a police
brutality incident in Staten Island, New York, has shaped and reshaped its
meanings by being connected with another police brutality case in Ferguson,
Missouri, which happened to occur less than a month later.
On July 17, 2014, after returning from lunch with Ramsey Orta, a twentythree-year-old friend, Eric Garner—forty-three years old, 6 feet 2 inches tall,
395 pounds—tried to stop a scuffle taking place in front of him on thestretch of Bay Street along Tompkinsville Park. As two NYPD officers
approached, many on the block thought the officers had come to settle the

SOLIDARITY BASED NOT ON SAMENESS

31

fight. To the bystanders’ surprise, after an exchange of some words between
Eric Garner and the officers, the officers moved to arrest Garner for illegally
selling untaxed loose cigarettes. Indignant at the police’s surprise arrest,
Ramsey Orta began videotaping the scene. The sixteen-minute video shows
what happened. Officer Daniel Pantaleo, twenty-nine, swung one arm overGarner’s shoulder and around his neck and another arm under Garner’s arm,taking the larger Garner’s body down to the ground. As the two men
rammed against the glass window of a nearby beauty shop, four uniformed
officers arrived. According to the shop manager, he heard the female
sergeant say, “Let up, you got him already.” Pantaleo looked at her but did
not loosen his hold. Pantaleo moved from holding Garner’s neck to pressing
his face to the pavement, and the three officers helped handcuff Garnerwhile he repeated eleven times, “I can’t breathe.” At 3:32 p.m., the officers
radioed for an ambulance. About four minutes after emergency medical
workers arrived, they lifted Garner’s body onto a stretcher, assisted by theofficers. While Garner lay on the ground for several minutes, he was not
given oxygen by the medical workers. At 3:44 p.m., they raised theseriousness of Garner’s condition to the highest level because Garner was in
cardiac arrest. Sergeant Dhanan Saminath told Officer Justin Damico to ridein the ambulance with Garner. At 4:34 p.m. Garner was declared dead at
Richmond University Medical Center. After his death, the officers statedthey believed his pleas were faked to avoid arrest.17
Eight days after Garner’s funeral on July 23 in Brooklyn, which wasattended by hundreds of mourners including his six children, New York City
mayor Bill de Blasio hosted a panel discussion with NYPD commissioner
William Bratton and Rev. Al Sharpton. Referring to de Blasio’s son, whose
mother is black, Sharpton said to de Blasio, “If Dante wasn’t your son, he’dbe a candidate for a chokehold.”18
On August 1, the day after the discussion, the city’s coroner ruled Eric
Garner’s death a “homicide.”19 The coroner explained that compression ofGarner’s neck and chest—caused by a chokehold and Garner’s positioningpressed on the pavement—caused his death, with his asthma, obesity, andhypertensive cardiovascular disease as contributing factors. Responding to
the coroner’s report, the mayor issued a statement: “My administration willcontinue to work with all involved authorities, including the RichmondCounty District Attorney, to ensure a fair and justified outcome.”20 In
contrast to de Blasio’s simple words, Patrick Lynch, president of thePatrolmen’s Benevolent Association (PBA), the largest union representing
the city’s police officers, seems to have tried hard to invalidate the findings

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of the report at a press conference on August 5, when he said:
Police Officers don’t start their days expecting or wanting something
like this to occur in the performance of their duties. . . . We believe,
however, that if he had not resisted the lawful order of the police
officers placing him under arrest, this tragedy would not haveoccurred.21
During the heated discussions on the medical report, Ramsey Orta, who withhis cell phone had shot the video of Eric Garner being killed by the police,
was arrested on August 2 on weapons possession charges. On August 3, in
another press release, Patrick Lynch commented on the arrest of Orta,saying, “It is criminals like Mr. Orta who carry illegal firearms who stand tobenefit the most by demonizing the good work of police officers.”22
In less than a week, another black man was killed by the police, this timein Missouri. About the shooting of Michael Brown, a case of police brutalitythat is now well known both nationally and internationally, I will describe
only how it happened. On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an eighteenyear-old black youth, was shot to death by Darren Wilson, a twenty-eightyear-old white officer of the Ferguson Police Department (FPD). When
Wilson encountered Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson on the street in
Ferguson, a black-majority suburb of St. Louis, he had already been notified
about a robbery of cigarillos at a nearby convenience store; based on thedescriptions of the robbers, he claimed to have recognized the two as thesuspects. According to the report of the DOJ, after an altercation between
Wilson and Brown, who tried to take control of Wilson’s gun through thewindow of his vehicle until Wilson’s gun was fired, Brown and Johnson
fled, and Wilson ran after them. Suddenly, Brown allegedly stopped andturned back to face Wilson, rushing toward him. During the entire
altercation, Wilson fired twelve bullets, the last shot of which wasconsidered to be fatal to Brown. Though the DOJ’s report denied that Brown
showed any sign of surrendering, many protesters marching in Ferguson andseveral other places across the country began chanting, “Hands up, don’t
shoot!” a phrase widely circulated within the black community immediately
after the incident.23
On August 23, Sharpton’s National Action Network held the We Will Not
Go Back march on Staten Island in response to the Michael Brown and Eric
Garner killings. Shouting the phrase, “I can’t breathe!” the marchers—about
eight thousand according to one police officer’s estimate—peacefully

SOLIDARITY BASED NOT ON SAMENESS

33

proceeded from Mt. Sinai Christian Church to Bay Street with the families
of both Garner and Brown. As a caller would yell “Hands up!” the marchers
would answer “Don’t shoot!” The large turnout on Staten Island symbolized
the integration of the two incidents. Sharpton then moved from New York to
Ferguson to attend Michael Brown’s funeral, which was held at the Friendly
Temple Missionary Baptist Church on August 25. At the funeral, which wasattended by many notables such as Rev. Jesse Jackson and Spike Lee,
Sharpton eulogized Michael Brown. Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown’s
mother, wept all through the funeral in the front row. On that Monday, many
people witnessed the poignant sight of other mothers of black shooting
victims—Valerie Bell, mother of Sean Bell; Sybrina Fulton, mother of
Trayvon Martin; and Constance Malcolm, mother of Ramarley Graham—consoling Lesley McSpadden.24
Not only black New Yorkers but also many other urban dwellers of color
often spoke of the “chokehold” as well as the well-known phrase, “I can’t
breathe” all across the country. When Police Commissioner William Bratton
said before the New York City Council’s Committee on Public Safety on
September 8, “Chokeholds are not illegal,” many got furious. In Bratton’s
logic, chokeholds have been against police procedure since Anthony Baez, a
black New Yorker, was killed in a chokehold by a NYPD officer in 1994.
“Banned” or “against police procedure” is not the same as “illegal” inBratton’s view. In this situation, Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York
City medical examiner who conducted an independent autopsy on Michael
Brown, disclosed his findings, which basically agreed with the city’s
coroner’s report on September 19. Under the apparent adversity, what the
NYPD chose as a tactic for defending the officers and the institution was thedemonization of Eric Garner. PBA president Patrick Lynch said:
The undeniable fact is that Eric Garner was a criminal who served
significant jail time for serious felony crimes and who brought crime,
disorder and fear to the community. . . . He continued to violate the law
and . . . he ultimately chose to resist arrest. Those bad choices,
including the choice to resist arrest, ultimately took his life.25
Many, having long called for justice on behalf of Eric Garner and Michael
Brown, were infuriated at the judicial decisions of the two grand juries,
which were announced within a week of each other. On November 25, a
grand jury in Ferguson decided not to indict Darren Wilson for shooting andkilling Brown.26 The news of the decision set off fierce protests all around34

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the country, including in New York City. On the very next day in Harlem,
Garner’s family listened to Sharpton’s speech about the Ferguson grand jury
decision with Brown’s family. Harlem was clearly filled with concern about
the upcoming grand jury decision in the Eric Garner case, and anger
increased with the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case.
Surrounded by many supporters, Gwen Carr, Garner’s mother, said, “We
don’t know what the outcome is, but we’re praying.”27 Despite the failure toindict in the Michael Brown case, Garner’s lawyers seemed to have believedthat the grand jury would indict the officers involved in the New York
incident. This is clear from the words of Jonathan Moore, an attorney for
Garner’s family: “You have a very prompt decision from the medical
examiner; you have the videotape. I mean, you hear him say, ‘I can’t
breathe, I can’t breathe.’”28
On December 3, for Garner’s family and many others, vague concern andfaint hope turned into despair and anger. At the press conference, Sharpton
and Garner’s family spoke angrily about the grand jury’s decision not toindict Pantaleo and disclosed plans for a national march in Washington, DC.
He said, “We are not advocating violence, we are asking that police violence
stop. Now you have a man choked to death on videotape and says 11 times‘I can’t breathe.’”29 On the same day, Daniel Pantaleo released a statement
through the PBA:
I became a police officer to help people and to protect those who can’t
protect themselves. . . . It is never my intention to harm anyone and I
feel very bad about the death of Mr. Garner. . . . My family and I
include him and his family in our prayers and I hope that they will
accept my personal condolences for their loss.30
That request was immediately rejected by Esaw Garner, who said at
Sharpton’s office in Harlem, “No, I don’t accept his apology.”31 Even
President Obama weighed in the discussion by saying, “This is an issue
we’ve been dealing with for too long and it’s time for us to make moreprogress than we’ve made. I’m absolutely committed as president of theUnited States to making sure that we have a country in which everyone
believes in the core principle that we are equal under the law.”32
As announced on the day of the grand jury’s decision, Sharpton led amarch and rally in Washington, DC, on December 13. The Justice for All
march was joined by such figures as Eric’s wife, Esaw Garner; Eric’s
mother, Gwen Carr; Michael Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr.; Brown’s

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35

mother, Lesley McSpadden; Trayvon Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton; andMartin’s father, Tracy Martin, who proceeded to the Capitol. Meanwhile,
thousands of people participated in the National Day of Resistance in New
York to show their solidarity and outrage over the grand jury decisions in thecases of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. They marched from Washington
Square Park to One Police Plaza, the headquarter of the NYPD, and crossed
the Brooklyn Bridge, chanting, “No justice, no peace,” “Hands up, don’t
shoot!” and “I can’t breathe!” and carrying “Black Lives Matter” signs. For
the marchers and those who sympathized with them, Eric Garner andMichael Brown, Staten Island and Ferguson, were inseparable (fig. 1).33
Though those who called for justice were unheeded by the grand jury, the
DOJ officially agreed to part of what those struggling to achieve justice forMichael Brown had long insisted on. In a report released on March 4, 2015,
the DOJ concluded that the FPD had a pattern of civil rights violations. The
DOJ did not question the validity of the grand jury’s decision not to indict
Darren Wilson, but the department was critical of the everyday law
enforcement practices of the FPD. Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.
explained, “Our investigation showed that Ferguson police officers routinely

Figure 1. The spot where Eric Garner was killed.
The message below “NO Justice!” reads “Daniel Pantaleo
and his accomplices continue to hide behind the Blue Wallof Violence!” Photo taken by the author on September 6,
2016.

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violate the Fourth Amendment in stopping people without reasonablesuspicion, arresting them without probable cause, and using unreasonable
force against them.”34 Few were optimistic about the situation, however,
because on February 24, about a week prior to the DOJ’s report on the FPD,
the DOJ announced that the department would not charge George
Zimmerman for the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin due to a lack ofsufficient evidence.35
One of the immediate reforms those critical of police brutality have called
for is to halt what many consider a culture of unaccountability. When Staten
Island judge William E. Garnett ruled on March 15, 2015, that records of theEric Garner grand jury investigation would not be disclosed, critics
confronted once again a high wall of that culture. They had long insisted thatthe release of the records of the grand jury might help restore the public’s
faith in the criminal justice system. Some argued that the decision was a
result of political calculation. Jon Campbell, a journalist who specializes incriminal justice, speculated, “The grand jury that investigated the death ofMichael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, did release records in that case, andmany commentators believed they revealed a prosecutor who was not truly
interested in an indictment.”36
There was another legal action concerning the death of Eric Garner. On
July 13, 2015, New York City comptroller Scott Stringer announced that his
office had reached a settlement with the estate of Eric Garner, which had
sued the city and the NYPD for $75 million on October 6, 2014.37 At a press
conference, Stringer said, “While we cannot discuss the details of thissettlement, and the city has not admitted liability, I believe that we havereached an agreement that acknowledges the tragic nature of Mr. Garner’s
death while balancing my office’s fiscal responsibility to the city.”38 Yet
those who had called for justice were not satisfied with the settlement,
which promised the estate of Eric Garner $5.9 million. “So we are still out
here doing what we have to do fighting for justice,” Ellisha Flagg, Eric
Garner’s sister, told a news reporter.39
The one-year anniversary of the Eric Garner incident was a significant
moment commemorating the collective struggles for justice among mothers
whose sons and husbands were slain by police officers. On July 17, 2015,
there was a gathering in Restoration Plaza, Brooklyn, that was organized by
Ellisha Flagg and attended by Garner’s mother, Sean Bell’s mother, Trayvon
Martin’s mother, Oscar Grant’s mother, Ramarley Graham’s mother,
Michael Brown’s mother, and Anthony Baez’s mother, among others. All
dressed in white with splashes of bright orange, they agreed at the gathering

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37

on the view that monetary settlements would not keep them quiet.40
When one stops thinking of these two incidents of police brutality, theEric Garner case and the Michael Brown case, as separate, a new cognitive
order emerges. In a sense, Eric Garner’s death was “discovered” in theaftermath of the Michael Brown incident that happened a few weeks later.
To be sure, there were relatively small protests following Garner’s death, but
the killing was dwarfed by the shooting of Michael Brown, which
dominated media coverage across the country. As historian and public
intellectual Robin D. G. Kelley argues, for the majority in the mainstream
media and their viewers, “it wasn’t Brown’s death that was deemed
newsworthy but the ‘riots’ that followed.”41 The tense critical situation—“like a war zone”—in Ferguson, witnessed by many who were infuriated at
the overtly militarized response to protesters, triggered a broader movement
across the nation.42 Indeed, the We Will Not Go Back march on Staten Island
on August 23 was a result of the connections made regarding state violence.
In other words, the two incidents came to be integrated on account of thelarger movement’s call for abolition of racial oppression in the UnitedStates. Moreover, the interconnectedness of the two cases was strengthenedby the grand jury decisions toward the end of 2014 not to indict the police
officers who were responsible for terminating the lives of the two blackmen.
At first glance, it seems strange that the killing of Eric Garner did notincite a riot immediately after the incident, given that there was a sixteenminute video of the killing. Among many factors explaining the lack of alarge-scale upsurge like the one in Ferguson, I can ironically point to thefrequency of police brutality cases in New York as a probable reason. Of
course, the ordinariness of illegitimate violence by the police neverdiminishes its criminality, but many New Yorkers—especially those ofcolor—might have considered it ordinary. For them, the Eric Garnerincident was but one of numerous recent cases. Additionally, we should notignore the city’s swift and clear response, compared to the response by top
officials in Ferguson. Probably as part of the NYPD’s tactics of showing
restraint, Mayor de Blasio held a conference with Police Commissioner
Bratton and Rev. Sharpton and said, “This is a terrible tragedy that occurredyesterday, a terrible tragedy that no family should have to experience.”43
Summarizing the feelings of the city’s residents of color who tried to control
their anger, criminal justice reporter Albert Samaha speculated, “The matter
is far from resolved. . . . But the protests quieted within days of Garner’s

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death. . . . There was no more need to shout because De Blasio and Bratton
appeared to acknowledge the public outcry.”44 In retrospect, it seems thatpeople at the time just could not imagine the possibility that the city leaders
were not truly heeding their protests.
NUANCED ASPECTS OF THE BLACK-PALESTINIAN CONNECTION
In the course of resistance against the merciless violence of the FPD after
the Michael Brown incident, protesters in Ferguson began holding up signs
declaring solidarity with Palestinians living under the system of settler
colonialism imposed by the state of Israel. In turn, Palestinians sent
instructions to them by way of social networking services such as Facebook
and Twitter on how to deal with the inhalation of tear gas. As early as at 1:02
p.m. on August 14, Rajai Abukhalil, a Palestinian man, tweeted, “Don’t
Keep much distance from the Police, if you’re close to them they can’t tearGas. To #Ferguson from #Palestine.”45 He was joined by Mariam Barghouti
who posted at 12:07 p.m. on August 14, “Always make sure to run against
the wind /to keep calm when you’re teargassed, the pain will pass, don’t rub
your eyes! #Ferguson Solidarity.”46 After pointing out that tear gas canisters
used in both Ferguson and Gaza were products of the same Pennsylvaniabased company, Combined Tactical Systems, Barghouti added, “The verytactics used by the Israeli military in the suppression of Palestinian
resistance are being applied by the militarized American police.”47
Since the cruel slaying of Michael Brown on August 9, spectaculardisplays of solidarity between Ferguson and Palestine have continued, evenbeyond the suburbs of St. Louis. In a sense, both organizers in Ferguson andPalestinian supporters discovered themselves in the other.48 In Robin D. G.
Kelley’s words, “activists wasted no time in drawing the obvious
connections between Israeli state violence in the name of security and US
state violence, from drone strikes abroad to domestic police killings.”49
As early as August 12, an organization that called itself the Samidoun
Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network sent a message of strong empathy,
declaring it “salutes the people of Ferguson, joins their call for justice forMichael Brown and for an end to police oppression, mass incarceration andmilitarization, and stands in solidarity with Black movements struggling forjustice and liberation.”50 Moreover, on August 19, Black-Palestinian
Solidarity, a multiracial forum whose slogan is “When I see them, I see us,”issued a statement that was “signed by more than 1,100 Black activists,
artists, scholars, students and organizations that calls for ‘solidarity with the

SOLIDARITY BASED NOT ON SAMENESS

39

Palestinian struggle’ as well as a boycott of private prison company G4S andother corporations profiting from Israeli occupation.”51
As one of the individual Palestinians who stood with black protesters in
Ferguson across six thousand miles, photojournalist Hamde Abu Rahma
vividly envisioned a symbolic image of solidarity on his Facebook page.
Rahma titled his photo essay “‘I can’t breathe’ #PalestineToFerguson.” Thephrase “I can’t breathe” has multiple connotations depending on the context
in which it is uttered. For Palestinians living under the system of settler
colonialism, it would remind them of the difficulty in breathing in tear gas,
which has been regularly used by Israeli forces to suppress protests bydesperate Palestinians.52
Anti-Semitism has been the most common charge leveled against
individuals and organizations that take a pro-Palestine stance. For instance,
when the NFL’s Detroit Tigers running back Reggie Bush posted on his
Instagram page comments that included, “No matter who you are, what
color skin you have, where you live, we are all in this together! This isn’t a
Ferguson problem it’s a global problem. We need change NOW!” with aphoto of Hamde Abu Rahma holding a banner that read, “The Palestinian
people know what mean to be shot while unarmed because of your ethnicity#Ferguson #Justice,” the Anti-Defamation League strongly criticized his
view. In a press release, ADL national director Abraham H. Foxman
asserted, “The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is not based on
race, it is a political dispute based on claims to land, and by conflating thedeath of Michael Brown with the conflict in the Middle East, Reggie Bushdemonstrates a severe lack of understanding of both issues. He should stick
to football.”53
There has always been a diversity of political views among the Jewish
population in the United States. Although probably not representative of the
majority, one Jewish intellectual, Shaul Magid, joined the struggle against
racial oppression and police brutality as a way to cherish the “American
Jewish tradition of fighting for justice and against inequality.” Magid does
not hesitate to criticize what he considers the Jewish majority’s inaction andencourages them to face historical realities. He writes, “Others, too many,
would like to speak out but are caught in the ‘chokehold’ of the American
Jewish Establishment driven by AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee].” He continues, “There are many Eric Garners who are living
under the thumb of a forty-seven-year occupation.”54 Magid’s view is akin tothat of Hedy Epstein, an American Jewish survivor of the Holocaust andleader of the Palestinian solidarity movement. She sees her activism for40

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Palestinians and her battle against segregation and racism at home are
inseparable.55
Black activists and intellectuals, too, have had to deal with the issue ofanti-Semitism. When asked in an interview about the issue, Cornel West
touched on this point: “Well first, in terms of the various kinds of Zionist
critiques, we make it clear that this has absolutely nothing whatsoever to dowith anti-Jewish hatred or anti-Jewish prejudice. This has to do with a moral
and spiritual and political critique of occupation.”56 For West, a call forjustice based on moral appeals cuts across religious differences.
The relationship between black activists and Palestinians has never been
without conflict or tension. Individuals in both groups know that their strong
solidarity must be based on a mutual understanding of the other being not
the same as themselves, as well as on rejecting seeing each group as
monolithic. This highly delicate point has been expressed in various
statements and position papers issued after summer 2014. For instance,
Palestinian American legal scholar and organizer Noura Erakat explained ina press release by Black-Palestinian Solidarity, a cyberspace forum that is
not constrained by geographical limitations: “Organically, an analysis [has]emerged highlighting similarities, but not sameness, of Black andPalestinian life, and more aptly, of their survival. This critical moment [hasbeen] built on a rich historical legacy of intellectual production on, as well
as movement building between Black and Palestinian communities.”57 Rana
Baker, a Palestinian scholar studying in the United States, explicitly touchedon this point when she wrote on the Electronic Intifada, “It is also worth
noting that the Palestinian struggle for freedom is not a copy of the struggleof our black brothers and sisters both in the past and present. Neither is theblack struggle a homogeneous one. Finally, the struggle of our blackbrethren is not a simple tool to ‘popularize’ ours.”58
Surely, there are many activists and intellectuals who have hesitated to use
such terms as “sameness,” “similarities,” and “comparisons,” but they arenever critical of Black-Palestinian solidarity itself or making a point ofinsisting on differences. When historian Mark LeVine wrote that “the rootsof the police violence seen in Ferguson go well beyond the IsraelPalestinian conflict,” his emphasis was on an analysis of structural causes
inside the United States. As one example of similar messages posted onsocial media, journalist Alex Kane tweeted very early, “Not a big fan ofcomparing #Gaza to #Ferguson. It’s much more accurate to compare#Ferguson, to, well, every city throughout US history/ 9:19 AM – 14 Aug
2014.”59SOLIDARITY BASED NOT ON SAMENESS

41

In order to overcome a theoretical binary between “sameness” and“difference,” the concept of “congruence” is helpful. Employing RaymondWilliams’s notion of “congruence,” literary scholar David Palumbo-Liu has
persuasively explained:
Certainly the two situations are different, and demand different
strategies and tactics in response. And yet one should not discount the
moral and indeed inspirational value of gestures that reach across thosedifferences to claim solidarity. . . . Raymond Williams’ notion of“congruent” grievances can lead to a powerful movement of solidarity
between anti-racists in both the US and Israel-Palestine, each working
their own specific fields while tapping into a global movement towardjustice, as evidenced in this 2014 statement from Palestine to
Ferguson.60
Just as Palumbo-Liu contends, Black-Palestinian solidarity as a global
issue concerning social justice should be considered not as a matter ofstrategic possibility but as a moral integrity. To use Kristian Bailey’s words:
In our separation, both of our relative struggles as Blacks andPalestinians remain ignored by the larger society. The time is ripe torebuild those connections. Strong Black solidarity with the Palestinianstruggle seems necessary and urgent. We must work together to address
the effects of money, policing and militarism here and in Israel/
Palestine.61
Without solidarity, such problems as racial oppression and settler
colonialism will remain untouched because, as one speaker from the Toward
Justice: The Black/Palestine Solidarity Tour said at a meeting at Stanford
University in April 2016, “This society is all about taking a lot of large
problems and making us think they are individual.”62
A CONCLUDING NOTE
The numerous grand jury decisions not to indict those who caused thedeaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and many others
bring to mind the saying “Dead men tell no tales.” In the absence of the ones
killed, who would have been the most powerful witnesses, the incidents
have had to be reconstructed based mainly on the accounts of those who

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KATSUYUKI MURATA

caused the deaths themselves. What’s more, the current US criminal justicesystem allows racist stereotypes to run rampant across the country, whichworks to justify killing people of color with impunity. Meditating on the factof Michael Brown’s lifeless body that was left on the street for four and ahalf hours, Robin D. G. Kelley has noted, “It was, after all, an act ofcollective punishment—the public display of the tortured corpse wasintended to terrorize the entire community, to punish everyone into
submission, to remind others of their fate if they step out of line. We used tocall this ‘lynching.’”63
To counter “an act of collective punishment” or modern-day “lynching,”
we must fight not as a sum of individuals but by finding solidarity based on amoral integrity. On this very point, the issue of Black-Palestinian solidarity
brings to mind Martin Luther King Jr.’s words in his April 16, 1963, “Letterfrom a Birmingham Jail”: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justiceeverywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in asingle garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all
indirectly.”64
Solidarity matters.
NOTES
This anthology comprises twenty-eight essays that include Mumia Abu-Jamal’s “What Is
Palestine to the U.S.?” and Robin D. G. Kelley’s “Yes, I Said, ‘National Liberation.’” Vijay
Prashad, ed., Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation (New York: Verso,2015).
2
The forum was an attempt following the resolution on the academic and cultural boycottof Israel by the American Studies Association. As Mari Yoshihara, the journal’s editor,
explained, the ASA resolution in 2013 “generated intense debates on Israel-Palestine
relations, the United States’ role in the conflict, and how American studies as an academic
field and the ASA as a professional organization might engage the issue.” Mari Yoshihara,“Editor’s Note,” American Quarterly 67, no. 4 (December 2015): v.
3
As is well known, an international activist movement called “Black Lives Matter” began
using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on social media after the acquittal of George
Zimmerman. Furthermore, an activist organization, the Dream Defenders, was formed in2012 in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin to work against police brutality and statesanctioned violence. For more comprehensive information on the shooting of Trayvon Martin
and various issues concerning the incident, see Michael A. Knox, Intermediate Range: The
Forensic Evidence in the Killing of Trayvon Martin (Jacksonville, FL.: Crime Science Books,2012); Eric Gerald Pearman, The Lions and the Lamb: The Trayvon Martin Tragedy (Gautier,MS.: Pink Kiss, 2013); Lisa Bloom, Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon
Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It (Berkeley, CA.: Counterpoint, 2014); andGeorge Yancy and Janine Jones, eds., Pursuing Trayvon Martin: Historical Contexts andContemporary Manifestations of Racial Dynamics (New York: Lexington Books, 2013).
4
Lizette Alvarez, “Justice Department Investigation Is Sought in Florida Teenager’s
Shooting Death,” New York Times, March 16, 2012; Lizette Alvarez and Cara Buckley,
1

SOLIDARITY BASED NOT ON SAMENESS

43“Zimmerman Is Acquitted in Killing of Trayvon Martin,” New York Times, July 14, 2013.
5
Alvarez and Buckley, “Zimmerman Is Acquitted in Killing of Trayvon Martin”; “The
Zimmerman Trial, Day by Day,” New York Times, July 11, 2013; Lizette Alvarez, “U.S. Won’t
File Charges in Trayvon Martin Killing,” New York Times, February 24, 2015; “DOJ Not
Charging George,” New York Amsterdam News, February 24, 2015.
6
Alvarez and Buckley, “Zimmerman Is Acquitted.” Probably the most well-known
comment touching on Trayvon Martin’s race would be what President Barack Obama said on
March 23, 2012: “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”7
Malcolm X Grass Roots Movement, “Operation Ghetto Storm: 2012 Annual Report on
the Extrajudicial Killings of 313 Black People by Police, Security Guards and Vigilantes,”
April 2013, https://mxgm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Operation-Ghetto-Storm.pdf.
8Adam Hudson, “1 Black Man Is Killed Every 28 Hours by Police or Vigilantes: America
Is Perpetually at War with Its Own People,” AlterNet, May 28, 2013, www.alternet.org/newsamp-politics/1-black-man-killed-every-28-hours-police-or-vigilantes-america-perpetuallywar-its.
9
Matthew Frye Jacobson, Roots Too: White Ethnic Revival in Post-Civil Rights America(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 379.
10
Kristian Davis Bailey, “Why Black People Must Stand with Palestine,” Ebony, May 21,
2014, www.ebony.com/news-views/why-black-people-must-stand-with-palestine.
11
Rania Khalek, “Israel-Trained Police Invade Baltimore in Crackdown on Black Lives
Matter,” Electronic Intifada, May 7, 2015, electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israelitrained-police-invade-baltimore-crackdown-black-lives-matter.
12
Ibid.; Rania Khalek, “US Cops Trained to Use Lethal Israel Tactics,” Electronic Intifada,
December 4, 2015, electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/us-cops-trained-use-lethalisraeli-tactics; “JINSA Launches Law Enforcement Exchange,” September 5, 2002, www.
jinsa.org/events-programs/law-enforcement-exchange-program-leep/jinsa-launches-lawenforcement-exchange; John Murphy, “Lessons in Counterterrorism,” Baltimore Sun, June
28, 2007. Incidentally, the Baltimore Police Department became a target of harsh criticism
from civil rights activists when a Baltimore police encounter with Freddie Gray, a twentyfive-year-old African American man, resulted in his death in 2015.
13
Anti-Defamation League, “American Law Enforcement Executives Study CounterTerrorism in Israel,” press release, April 21, 2011, www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/
israel-middle-east/american-law-enforcement-1.html..
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.; Kristian Davis Bailey, “The Ferguson/Palestine Connection,” Ebony, August 19,
2014, www.ebony.com/news-views/the-fergusonpalestine-connection.
16
Concerning the benefits of the exchange program for the ADL, David Friedman told theJerusalem Post that it helped produce influential supporters for Israel’s colonial project;
officers participating in the programs “come back and they are Zionists.” Anti-Defamation
League, “ADL Mission Brings U.S. Law Enforcement Executives to Meet TheirCounterparts in Israel,” press release, January 29, 2013, www.adl.org/press-center/pressreleases/israel-middle-east/adl-mission-brings-us-law-enforcement.html; Rania Khalek, “US
Cops Trained to Use Lethal Israeli Tactics,” Electronic Intifada, December 4, 2015,
electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/us-cops-trained-use-lethal-israeli-tactics.
17
J. David Goodman and Vivian Yee, “Death of a Man in Custody Adds Fuel to a Dispute
over a Policing Strategy,” New York Times, July 20, 2014; Al Baker, J. David Goodman and
Benjamin Mueller, “Beyond the Chokehold: The Path to Eric Garner’s Death,” New YorkTimes, June 13, 2015.
18“Timeline: Eric Garner Death,” NBC New York, December 5, 2014.
19
Jeremy Pasker, “Eric Garner’s Death Ruled a Homicide,” New York Amsterdam News,44

KATSUYUKI MURATA

August 4, 2014.
20
Ibid.
21
Anna Merlan, “Police Union President: Ramsey Orta, Arrested Witness to Eric Garner’s
Death, Is ‘Demonizing the Good Work of Police Officers,’” Village Voice, August 4, 2014.
22
Ibid.; Cyril Josh Barker, “State of the City: Videos, the NYPD and the Answer,” New York
Amsterdam News, August 7, 2014.
23
Julie Bosman and Emma G. Fitzsimmons, “Grief and Protests Follow Shooting of a
Teenager,” New York Times, August 10, 2014; United States Department of Justice, Civil
Rights Division, Department of Justice Report Regarding the Criminal Investigation into the
Shooting Death of Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson(Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, 2015).
24
Tessa Stuart, “How to Join the ‘We Will Not Go Back’ March for Eric Garner,” Village
Voice, August 22, 2014; Cyril Josh Barker, “Thousands Mourn Michael Brown in Ferguson,”
New York Amsterdam News, August 28, 2014; Herb Boyd, “Thousands March on Staten
Island for Eric Garner,” New York Amsterdam News, August 24, 2014; “Michael Brown Laid
to Rest in Ferguson,” New York Amsterdam News, August 25, 2014.
25
Herb Boyd, “‘Chokeholds Not Illegal,’ Bratton Says,” New York Amsterdam News,
September 11, 2014; Khorri Atkinson, “Expert Pathologist: Eric Garner Died in Police
Chokehold,” New York Amsterdam News, September 25, 2014.
26
Rania Khalek explained that the not guilty verdict from the grand jury owed much to the
St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch, who failed “to prosecute a single police
officer for excessive force throughout his decades-long career. . . . Just as the community
expected, the grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson, mainly because of McCulloch’s
manipulative tactics. He acted more like Wilson’s defense attorney than a prosecutor.” Rania
Khalek, “‘Liberation for All’: Why Palestine is a Key Issue on the Streets of Ferguson,”Electric Intifada, December 17, 2014, electronicintifada.net/content/liberation-all-whypalestine-key-issue-streets-ferguson/14124.
27“Timeline: Eric Garner Death.”
28
Jon Campbell, “No One Knows Why the Eric Garner Grand Jury Is Taking So Long,”
Village Voice, November 21, 2014.
29“No Indictment in Eric Garner Police Killing,” New York Amsterdam News, December 3,
2014.
30
Tessa Stuart, “No Indictment from the Grand Jury Convened in Eric Garner Chokehold
Case,” Village Voice, December 3, 2014; “Officer Daniel Pantaleo: ‘It Is Never My Intention
to Harm Anyone,’” New York Amsterdam News, December 3, 2014.
31
Kerry Burke, Tina Moore, Thomas Tracy, Rocco Parascandola, and Corly Siemaszko,“‘The Time for Remorse Was When My Husband Was Yelling to Breathe’: Eric Garner’s
Widow Lashes Out at NYPD Cop Who Put Her Husband in Fatal Chokehold,” Daily News,
December 4, 2014.
32“Leaders React to Lack of Indictment in Eric Garner Killing,” New York Amsterdam
News, December 3, 2014.
33
Cyril Josh Barker, “Weekend Marches in DC and New York Make Mark,” New York
Amsterdam News, December 18, 2014.
34“No Federal Charges for Michael Brown’s Killer,” New York Amsterdam News, March 4,
2015.
35“DOJ Not Charging George,” New York Amsterdam News, February 24, 2015.
36
Jon Campbell, “Judge Rules Eric Garner Transcripts Will Not Be Made Public,” Village
Voice, March 19, 2015.
37
Khorri Atkinson, “Eric Garner’s Family Plans to Slap City with $75 Million Lawsuit,”
New York Amsterdam News, October 9, 2014; Khorri Atkinson, “Protest Marks Year since

SOLIDARITY BASED NOT ON SAMENESS

45

Death of Eric Garner,” New York Amsterdam News, July 16, 2015.
38
Nayaba Arinde, “‘Money Isn’t Justice:’ Says Sharpton as City Settles in Eric GarnerCase,” New York Amsterdam News, July 16, 2015.
39
Ibid.
40
Nayaba Arinde, “Mothers Mourn: Families of Men Killed by Police Come Together,”
New York Amsterdam News, July 23, 2015.
41
Robin D. G. Kelley, “Thug Nation: On State Violence and Disposability,” in Policing thePlanet: Why the Policing Crisis Led to Black Lives Matter, ed. Jordan T. Camp and Christina
Heatherton (Verso: New York, 2016), 27.
42
Jon Campbell and Nick Lucchesi, “A $5.9 Million Settlement Caps a Turbulent Year for
Eric Garner’s Family,” Village Voice, July 13, 2015.
43
Albert Samaha, “Why the Outrage after Michael Brown’s Death Was Different from theOutrage after Eric Garner’s Death,” Village Voice, August 19, 2014.
44
Ibid.
45
Charlotte Alfred, “Protesters Say Ferguson Feels Like Gaza, Palestinians Tweet Back
Advice,” Huffington Post, August 14, 2014.
46
Ibid.
47
Alexis Goldstein, “Palestinians and Ferguson Protesters Link Arms via Social Media,”
Yes! Magazine, August 15, 2014, www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/palestinians-andferguson-protesters-link-arms-via-social-media; Alex Kane, “Weapons Fired in Ferguson
Come from Companies Supplying Israel, Bahrain and Egypt,” Mondoweiss, August 19, 2014,
mondoweiss.net/2014/08/ferguson-companies-supplying/.
48
Khalek, “‘Liberation for All’”; Kristian Davis Bailey, “Building Unity, Wrecking Walls:
Palestinians Come to Ferguson,” Ebony, November14, 2014, www.ebony.com/news-views/
building-unity-wrecking-walls-palestinians-come-to-ferguson-032.
49
Kelley, “Thug Nation,” 27.
50
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, “Solidarity with Ferguson: Justice forMichael Brown, End Police Oppression,” statement, August 12, 2014, samidoun.
net/2014/08/solidarity-with-ferguson-justice-for-michael-brown-end-police-oppression/.
51
Black-Palestine Solidarity, press release, n.d., www.blackpalestiniansolidarity.com/
release.html. G4S is a gigantic multinational security services company headquartered inEngland.
52
Jameson Parker, “Palestinians Show Solidarity with Americans over Eric Garner
Injustice,” Addicting Info: The Knowledge You Crave, December 5, 2014, addictinginfo.
org/2014/12/05/palestinians-show-solidarity-with-americans-over-eric-garner-injusticeimages/.
53
Anti-Defamation League, “ADL: Reggie Bush’s Ferguson-Palestine Comparison
Demonstrates ‘Severe Lack of Understanding’ of Both Issues,” press release, November 26,
2014, www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/discrimination-racism-bigotry/adl-reggiebush-ferguson-palestine-comparison.html.
54
Shaul Magid, “Is It Right to Compare Ferguson to Gaza? Reflections from a Jewish
Protester,” Tikkun, December 11, 2014, www.tikkun.org/nextgen/is-it-right-to-compareferguson-to-gaza-reflections-from-a-jewish-protester. AIPAC is a lobbying group, founded in
1963, that advocates pro-Israel policies to the US federal government.
55
Khalek, “‘Liberation for All.’
56
David Palumbo-Liu, “‘It’s Ugly, It’s Vicious, It’s Brutal’: Cornel West on Israel in
Palestine—and Why Gaza Is ‘the Hood on Steroids,’” Salon, February 26, 2015, salon.
com/2015/02/25/its_ugly_it’s_vicious_it’s_brutal_cornel_west_on_israel_in_palestine_—_and_why_gaza_is_the_hood_on_steroids/.
57
Black-Palestine Solidarity, press release, n.d.

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58
Rana Baker, “Palestinians Express ‘Solidarity with the People of Ferguson’ in Mike
Brown Statement,” Electronic Intifada, August 15, 2014, electronicintifada.net/blogs/ranabaker/palestinians-express-solidarity-people-ferguson-mikebrown-statement.
59
Mark LeVine, “Ferguson Is Not Gaza . . . Yet,” Al Jazeera America, August 14, 2014,
america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/8/ferguson-police-violenceisraeliandusmilitarizedpolicies.html; Alfred, “Protesters Say Ferguson Feels Like Gaza.”
60
David Palumbo-Liu, “Ferguson and Gaza: The Definitive Study of How They Are and Are
Not Similar,” Salon, August 23, 2014, www.salon.com/2014/08/22/ferguson_and_gaza_the_definitive_study_of_how_they_are_and_are_not_similar/. The 2014 statement from Palestine
to Ferguson was signed by “Palestinian groups and individuals inside and outside of historic
Palestine . . . in solidarity with their brethren in Ferguson, Missouri.” See Baker,“Palestinians Express ‘Solidarity with the People of Ferguson’ in Mike Brown Statement.”
61
Bailey, “Why Black People Must Stand with Palestine.”
62
Eric Ruder, “Standing for Solidarity from Gaza to Ferguson,” Socialistworker.org., April
28, 2016, socialistworker.org/2016/04/28/standing-for-solidarity-from-gaza-to-ferguson.
63
Robin D. G. Kelley, “Why We Won’t Wait,” Counterpunch, November 25, 2014, www.
counterpunch.org/2014/11/25/why-we-wont-wait/.
64
Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” April 16, 1963, Historical Text
Archive, http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?action=read&artid=40.