In the wake of a presidential primary election in Pennsylvania that failed to excite many African Americans and young people, one issue has raised the ire of both demographics: the war in Gaza.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military’s response to the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel. As Israel has sought to destroy Hamas and retrieve the 240 hostages taken by the militant Palestinian group, its military has attacked hospitals in Gaza, leaving mass graves behind. Images of suffering Palestinian civilians have made their way around the world, prompting the United Nations Security Council to demand an immediate cease-fire. The United States abstained from that vote.
Now, in the midst of an election year, with President Joe Biden poised to sign congressional legislation granting billions more in U.S. aid to Israel, pro-Palestinian protests are roiling campuses at Yale, Columbia, and other major universities.
Amid a social media narrative that blames Biden for the civilian deaths in Gaza, it’s clear that the political landscape will be affected by the war, and that reality is driven by an abiding truth the Democratic Party must face. Young people and African Americans — two groups Biden will need in November — have differing views on foreign policy. But many people in both groups see injustice in this war.
Just as young people protested civilian deaths during the war in Vietnam, this generation has witnessed the horrors of Gaza, and they are calling for the Biden administration to withdraw financial support. For young people who are also African American, the level of revulsion is even deeper, because they see themselves and their ancestors in the plight of the Palestinians.
Today’s college-aged Black youth have lived their lives in the shadow of a criminal justice system whose racial bias is quantifiable.
They’ve seen police officers take the lives of Michael Brown and Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd and Atatiana Jefferson.
They’ve watched a social media hashtag grow into the Black Lives Matter movement, which was further amplified after George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer.
And they watched incremental change transform into a backlash.
But the dim view of Israel’s bombardment of Palestinian civilians is not limited to young people. A survey conducted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in October, shortly after the Hamas attack, indicated that 95% of Black people rejected the idea of offering “unwavering support” to Israel.
I’m not surprised, because African Americans have watched for decades as Israel’s government has taken land from the Palestinian people through the creation of settlements, which are illegal under international law. We have seen rock-wielding Palestinians face off with Israeli soldiers. All of it looks stunningly familiar.
Black people have lived through government-sanctioned land grabs. We have seen politicians who have enabled discrimination. For me, and for many of us, watching the Biden administration fund Israel’s attacks in Gaza is a reminder of what our people have suffered.
Watching the Biden administration fund Israel’s attacks in Gaza is a reminder of what our people have suffered.
That’s why we reflexively pause before accepting what we’re told about the war. We know what it is to have our narrative controlled by those who would oppress us. We see it even now in the attempt to twist the story of slavery in American classrooms.
Make no mistake, Hamas was wrong to attack Israeli civilians. Those kinds of tactics are brutal, ugly, and unjust. We should not lose sight of that fact, even as college protests against the war continue to spread.
The demonstrations we’re seeing now over the treatment of Palestinians did not begin with the widespread opposition to Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, just as the fight for racial justice didn’t start with Floyd and the protests that followed.
Maybe an inherent suspicion about the ways in which governments can mistreat minority groups is why so many in the Black community don’t believe the flat coverage that excuses the annihilation of civilians in Gaza. Maybe that same sense of mistrust is behind the low electoral turnout in Tuesday’s primary.
And maybe, in spite of all the economic and social reasons for Democrats to support Biden in November, this war will be the reason many won’t.
