The Israel-Hamas War is wearing upon African Americans and Jewish Americans. Antisemitism is rising and there is increasing funding and support of Arabs against American Jews because of the war. American Blacks are bein pushed by pro-Arab protesters to support Hamas and Arabs in Gaza under the false claim that Israelis are "white European colonizers" African American Jews are caught in the middle of this, fully knowledgeable that Israelis are not white Europeans (and in fact are mostly darker skinned people). Jews and Arabs are the same ethnicity, and about half of Israeli Jews are themselves people of color because they trace their origins to the Middle East and North Africa. Jews are the indigenous people of the land of Israel, including the areas now called the Gaza Strip and West Bank (they were once Judea and Samaria).

Israel does not now nor ever has had colonies and that there was a ceasefire in place on October 6. But that is not well known among African Americans.

But we do know this: dividing Jewish Americans and African Americans only benefits those tribal Arabs and Arab Americans who call themselves Palestinians and who want to get persecute and eliminate Jewish Americans......and later African Americans,

Black Americans that are not Jewish seem unaware of this tribe of Arabs' consistent rejection of every compromise offer, including those that would have granted them independence and statehood (the country of Palestine that does not exist now) so long as they were willing to live peacefully alongside a Jewish state.

African Americans are largely unaware that Arabs, particularly those living in Gaza among Palestinians, are descendants of the Arab Slave Grade where African women were kidnapped and taken hostage for sex slavery. The living descendants are forced to live as the poorest of the poor along Palestinians. Afro-Palestinians are not allowed to have jobs and privileges that other Palestinians have.

There is an education process that needs to take place and that happens when people connect with one another in communal settings and get to know ne another.

But our focus in Paying Together Project, both before the Israel-Hamas War and today is on our commonalities and strengths and how we can build upon them because separately we are both weakened. National Public Radio takes a look at our historic alliance:

https://www.npr.org/2024/03/28/1239289512/black-jewish-grand-alliance-civil-rights-history