The great betrayal: How radical progressives are dynamiting the Black-Jewish alliance

For nearly a century, the alliance between the Black and Jewish communities was the bedrock of America’s moral center — a "covenant" forged in the fires of the Civil Rights Movement and cemented with shared blood on the roads of the Jim Crow South. But today, that historic bond is being systematically dynamited by a new wave of radical progressives who prefer toxic tropes and "us-versus-them" identity politics over actual history.

The first detonator was pulled by "Squad" member Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., shortly after the October 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel. Rather than offering a standard policy critique of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Lee, according to Politico, used a private Facebook post to deploy one of the most inflammatory weapons in the progressive arsenal, accusing the non-partisan advocacy group of practicing "textbook anti-blackness."

She did not stop there. According to Politico, Lee further labeled the organization — and by extension, its mission of strengthening the U.S.-Israel bond — an "existential threat to the Black community and its right to self-determination."

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In August, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., in remarks to the People’s Conference for Palestine gave her support to its new campaign to kick AIPAC out of U.S. politics. The campaign’s website says, "AIPAC threatens free speech, devastates workers' economic interests, advocates for endless wars and sabotages international diplomacy — all at the cost, and against the will, of the American people."

Let’s call this what it is: a political hit job disguised as social justice.

When the "Squad" and their allies target AIPAC, they aren't just debating foreign policy; they are reviving the oldest, ugliest "dark money" smears in the antisemitic book. They paint Jewish political participation as a "foreign intrusion" or a "nefarious force" designed to subvert Black and American interests. This narrative doesn’t just ignore the facts; it spits on a century of shared struggle.

The intellectual heart of this alliance wasn't found in some smoke-filled D.C. boardroom. It was found on the campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in the 1930s. When America’s elite, "White" ivy-league institutions slammed their doors shut on Jewish scholars fleeing Nazi Germany, HBCUs opened theirs. These Jewish professors didn't arrive as "colonizers" or "outsiders"; they stood side-by-side with Black students to dismantle the ugliness of racial segregation.

Indeed, Dana's parents witnessed this firsthand at Howard University in the 1960s. They didn't see a zero-sum contest for influence. They saw Jewish and Black leaders as brothers-in-arms in a shared pursuit of the American promise. To hear modern politicians frame Jewish advocacy as inherently antagonistic to Black communities is an insult to every freedom rider who sat on those buses.

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But the rot is spreading beyond the fringes. Even mainstream political heavyweights like Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have reportedly begun "distancing" themselves from AIPAC-bundled funds. When leaders of that stature show fear and start running for the hills, it signals that the fringe’s "dark money" smear campaign’s stench has reached the top. It suggests that support for Israel — once a pillar of bipartisan American consensus — is being rebranded by the radical left as a "problematic" liability, almost illegitimate.

By framing AIPAC and Jewish political engagement as an "existential threat," Rep. Lee and her colleagues aren't "standing up" for the marginalized. They are actively hindering the very coalition-building that moved this country from the back of the bus to the Civil Rights Act. They are trading a hundred years of hard-won progress for a "sensational" 24-hour news cycle and a few more "likes" from the anti-Israel extreme and delusional fringe.

This is a dangerous game. When we allow political leaders to suggest that one group’s advocacy is a threat to another group’s existence, we don't just lose a lobby — we lose our moral center. We invite suspicion to replace solidarity.

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Only a few weeks ago, Israel commemorated Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day, for the millions of Jews who were murdered by the Nazi regime’s evil. Those undermining Israel’s very legitimacy (not political criticism) and the Jewish community’s right to fight for what they believe in, assisted by media pundits and propagandists bent on telling lies and darkening people’s hearts, are facilitating another war of elimination. 

Daniel Goldhagen’s "Hitler’s Willing Executioners — Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" shows that the Holocaust wasn’t just the work of a few monsters, but of ‘ordinary’ people conditioned by a culture of hate. Today, that same conditioning is being mass-produced in digital echo chambers, turning political discourse into a new ‘industry of lies’ that dehumanizes before it annihilates. It is antisemitism cloaked in politics and diplomacy, which nevertheless results in the massacre of Jews in Hebron, Gaza, Pittsburgh and Australia.

 It is the production line of the next generation of those same willing executioners. 

Over the past year and a half, the Trump Administration has done much to address antisemitism, especially in higher education, where, since Oct. 2023, Jewish students have been targeted and even physically assaulted. Leo Terrell, the Chair of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, has made it clear — through actions, not just words — that there will be consequences for allowing a poisonous environment of antisemitism on college campuses and expanded the Task Force’s focus to include elementary and high schools.

But it’s not only up to the government to fight this disease. More needs and must be done by us, the "ordinary people." Not just by passive remembrance, but by taking action. It is time to stop the smears. It is time to reject the "woke" wedge being driven between Blacks and Jews, and between America and its Jewish community. It is time for the silent majority to cry out and make a stand — politically and publicly. If we allow these suspicion-laden tropes to win, the only victors will be the extremists who want to see America divided. 

Let’s remember the history that actually built this country, and do this not for Israel, not for the Jewish community, but for America and us all.