More than a month into his second term, President Donald Trump has made good on many of his dreadful campaign promises, including ordering mass deportation of migrants and asylum seekers, cancelling federal Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) programmes, cutting funding to underprivileged Black and Latino communities, and pledging to expel foreigners with legal residency who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests. It is clear that minorities and oppressed people must build solidarity networks to stand together and resist if we are to survive the next four years. To do so effectively, we must address any outstanding issues that could undermine cross-community solidarity.
The 2024 election took place in the shadow of Israel’s genocidal campaign against the people of Palestine. Despite the efforts of the Democratic Party to obfuscate and manipulate the issue, they could not simply wish away the horrifying images coming out of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Democratic Party faced a mass mobilisation of people in the streets, in the primaries, and on college campuses calling for urgent action to stop Israel. In a desperate attempt to distract from the rightful criticism they were receiving for facilitating genocide, the Democratic Party took aim at the cross-sectional coalition that formed to support Gaza. Specifically, the Democrats sought to break up Black-Palestinian solidarity by framing pro-Palestinian protesters as single-issue voters.
Democrats emphasised that what was happening in Gaza was an external issue that concerned only that specific group of voters and suggested that Black people – as well as women, LGBTQ, and other disadvantaged groups – should prioritise their interests with the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. However, if someone is okay with the extermination of one group, why would they not approve the extermination of others when the time comes?
The Democrats’ commitment to the rights of disadvantaged groups can be questioned when they rushed to blame trans people for Harris’s defeat and some prominent members suggested dropping the “trans issue”. The Democrats also made some of its members of colour become the face of its stance on Gaza, such as Biden’s UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who was instructed to vote down ceasefire resolution and repeat the mantra about Israel’s “right to self-defence”. The Democratic Party used Blackness as a shield against any criticism and they did it under the guise of diversity.
While differences in opinion persist within the Black community over Palestine-Israel, ultimately, it is believed that the contradictions present in defending the Democratic Party are becoming increasingly manageable. The party’s manipulation of narratives, similar to the ways Republicans do with their base, leads to confusion, not greater political participation from Black people. It is also important to ask what the Democratic Party has done to win their loyalty, given their history of demonising the Black Lives Matter movement and funding the police countrywide.
In this context, the insinuation that the Democratic Party – or the Republican Party, for that matter – has the best interest of the Black population in mind is not only insulting, but dangerous. For Black Americans, there is a clear parallel between the historical ways in which their people have been harmed and what is happening in Palestine. The brutal apartheid and genocide of the Palestinian people directly relate to the mass killings and subjugation of Black people here in the US. Our mere existence is a threat to the status quo. The past 16 months of genocide in Gaza have highlighted the close connections between the US military-industrial complex, the Israeli one, the US army, the Israeli occupation forces, and the US police. With Trump unleashing police and other security agencies onto vulnerable communities, we face the same threat, the same source of aggression. Our power lies in united resistance.

Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/3/10/black-palestinian-solidarity-we-need-to-talk-about-what-happened?traffic_source=rss