‘Hamas: Release the hostages,’ BLM posted on X/Twitter on Saturday.
By Corey Walker, The Algemeiner
The Black Lives Matter organization (BLM) faced an avalanche of backlash over the weekend after calling on the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas to release the remaining hostages it kidnapped from Israel and took to Gaza on Oct. 7.
“Hamas: release the hostages,” the group posted on X/Twitter on Saturday.
The post generated outrage from activists who accused BLM of betraying the Palestinian cause. Left-wing social media personalities lambasted the group for supposedly minimizing the plight of Palestinians by showing empathy for Israelis in Hamas’s captivity.
“Did AIPAC write this post for you?” one X/Twitter user wrote, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“Guys please don’t associate this organization with the BLM movement. They are not synonymous. I founded a chapter of BLM in my city and I would never in a million years agree to be affiliated with this filth,” another user posted.
“This account just lost credibility,” someone else added.
“F—k you ZIONIST puppets,” posted left-wing social media personality Jackson Hinkle.
“Seeing black people backing Israel is one of the saddest things possible, given how the founders of Zionism considered black people to be inferior to white people,” wrote pro-Palestinian social media personality Ousman Noor.
After receiving a deluge of criticism over advocating for captive Israelis, BLM issued subsequent tweets calling for the United States to “disarm [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and defund the illegal military occupation” and for Israel to “stop murdering Palestinians.”
Hamas, the terrorist group that runs Gaza, slaughtered 1,200 people and abducted 251 others during its Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel. In November, the United States helped broker a deal to secure the release of around 100 hostages as part of a week-long truce. Since then, Hamas has refused any subsequent deals to free the remaining hostages in its possession.
Israel has rescued some of the hostages, both dead and alive, in rescue operations, and currently 97 people kidnapped on Oct. 7 remain in captivity in Gaza. About one-third of them have already been declared dead by Israeli authorities.
While BLM’s posts elicited outrage from some left-wing activists, others praised the organization for showing nuance regarding the Israel-Hamas war.
“It shouldn’t be controversial to acknowledge that Israeli hostages still held by Hamas should be released & should have never been held this long. I’m glad that Black Lives Matter, which also called for a ceasefire and disarming Bibi’s regime, has taken a stance to distance itself from radical elements who see no issue with Hamas’s actions or strategies,” Palestinian-American activist Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib wrote on X/Twitter.
“A win is a win,” right-wing influencer Emily Austin posted.
“Yes BLM. Thank you. Hamas must release the hostages and the remains of all the murdered hostages — while they surrender,” wrote media personality Polly Rendall.
BLM’s criticism of Hamas came as a shock to many observers, considering the group’s general alignment with radical left-wing politics and extensive history of criticizing Israel. BLM accused Israel of “genocide” in its 2016 platform titled “A Vision for Black Lives.” Patrisse Cullors, a co-founder of the BLM movement, has called Israel an “apartheid state.”
Mere days after Hamas’s brutal Oct. 7 massacre, the Chicago chapter of BLM posted a picture of a paraglider — a reference to the Hamas terrorists who invaded southern Israel and proceeded to murder civilians at the Nova Music Festival — with the words “I stand with Palestine” emblazoned on the bottom.
When asked in the comments section of its weekend social media post whether BLM Chicago is one of its chapters, BLM’s main X/Twitter account responded, “Nope.”