Since the killing of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has been reinvigorated. And more than ever, much of its institutional leadership has made common cause with anti-Israel activists. Dan Diker writes:

Groups acting under the BLM umbrella, such as the “Movement for Black Lives,” championed by activists like [the Temple University professor and television commentator Marc Lamont] Hill, have accused Israel of genocide and apartheid. The Movement for Black Lives subsequently watered down these charges in its official documents, [which now merely claim] that Israel contributes to the “shackling of our community.” In the same brief, the Movement for Black Lives lists the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel (BDS) as one of its partners. [The group’s] leaders have not disguised their neo-Marxist ideological positions that prescribe the necessary dismantling of American institutions and the dissolution of the state of Israel.

BDS’s appropriation of BLM protests has also revealed the backing of Palestinian Marxist-Leninist terror organizations. For example, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a member organization of the PLO and a terror group so designated by the United States and the EU, issued a public statement of support.

BDS-BLM intersectionality, as the face of the current [intensification of] identity politics in the United States, . . . deepens the challenge to Israel and to American Jewry. . . . The rebranding of Israel as a white-supremacist entity categorizes Diaspora Jews as “white supremacists” by extension, unless they disavow Israel as a centerpiece of their American Jewish identity.

When the Arab Spring came to Syria in 2011, the Druze for the most part remained loyal to the regime—which has generally depended on the support of religious minorities such as the Druze and thus afforded them a modicum of protection. But in the past several weeks that has changed, with sustained anti-government protests in the Druze-dominated southwestern province of Suwayda. Ehud Yaari evaluates the implications of this shift:

The disillusionment of the Druze with Bashar al-Assad, their suspicion of militias backed by Iran and Hizballah on the outskirts of their region, and growing economic hardships are fanning the flames of revolt. In Syrian Druze circles, there is now open discussion of “self-rule,” for example replacing government offices and services with local Druze alternative bodies.

Is there a politically acceptable way to assist the Druze and prevent the regime from the violent reoccupation of Jebel al-Druze, [as they call the area in which they live]? The answer is yes. It would require Jordan to open a short humanitarian corridor through the village of al-Anat, the southernmost point of the Druze community, less than three kilometers from the Syrian-Jordanian border.

Setting up a corridor to the Druze would require a broad consensus among Western and Gulf Arab states, which have currently suspended the process of normalization with Assad. . . . The cost of such an operation would not be high compared to the humanitarian corridors currently operating in northern Syria. It could be developed in stages, and perhaps ultimately include, if necessary, providing the Druze with weapons to defend their territory. A quick reminder: during the Islamic State attack on Suwayda province in 2018, the Druze demonstrated an ability to assemble close to 50,000 militia men almost overnight.