This is becoming a recurring theme.
When there is a riot or other protest in the U.S., particularly if involving minority communities, “pro-Palestinian” activists try to hijack it and turn it into a criticism of Israel.
We saw it in Ferguson where “pro-Palestinian” activists spread lies that Israel trained the Ferguson police, and actually embedded themselves in the protests to try to turn the protests into anti-Israel protests.
The same thing has happened repeatedly with #BlackLivesMatters protests, most notably the dangerous blockade of the San Mateo – Hayward Bridge.
This is part of the emerging theme of anti-Israeli activists trying to tie unrelated movements, such as fossil fuel divestment, to Palestinian issues.
Now we are seeing it with the Baltimore riots.
The usual suspects, like Max Blumenthal, were out in full force immediately, trying to establish a link between the Baltimore police and Israel because some police trained in an Israeli form of martial arts:
Which, of course, made no sense, but it’s the tactic used by anti-Israel activists in Ferguson:
(added) Blumenthal also is claiming that a sound device used to disperse crowds in Baltimore, LRAD, was “tested on Palestinians.” The source Blumenthal links to in his tweet is one of Blumenthal’s own articles from 2011 where he acknowledges LRAD is a U.S. made device. But Israel apparently uses the U.S. made device, so there you go, Blumenthal gets his deceptive anti-Israel hook:
This is the same propaganda tactic used in Ferguson, where the fact that Ferguson and Israeli police used the same brand of American-made tear gas was used to try to blame Israel for Ferguson police actions. It’s sick and twisted, but repeated it often enough, and it becomes internet truth.
Rania Khalek dredged out the misleading claim, as in Ferguson, that because some Baltimore police attended an anti-terrorism seminar in Israel, Israel “trained” the Baltimore police:
Even she admitted it didn’t mean Israel was responsible for the actions of the Baltimore police, so why bring it up? Oh, right, it has great propaganda value.
Attorney and law professor Noura Erekat referred to the Baltimore riots as an Intifada:
Now the meme is spreading on Twitter:
You can follow the Twitter hijacking of the Baltimore riots here.
Seriously, is there any domestic problem anti-Israel activists will not hijack?
[Tweets were added to this post after publication.]
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