Black Lives Matter activist and former CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill called for the “dismantling” of the “Zionist project”, in his latest diatribe against the Jewish state.
Hill, a professor of media studies at Temple University, took part in an online panel discussion this last Saturday hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America, The Algemeiner reported.
During the event, Hill compared the movement for and support of Jewish national self-determination to “white supremacy”, imperialism, and colonialism, and called for the “dismantling” of Zionism.
“We can’t dismantle white supremacy or imperialism section by section,” said Hill. “These are international, trans-national movements. There’s no way to stop a settler-colonial movement in Palestine, and not be mindful of its relationship to a settler-colonial project in New Zealand or Australia or the United States.”
Hill also accused Israel of promoting police brutality in the US against racial minorities.
“US police are being trained in Israel and some Israeli police are being trained in the United States. That doesn’t mean US repression was learned from Israel, the US has been a repressive state long before Israel, Israel didn’t have to teach the US how to be repressive or violent or kill black people – and vice versa.”
Later, Hill boasted that the Black Lives Matter movement endorses the elimination of Zionism and the “Zionist project”.
“Black Lives Matter, very explicitly, is talking about the dismantling of the Zionist project, dismantling of the settler-colonial project. And very explicitly embracing BDS on those grounds.”
In 2018, CNN cut ties with Hill after he called for Israel’s elimination, saying "justice requires" a "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea," a phrase that has long been used to call for the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian Arab State.
During his speech at the United Nations, Hill also appeared to endorse violence against the State of Israel
"Contrary to western mythology, black resistance to American apartheid was not" purely nonviolent, he said. "Tactics otherwise divergent from Dr. King or Gandhi were equally important to preserving safety and attaining freedom. If we are in true solidarity, we must allow them the same range of opportunity and political possibility. We must recognize the right of an occupied people to defend themselves. We must prioritize peace, but we must not romanticize or fetishize it. We must promote non violence at every opportunity, but cannot endorse narrow politics that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in ethnic cleansing," Hill said.
In 2019, Hill produced a documentary film featuring a Palestinian Arab terrorist convicted of bombing civilian targets in Jerusalem.
Hill also came under fire that year for denying Mizrachi (‘Eastern’) Jewish identity, claiming it had been invented for political purposes.