“Squad” member Ayanna Pressley made a speech on Friday in Congress in which she linked her experience “as a black woman in American” and the Black Lives Matter protests to the events of the past week in Israel and Gaza, accusing Israel of “violently dispossessing yet another neighbourhood of Palestinians” in Sheikh Jarrah.
“Our destinies are tied,” said Pressley referring to events that took place at the beginning of the current escalation when rioters stocked the Al-Aqsa mosque with rocks and petrol bombs.
“As a black woman in America, I’m no stranger to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence,” she said.
“Last summer, when Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets to demand justice, they were met with force, they faced tear gas, rubber bullets and a militarized police, just as our Palestinian brothers and sisters are facing in Jerusalem today,” she said. “Palestinians are being told the same thing as black folks in America. There is no acceptable form of resistance ... We cannot stand idly and complicity by and allow the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people to continue.”
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)