Within weeks of a professor at the University of Michigan denying a student a recommendation for study in Israel, an art class at that same university featured a slide show comparing the Israeli Prime Minister to Adolf Hitler. “A lecture at the University of Michigan several weeks ago that consisted of a slide comparing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler included another anti-Semitic image, JNS has learned,” the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS) reported on October 16, 2018. “Student Alexa Smith captured the images from the slideshow, given by former Black Panther leader Emory Douglas, and posted them on social media.”
According to the U. S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2017, “The most significant human rights issues included terrorist attacks targeting civilians and politically and religiously motivated killings by nonstate groups and individuals; administrative detention of Palestinians, often extraterritorially in Israel; and legal requirements and official rhetoric that adversely affected the operating environment for human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).”
“The government took steps to prosecute and punish officials who committed abuses within Israel regardless of rank or seniority.” How exactly does this compare to a dictatorship that killed, according to the Holocaust museum, approximately six million Jews?
As for the Black Panthers, according to the FBI archives, “The Black Panther Party (BPP) is a black extremist organization founded in Oakland, California in 1966. It advocated the use of violence and guerilla tactics to overthrow the U.S. government.”
According to BlackPast.org, “Emory Douglas served as the Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party from 1967 to 1980.
“Originally from Grand Rapids, Michigan, Douglas and his family moved to San Francisco for health reasons in 1951. At age 15 Douglas was sent to the Youth Training School, a youth authority detention facility in Ontario, California, where he was introduced to art through classes on basic print and graphic design. After his release in 1960, Douglas would eventually continue his art training at City College of San Francisco by taking courses in commercial design where he gained valuable experience with design techniques, print publication, and art critique.
“In early 1967, he became involved with the Black Arts Movement at San Francisco State University as a set designer for the Black Communications Project. Douglas met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, founders of the Black Panther Party, at a meeting regarding the organization’s security detail for Betty Shabazz’s upcoming visit to San Francisco. After this encounter, Douglas joined the Panthers and began going on police patrols in Oakland where he met many of the community people who would later be the inspiration and subject for his work.”
