REVOLT: SPLC Union Speaks Out on Hamas-Israel War as Southern Poverty Law Center Remains Silent
Tyler O'Neil /
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s labor union has taken a public stance on the war Hamas started by invading Israel, slaughtering civilians, and taking hostages—even while the SPLC itself has remained silent on the issue and on some Americans’ apparent support for Hamas slaughtering Jews.
The SPLC Union implicitly criticized its members’ employer by taking a firm stance against Israel’s right to self-defense. The SPLC Union characterized Israel’s response to the Hamas terrorism—but not the slaughter of Jews in the Jewish state—as “genocide.”
While the SPLC itself has remained silent, even amid large anti-Israel protests on American campuses that arguably pose a threat to Jewish students, the SPLC Union released a statement Wednesday.
“A message from SPLC Union officers and stewards: SPLC Union is and will always be rooted in the legacy of anti-oppression and decolonization led by Black and Indigenous leaders. With that in mind, SPLC Union stands strongly in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the union posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“What we see in Gaza is the violent imperialist desecration of a people—the beginnings of a genocide,” the union declared, apparently oblivious to the fact that Hamas began the war by perpetrating the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
The union also sent an implicit rebuke to the SPLC, claiming that the Hamas-Israel war has sparked attacks against religious minorities in the U.S.—exactly the kind of hate and extremism SPLC claims to monitor.
“Already, the horrors of Gaza have fueled aggression in our own country in the forms of attacks against Muslims and Sikhs, and outbursts of antisemitism,” the union wrote.
The union concluded with a litany of statements focused on Palestine without a mention of Israel.
“Palestinian Lives Matter,” the union wrote. “Palestinian families matter. Palestinian histories matter.”
“We support the ongoing call for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation,” it added. “There is a way beyond occupation. There is a way beyond apartheid. There is a way beyond bombings. We hope to move toward peace and freedom.”
The statement noticeably omits any mention of 1,400 Israelis slaughtered or the roughly 200 taken hostage or the 32 Americans among the dead.
The Hamas terrorist attack occurred on the last day of a Jewish festival and the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. The terrorists slaughtered about 250 civilians at a music festival, and an Israel Defense Forces commander told journalists that soldiers found beheaded babies in the carnage of Hamas’ attack.
The SPLC Union called for a cease-fire while Hamas still holds captives.
An organization that represents 2,500 Orthodox Jewish rabbis condemned the SPLC Union statement.
“The SPLC Union, in line with SPLC itself, is laced through with antisemitic bigotry, to judge from this statement,” Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values, told The Daily Signal in a statement Sunday. “They mention attacks on Muslims and Sikhs, as if those were common, and then mention ‘outbursts’ of antisemitism, occurring across the country, as an afterthought.”
“Most importantly, they claim it is Gaza experiencing a genocide, after terrorists from Gaza massacred over 1,400 people for simply being Jews,” the rabbi added. “SPLC Union is comprised of people who justify rape and beheading while disguising genocidal hatred.”
“That’s not a group I would go to were I looking for a decent human being,” Menken concluded.
Gregory T. Angelo, president of the New Tolerance Campaign, also condemned the SPLC Union statement.
“It’s clear the ideological bias of the Southern Poverty Law Center extends to its union side,” Angelo told The Daily Signal. He said the statement “also provides insight into the collective mindset of the people who staff the SPLC.”
“Beyond bias, what we’re seeing on display here is the SPLC’s complete betrayal of its values,” the campaign’s president added. “The attack on innocent Israeli civilians on October 7 was perpetuated by Hamas — a recognized terrorist organization, but one the SPLC Union refuses to condemn. Bandying about phrases like ‘imperialist desecration’ and ‘genocide’ stokes the very flames of antisemitism the SPLC supposedly exists to combat.”
The union’s anti-Israel bias echoes the many pro-Palestinian—if not pro-Hamas—protests that have taken place across the U.S. after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
Some chapters of the American group Black Lives Matter have expressed support for Hamas after the attacks. Black Lives Matter Chicago posted an image of a paratrooper with a Palestinian flag captioned “I stand with Palestine.” The image appeared to endorse the Hamas terrorists, who used paragliders to fly into Israel for the attack.
Students for Justice in Palestine, a U.S. pro-Palestinian group that has reportedly harassed Jews on college campuses, organized a national “day of resistance.” The organization’s toolkit for the demonstration does not call for “peaceful protests” and only mentions peace in the context of condemning the Jewish state. “The occupation, the day to day and the existence of Israel is not peaceful; there is no ‘maintaining the peace’ with a violent settler state,” it reads.
On the day before the designated “day of resistance,” a student at Columbia University allegedly stabbed a Jewish student.
The Anti-Defamation League expressed concerns about the Students for Justice in Palestine event. “Although these are all nonviolent tactics, they raise the real possibility of creating a hostile environment for Jewish students, and the confrontational spirit that permeates the toolkit raises the concern that these actions could lead to acts of harassment or vandalism targeting Jewish students and organizations,” the ADL Center on Extremism, an SPLC ally, wrote.
While the SPLC maintains a list of 1,225 “hate groups” and “anti-government groups,” seven of which fall into the antisemitism category, it has declined to utter a word about the attack on Israel or the potential threats to Jewish students.
The SPLC did not respond by press time to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about its silence or the SPLC Union’s statement.
As I explain in my book “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center,” the SPLC took the program it had used to bankrupt organizations associated with the Ku Klux Klan and weaponized it against conservative groups, partially to scare its donors into ponying up cash and partially to silence ideological opponents.
While President Joe Biden has unequivocally stood with Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attack, some members of his administration have previously condemned the Jewish state as “apartheid,” and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has warned that “passionate opponents of Israel” have taken root in his administration.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the New Tolerance Campaign, and will be updated if the SPLC responds.
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