This outright support for Hamas, and the blaming of Israeli victims for Hamas’s butchery, came as a surprise to some liberals. They had viewed BLM as a worthy cause and saw themselves as allies of the movement. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in 2020, BLM skyrocketed in prominence and gained new-found respectability among the great and good. Its slogan was omnipresent. Streets in downtown Washington, DC had the words ‘Black Lives Matter’ painted on them in giant letters by the city authorities. The black BLM flag was flown all over the US, including in many schools. Major corporations and foundations showered BLM-affiliated organisations with millions of dollars. Many Jewish organisations in the US, including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, also expressed support for BLM.

But now, witnessing BLM’s unholy alliance with Hamas, many establishment liberals are waking up to what BLM really thinks. … As it happens, if these establishment allies of BLM had happened to take a few minutes to examine its history and political positions before sending millions of dollars to its bank accounts, they might not have been so surprised that it rushed to the defence of Hamas.

[It’s like the Hamas charter. The truth had been made public all along. The BLM allies just talked themselves into believing it was nothing more than political posturing. A lot of people on the center-left are suddenly waking up to the reality of the hatred in BLM and the other areas of the “identitarian Left,” as Collins put it, but that was a self-induced coma from which they are now emerging. — Ed]