Cori Bush praises BLM activist who ‘prayed’ for death of police officers in speech comparing Black Americans to Palestinians

Bassem Masri was a Palestinian-American activist who, according to the New York Post, "received national attention for streaming heated exchanges with cops during protests outside the Ferguson Police Department."

In one such exchange, Masri reportedly said, "I’m praying for your death and your death and your death and your death", referring to police officers. "Pigs In a Blanket Fry Em Like Baconnnn", he also said in a 2014 tweet.

Masri, who passed away in 2018, came up in Cori Bush's speech on Thursday when she compared the events that took place in Ferguson in 2014 to the Palestinian experience of today. "Palestinians know what state violence, militarized policing, and occupation of their communities look like", she began, "so when heavily militarized police forces showed up in Ferguson in 2014, Bassem and so many others of our St. Louis Palestinian community, our Palestinian siblings showed up too."

In her speech, Bush called on the U.S. government to stop using tax dollars to fund the Israeli military, again comparing the struggle of the Palestinians to that of Black Americans. "The fight for Black lives and the fight for Palestinian liberation are interconnected", she said. "We oppose our money going to fund militarized policing, occupation, and systems of violent oppression and trauma. We are anti-war. We are anti-occupation. And we are anti-apartheid. Period."