AS WE REMEMBER MARTIN LUTHER KINGHere is an article I have stored in my archives on the Martin Luther King and his purported statement on Zionism. I am also sure that Martin Luther King would not have been impressed with Israel's long standing alliance with Apartheid South Africa and its policy of White supremacy. King also was opposed to war and the use of violence and also opposed the War in Vietnam. .It is extremely doubtful that he would have supported Israel's military attacks against the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab countries. Please forward to your friends.
Ed Corrigan
January 20, 2003
1. Wise, Tim (01-21-2003). "Fraud fit for a King: Israel, Zionism, and the misuse of MLK". Z Magazine.
http://www.zmag.org/zspace/commentaries/1483. Retrieved 08-26-2009.
Fraud Fit For A King: Israel, Zionism, And The Misuse
Of MLKBy Tim Wise
Rarely am I considered insufficiently cynical. As
someone who does anti-racism work for a living, and
thus hears all manner of excuse-making by those who
wish desperately to avoid being considered racist, not
much surprises me. I expect people to lie about race;
to tell me how many black friends they have; to swear
they haven’t a racist bone in their bodies. And every
January, with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday just
around the corner, I have come to expect someone to
misuse the good doctor’s words so as to push an agenda
he would not likely have supported. As such, I long
ago resigned myself to the annual gaggle of fools who
deign to use King’s “content of their character” line
from the 1963 March on Washington so as to attack
affirmative action, ostensibly because King preferred
simple “color-blindness.” That King actually supported
the efforts that we now call affirmative action--and
even billions in reparations for slavery and
segregation--as I’ve documented in a previous column,
matters not to these folks. They’ve never read King’s
work, and they’ve only paid attention to one news clip
from one speech, so what more can we expect from such
precious simpletons as these? And yet, even with my
cynic’s credentials established, the one thing I never
expected anyone to do would be to just make up a quote
from King; a quote that he simply never said, and
claim that it came from a letter that he never wrote,
and was published in a collection of his essays that
never existed. Frankly, this level of deception is
something special. The hoax of which I speak is one
currently making the rounds on the Internet, which
claims to prove King’s steadfast support for Zionism.
Indeed, it does more than that.
In the item, entitled “Letter to an Anti-Zionist
Friend,” King proclaims that criticism of Zionism is
tantamount to anti-Semitism, and likens those who
criticize Jewish nationalism as manifested in Israel,
to those who would seek to trample the rights of
blacks. Heady stuff indeed, and 100% bullshit, as any
amateur fact checker could ascertain were they so
inclined. But of course, the kinds of folks who push
an ideology that required the expulsion of
three-quarters-of-a-million Palestinians from their
lands, and then lied about it, claiming there had been
no such persons to begin with (as with Golda Meir’s
infamous quip), can’t be expected to place a very high
premium on truth. I learned this the hard way
recently, when the Des Moines Jewish Federation
succeeded in getting me yanked from the city’s MLK day
events: two speeches I had been scheduled to give on
behalf of the National Conference of Community and
Justice (NCCJ).
Because of my criticisms of Israel--and because I as a
Jew am on record opposing Zionism philosophically--the
Des Moines shtetl decided I was unfit to speak at an
MLK event. After sending the supposed King quote
around, and threatening to pull out all monies from
the Jewish community for future NCCJ events, I was
dropped. The attack of course was based on a
distortion of my own beliefs as well. Federation
principal Mark Finkelstein claimed I had shown a
disregard for the well-being of Jews, despite the fact
that my argument has long been that Zionism in
practice has made world Jewry less safe than ever. But
it was his duplicity on King’s views that was most
disturbing. Though Finkelstein only recited one line
from King’s supposed “letter” on Zionism, he lifted it
from the larger letter, which appears to have
originated with Rabbi Marc Schneier, who quotes from
it in his 1999 book, “Shared Dreams: Martin Luther
King Jr. and the Jewish Community.” Therein, one finds
such over-the-top rhetoric as this:
“I say, let the truth ring forth from the high
mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of
God's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they
mean Jews--this is God's own truth.” The letter also
was filled with grammatical errors that any halfway
literate reader of King’s work should have known
disqualified him from being its author, to wit:
“Anti-Zionist is inherently anti Semitic, and ever
will be so.” The treatise, it is claimed, was
published on page 76 of the August, 1967 edition of
Saturday Review, and supposedly can also be read in
the collection of King’s work entitled, This I
Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. That the claimants never mention the
publisher of this collection should have been a clear
tip-off that it might not be genuine, and indeed it
isn’t. The book doesn’t exist. As for Saturday Review,
there were four issues in August of 1967. Two of the
four editions contained a page 76. One of the pages 76
contains classified ads and the other contained a
review of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album. No King
letter anywhere.
Yet its lack of authenticity hasn’t prevented it from
having a long shelf-life. Not only does it pop up in
the Schneier book, but sections of it were read by the
Anti-Defamation League’s Michael Salberg in testimony
before a House Subcommittee in July of 2001, and all
manner of pro-Israel groups (from traditional Zionists
to right-wing Likudites, to Christians who support
ingathering Jews to Israel so as to prompt Jesus’
return), have used the piece on their websites.
In truth, King appears never to have made any public
comment about Zionism per se; and the only known
statement he ever made on the topic, made privately to
a handful of people, is a far cry from what he is
purported to have said in the so-called “Letter to an
Anti-Zionist friend.” In 1968, according to Seymour
Martin Lipset, King was in Boston and attended a
dinner in Cambridge along with Lipset himself and a
number of black students. After the dinner, a young
man apparently made a fairly harsh remark attacking
Zionists as people, to which King responded: “Don’t
talk like that. When people criticize Zionists, they
mean Jews. You’re talking Anti-Semitism.” Assuming
this quote to be genuine, it is still far from the
ideological endorsement of Zionism as theory or
practice that was evidenced in the phony letter.
After all, to respond to a harsh statement about
individuals who are Zionists with the warning that
such language is usually a cover for anti-Jewish bias
is understandable. More than that, the comment was no
doubt true for most, especially in 1968. It is a
statement of opinion as to what people are thinking
when they say a certain thing. It is not a statement
as to the inherent validity or perfidy of a worldview
or its effects.
Likewise, consider the following analogous dualism:
first, that “opposition to welfare programs is forever
racism,” and secondly, that “when people criticize
welfare recipients, they mean blacks. This is racism.”
Whereas the latter statement may be true--and studies
would tend to suggest that it is--the former is a
matter of ideological conviction, largely untestable,
and thus more tendentious than its counterpart. In any
event, as with the King quotes--both fabricated and
genuine--the truth of the latter says nothing about
the truth or falsity of the former.
So yes, King was quick to admonish one person who
expressed hostility to Zionists as people. But he did
not claim that opposition to Zionism was inherently
anti-Semitic. And for those who criticize Zionism
today and who like me are Jewish, to believe that we
mean to attack Jews, as Jews, when we speak out
against Israel and Zionism is absurd.
As for King’s public position on Israel, it was quite
limited and hardly formed a cornerstone of his
worldview. In a meeting with Jewish leaders a few
weeks before his death, King noted that peace for
Israelis and Arabs were both important concerns.
According to King, “peace for Israel means security,
and we must stand with all our might to protect its
right to exist, its territorial integrity.”
But such a statement says nothing about how Israel
should be constituted, nor addresses the Palestinians
at all, whose lives and challenges were hardly on the
world’s radar screen in 1968.
At the time, Israel’s concern was hostility from
Egypt; and of course all would agree that any nation
has the right not to be attacked by a neighbor. The
U.S. had a right not to be attacked by the Soviet
Union too--as King would have no doubt agreed, thereby
affirming the United States’ right to exist. But would
anyone claim that such a sentiment would have implied
the right of the U.S. to exist as it did, say in 1957
or 1961, under segregation? Of course not.
So too Israel. Its right to exist in the sense of not
being violently destroyed by hostile forces does not
mean the right to exist as a Jewish state per se, as
opposed to the state of all its citizens. It does not
mean the right to laws granting special privileges to
Jews from around the world, over indigenous Arabs.
It should also be noted that in the same paragraph
where King reiterated his support for Israel’s right
to exist, he also proclaimed the importance of massive
public assistance to Middle Eastern Arabs, in the form
of a Marshall Plan, so as to counter the poverty and
desperation that often leads to hostility and violence
towards Israeli Jews.
This part of King’s position is typically ignored by
the organized Jewish community, of course, even though
it was just as important to King as Israel’s
territorial integrity.
As for what King would say today about Israel,
Zionism, and the Palestinian struggle, one can only
speculate.
After all, he died before the full tragedy of the
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza would be able to
unfold.
He died before the peace treaty between Egypt and
Israel; before the invasion of Lebanon and the
massacres at Sabra and Shatilla; before the 1980’s
intifada; before Israel decided to serve as a proxy
for U.S. foreign policy--funneling weapons to fascist
governments in South Africa, Argentina and Guatemala,
or helping to arm terrorist thugs in Mozambique and
the contras in Nicaragua.
He died before the proliferation of illegal
settlements throughout the territories; before the
rash of suicide/homicide bombings; before the polls
showing that nearly half of Israeli Jews support
removing Palestinians via “transfer” to neighboring
countries.
But one thing is for sure. While King would no doubt
roundly condemn Palestinian violence against innocent
civilians, he would also condemn the state violence of
Israel.
He would condemn launching missile attacks against
entire neighborhoods in order to flush out a handful
of wanted terrorists.
He would oppose the handing out of machine guns to
religious fanatics from Brooklyn who move to the
territories and proclaim their God-given right to the
land, and the right to run Arabs out of their
neighborhoods, or fence them off, or discriminate
against them in a multitude of ways.
He would oppose the unequal rationing of water
resources between Jews and Arabs that is Israeli
policy.
He would oppose the degrading checkpoints through
which Palestinian workers must pass to get to their
jobs, or back to their homes after a long day of work.
He would oppose the policy which allows IDF officers
to shoot children throwing rocks, as young as age
twelve.
In other words, he would likely criticize the working
out of Zionism on the ground, as it has actually
developed in the real world, as opposed to the world
of theory and speculation.
These things seem imminently clear from any honest
reading of his work or examination of his life. He
would be a broker for peace. And it is a tragedy that
instead of King himself, we are burdened with
charlatans like those at the ADL, or the Des Moines
Jewish Federation, or Rabbis like Marc Schneier who
think nothing of speaking for the genuine article, in
a voice not his own.
Tim Wise is an antiracist activist, writer and
lecturer. He can be reached at
timjwise@msn.com
The following is an excerpt from The Guardian on the
Martin Luther King quote. I thank PM Media Watch for
assembling this information.
Ed Corrigan
Corrections and clarifications
Saturday December 27, 2003
The Guardian
The following correction was printed in the Guardian's
Corrections and Clarifications column, Thursday
February 22 2004
In a column headed The hate that shames us, page 5,
Weekend, December 6, we referred to a letter said to
have been published in 1967 purporting to be from
Martin Luther King Jr in which he was quoted as
saying, among other things, "Anti-Zionism is
inherently anti-semitic, and ever will be ... It is
discrimination against Jews ... because they are Jews.
In short, it is anti-semitism." In fact, the letter is
widely regarded as a forgery, the first known
appearance of which was in 1999.
It is the policy of the Guardian to correct
significant errors as soon as possible. Please quote
the date and page number. The office is closed to
telephone callers until January 2. However, you may
still get in touch in any of the following ways: Mail
to Readers' editor, The Guardian, 119 Farringdon Road,
London EC1R 3ER. Fax 020-7239 9997. Email: reader@guardian.co.uk
QUOTES FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do
that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do
that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence,
and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending
spiral of destruction....The chain reaction
of evil--hate begetting hate, wars producing more
wars--must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the
dark abyss of annihilation.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the
personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate
destroys a man's sense of values
and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the
beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to
confuse the true with the false
and the false with the true.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength To Love, 1963.
I am aware that there are many who wince at a
distinction between property and persons--who hold
both sacrosanct. My views are not so rigid. A life is
sacred. Property is intended to serve life, and no
matter how much we surround it with rights and
respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the
earth man walks on; it is not man.
-Martin Luther King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience,
1967.
More Than a Dreamer By Paul Rockwell AlterNet.org
Saturday 15 January 2005
Dr. Martin Luther King's oft-quoted "I have a
dream" speech was not about far-off visions, it was a
call to action.
Every year, millions of Americans pay tribute to
the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King. We often forget,
however, that King was the object of derision when he
was alive. At key moments in his quest for civil
rights and world peace, the corporate media treated
King with hostility. Dr. King's march for open housing
in Chicago, when the civil rights movement entered the
North, caused a negative, you've-gone-too-far reaction
in the Northern press. And Dr. King's stand on peace
and international law, especially his support for the
self-determination of third world peoples, caused an
outcry and backlash in the predominantly white press.
In his prophetic anti-war speech at Riverside
Church in 1967 (recorded and filmed for posterity but
rarely quoted in today's press), King emphasized four
points: 1) that American militarism would destroy the
war on poverty; 2) that American jingoism breeds
violence, despair, and contempt for law within the
United States; 3) the use of people of color to fight
against people of color abroad is a "cruel
manipulation of the poor"; 4) human rights should be
measured by one yardstick everywhere.
The Washington Post denounced King's anti-war
position, and said King was "irresponsible." In an
editorial entitled "Dr. King's error," The New York
Times chastised King for going beyond the allotted
domain of black leaders - civil rights. TIME called
King's anti-war stand "demogogic slander ... a script
for Radio Hanoi." The media responses to Dr. King's
calls for peace were so venomous that King's two
recent biographers - Stephen Oates and David Garrow -
devoted whole chapters to the media blitz against
King's internationalism.
Dr. King may be an icon within the media today,
but there is still something upsetting about the way
his birthday is observed. Four words - "I have a
dream" - are often parrotted out of context every
January 15th.
King, however, was not a dreamer - at least not
the teary-eyed, mystic projected in the media. True,
he was a visionary, but he specialized in applied
ethics. He even called himself "a drum major for
justice," and his mission, as he described it, was,
"to disturb the comfortable and comfort the
disturbed." In fact, the oft-quoted "I have a dream"
speech was not about far-off visions. In his speech in
Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963, Dr. King confronted
the poverty, injustice, and "nightmare conditions" of
American cities. In its totality, the "I have a dream"
speech was about the right of oppressed and poor
Americans to cash their promissary note in our time.
It was a call to action.
In 1986, Jesse Jackson wrote an essay on how
Americans can protect the legacy of Dr. King.
Jackson's essay on the trivialization, distortion and
emasculation of King's memory is one of the clearest,
most relevant appreciations in print of Dr. King's
work. Jackson wrote: "We must resist this the media's
weak and anemic memory of a great man. To think of Dr.
King only as a dreamer is to do injustice to his
memory and to the dream itself. Why is it that so many
politicians today want to emphasize that King was a
dreamer? Is it because they want us to believe that
his dreams have become reality, and that therefore, we
should celebrate rather than continue to fight? There
is a struggle today to preserve the substance and the
integrity of Dr. King's legacy."
Today, the media often ignores the range and
breadth of King's teachings. His speeches - on
economlc justice, on our potential to end poverty, on
the power of organized mass action, his criticism of
the hostile media, his opposition to U.S. imperialism
(a word he dared to use) - are rarely quoted, much
less discussed with understanding. In fact, successors
to Dr. King who raise the same concerns today are
again treated with sneers, and their "ulterior
motives" are questioned. A genuine appreciation of Dr.
King requires respect for the totality of his work and
an ongoing commitment to struggle for peace and
justice today.
Paul Rockwell, formerly assistant professor of
philsophy at Midwestern University, is a writer who
lives in Oakland, California.
