Tel-Chai Nation

This is the week for the memorial of Dr. Martin Luther King, the African-American civil rights leader who was tragically lost in 1968 when he was assassinated at a hotel he was staying at. Pamela Geller's got one of the best topics on the subject here, including the following from Front Page Magazine:

Shortly before his death, Dr. King had the moral courage to confront the burgeoning Jew hatred of both extreme leftwing Black organizations, including the Black Panthers and the radicalized Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, as well as the Black Muslims. For example, during a 1968 appearance at Harvard University, he stated bluntly:
"When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews, You are talking anti-Semitism." [ from "The Socialism of Fools: The Left, the Jews and Israel" by Seymour Martin Lipset; in Encounter magazine, December 1969, p. 24. ].

King immediately recognized anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism- Judenhass - refusing to indulge what he believed was simply another manifestation of the same hatred confronting Blacks. As Georgia Congressman John Lewis, who worked closely with Dr. King during the civil rights movement, observed last year on Martin Luther King Day,"He knew that both peoples [i.e., Blacks and Jews] were uprooted involuntarily from their homelands. He knew that both peoples were shaped by the tragic experience of slavery. He knew that both peoples were forced to live in ghettoes, victims of segregation. He knew that both peoples were subject to laws passed with the particular intent of oppressing them simply because they were Jewish or black. He knew that both peoples have been subjected to oppression and genocide on a level unprecedented in history."

It's astounding how many anti-semitic and racist cretins there are in the world who say they respect Jews yet are hostile to Israel, and fail to recognize that when they attack Israel, they're also showing contempt for Jews who live outside the country. King did a splendid job pointing this out.

Labels: anti-semitism, Israel, racism, United States