Had he lived, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., would be turning 86 this year. There are certain soaring themes of Reverend King’s message—for example, that people should be judged by the content of their characters, not the color of their skin; that nonviolent protest is the way to bring about necessary social change—that speak as much to our time as to his.
Reverend King’s message about the Arab-Israel conflict also speaks to our time. Interviewed by the editor of Conservative Judaism on March 25, 1968, just ten days before his assassination in Memphis, King declared: “I see Israel, and never mind saying it, as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can almost be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.”
How many people today, so reverential toward Dr. King yet so hypercritical of Israel, know that about his consistent embrace and defense of Israel throughout his short public career?
We point to Reverend King’s principled belief that Palestinian rights must be achieved in a manner consistent with Israeli security and survival because his message is now being perverted by so-called “progressive leaders” who should know better.
Professor Angela Davis, who is no stranger to the barricades at places like UC Santa Cruz where she teaches, is speaking at the Thirty-First Annual UCSC Convocation Martin Luther King, Jr. on “From Ferguson To Palestine.” Sponsors include the UCSC’s Chancellor’s Office.
During her “Revolutionary Communist” heyday in the late 1960s and early 1970s that landed her in hot water with the law, Davis was profoundly influenced by Jewish leftists like Herbert Marcuse and Herbert Aptheker. It is important to note that she has never indulged in anti-Semitic rabble rousing, as too many other African American radicals have. On the other hand, her animus against the Jewish state, and lack of balance about the Israel-Palestinian dispute, is public record.
Such anti-Israel bias expressed on the day when Americans gather to celebrate the vision of the iconic Civil Rights prophet dishonors Reverend King’s memory. Davis’ intent may not be anti-Semitic, but she is almost certainly going to “apply double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” Here we quote our own U.S. State Department on what it considers to be a paradigmatic example of anti-Semitism.
During last summer’s Gaza War, Israel’s Defense Forces struggled mightily to minimize—not maximize—Palestinian civilian casualties despite Hamas’ use of Palestinian civilians as “human shields.” That war was made by Hamas when Israel was forced to act to end thousands of rocket attacks and terror tunnel incursions into southern Israel. Another trigger was the ruthless kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers by a Hamas cell.
As the slogan proclaims, “Black lives matter.” So, too, Arab and Jewish lives.
But there are no calls for a level playing field when it comes to the blame game for the current Palestinian-Israel impasse. Israelis are cast as the heartless occupiers.
Yet the facts reveal a more complicated reality. Tzipi Livni—certainly no “right winger” and an opponent of Prime Minister Netanyahu in the upcoming Israeli elections—has recently recounted how not too long ago Netanyahu agreed to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians on the basis of terms proposed by President Obama and Secretary Kerry. President Abbas’ response? He said “No” preferring yet another counterproductive attack on Israel at the UN. This is the fourth time in under 15 years that the Israelis have said “Yes”—and the Palestinians “No”—to peace. And as we write these words, an instructional video on “How to Stab a Jew to Death,” has gone viral in Social Media.
What would Reverend King have thought of an officially-sponsored one-sided address by Angela Davis lambasting Israel—with no alternative voice invited to share the podium?
Reverend King—perhaps anticipating the smoke screen of “Some of my best friends are Jews—it’s the Zionists I hate”—responded thusly to a hostile question on an Ivy League campus: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism.”
His words-which cannot be drowned out by extreme ideologues– ring as true today as they did then.
*Historian Harold Brackman, a consultant with the Simon Wiesenthal Center, is the coauthor with Ephraim Isaac, an Ethiopian Jew, of: From Abraham to Obama: A History of Jews, Africans, and African Americans (Africa World Press, forthcoming). Aron Hier is the Director of Campus Outreach at the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
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