Israel’s Chutzpah: Using a Black Icon to Sell Apartheid

Hucksters for Israel attempt to make up for in chutzpah what they lack in facts.

On opening night of the eighth annual Israeli Apartheid Week at NYU — at an event featuring Omar Barghouti and Noura Erakat, leading Palestinian figures in the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign — apologists for Israel’s crimes showcased one of their more curious myths. Defenders of Israel repeatedly argued in the Q & A section that America’s foremost Black icon, Martin Luther King Jr., was an arch defender of the Jewish state.

Let’s explore the evidence.

Pro-Israel Web sites, politicians and campus activists often reference the source of their claim about MLK’s defense of Israel by citing King’s “Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend,” supposedly published in an August 1967 edition of  the Saturday Review. Here’s the quote they cite:

“… You declare, my friend; that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely ‘anti-Zionist’ … And 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… Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agreement. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so.”

This quote even made its way into an excellent exposé of Israel’s deadly decades-long relationship with apartheid South Africa, Sasha Polakow-Suransky’s  The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. In fact, I repeated part of the quote in my own review of the book, much to my regret. Later I discovered that the MLK letter was a hoax.

Antiracist activist Tim Wise published an article on Znet in 2003, “Fraud Fit for a King,”  in which he documents the fact that no such letter appears in any of the 1967 issues of the Saturday Review.

The alternative source provided by Zionists for this apparently nonexistent letter is a nonexistent book by King, This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. According to the authors of Electronic Intifada’s 2004 piece that further details this bamboozle, “Israel’s Apologists and the Martin Luther King Hoax”: “No such book was listed in the bibliography provided by the King Center in Atlanta, nor in the catalogs of several large public and university libraries.”

Electronic Intifada goes on to discredit another “patchwork of plagiarism” attributed to King, this one by Dr. Andrew Bostom, a Brown University medical professor who wrote an article for Front Page Magazine in 2003 citing yet another fictitious quotation from King.

In fact the only credible statements made by King regarding Israel are recounted as hearsay in the San Francisco Chronicle by former civil rights activist, Congressman John Lewis. Lewis, who was friends with King, writes  in his 2002 op-ed that a few days before MLK’s assassination in 1968 King defended Israel at an appearance at Harvard, saying, “I solemnly pledge to do my utmost to uphold the fair name of the Jews — because bigotry in any form is an affront to us all.”

Here again, stubborn facts get in the way. As the Harvard Crimson reported in April 1968,  “The Rev. Martin Luther King was last in Cambridge almost exactly a year ago — April 23, 1967.”

Setting aside the pesky historical record of fabricated quotes from imaginary speeches and phantom texts, what if MLK really did support Israel back in 1968?

What if at a dinner in Cambridge, as has been suggested, King did defend Israel  decades before the first and second intifadas, before the 1982 massacre at Sabra and Shatilla, before the construction of hundreds of miles of apartheid walls with militarized checkpoints, before Israel’s soldiers who killed 1,400 Palestinians in Operation Cast Lead were even born, before the murder of 9 unarmed civilians on the humanitarian aid flotilla and before contemporary, irrefutable documentation by human rights organizations of Israel’s racist apartheid practices?

If King did say or write anything to the effect that Lewis recounts, then King — who never claimed to be a Middle East scholar — was ill-informed. What’s more, he not only lived in an era before widespread exposure in the U.S. of Israel’s crimes, but he was organizing in the context of domestic disputes about multiracial, Black and Jewish organizing in the civil rights movement. Might he have had a totally separate question in mind when commenting on Jews and a Jewish state?

Notably, statements attributed to King about the Arab world go unremarked upon by Zionists. For example, this snippet also cited by Congressman Lewis:  “At the same time the great powers have the obligation to recognize that the Arab world is in a state of imposed poverty and backwardness that must threaten peace and harmony.”

Surely the man who called the U.S. “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world” might be referring here to the American Empire, if not its Israeli vassal, as one of the entities imposing “poverty and backwardness” on the Arab world.

And finally, is it conceivable to any but the most blinkered defenders of Israel that MLK, who gave his life fighting inequality, would stand by a nation that has turned 69 percent of its indigenous population into refugees? No one but a craven ideologue for the indefensible would insist that King could cheer on Israel’s system of separation, discrimination and domination.

It appears that defending ethnic cleansing and Israel’s genocidal policies in the wake of Occupy and democratic Arab upheavals is not the cakewalk it once was. The question of justice for the world’s 11.2 million Palestinian people, according to latest census figures, is no longer the third rail of American politics among a growing swath of the population, including greater numbers of Jews. That some apologists have turned to fabricated quotes and pure slander of an icon to justify the unjustifiable is yet another sign that leading Zionists are desperate liars.

After all, they see the writing on the wall. Though Israel openly frets about the growing Palestinian population as a “demographic threat,” the rising numbers of Arab-Americans, Jews and others who are adhering to the spirit of King’s call for civil rights by joining together in the BDS movement are the real demographic threat to apartheid Israel.

I’ll be speaking on Pinkwashing: Israel’s Queer Propaganda War, Friday, March 2, Temple University, Philadelphia, 3PM, Anderson Hall. FREE.

Video: A Strategy to Defund Israeli Apartheid

Here’s a video clip of my talk on Divestment: A Strategy to End Israeli Apartheid from opening night of Israeli Apartheid Week at NYU, Monday, Feb. 28, 2011.

Porn Money vs. Free Speech

Author and activist Sherry Wolf says Michael Lucas’s efforts to shut down an Israeli Apartheid Week event at New York’s LGBT Center threatens to make it a homogenized venue where wealthy voices squelch the rest.

By Sherry Wolf

COMMENTARY: Why would a gay-porn star and mogul, Michael Lucas, want to squelch the right to free speech at a sanctuary for the oppressed and marginalized, New York City’s LGBT Center?

Lucas’s wealth and fame as an entrepreneur in the gay adult entertainment industry would be inconceivable without the right to free speech, including for those with controversial opinions. Yet on February 22 he used his money and connections to slander groups of social justice activists in order to pressure the center to cancel an Israeli Apartheid Week event and ban a small group of pro-Palestine activists, the Siegebusters Working Group, from ever meeting there again.

This is an outrageous abuse of power and influence that should be opposed by everyone who believes our community centers must remain liberated spaces of democracy and debate. Keep in mind, the LGBT Center has hosted a range of non-LGBT-related groups in its 28-year history — from Overeaters Anonymous to antiwar organizations — so the stated excuse about the political content straying from the “mission of the center” is just a ruse.

Besides, what could be more within the mission of a haven for diversity than groups of Arabs, Jews, blacks, and whites of every sexual orientation gathering to challenge a humanitarian crisis?

Which brings us to the crux of the matter — Lucas’s odious charge that people who argue that Israel is an apartheid state are “anti-Semitic.” Lucas is welcome to his own opinion, but not his own version of the facts.

Please, don’t take my word for it — here is the former Israeli attorney general, Michael Ben-Yair, describing Israel’s history and laws in 2002:

“We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial society, ignoring international treaties, expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and finding justification for all these activities. Passionately desiring to keep the occupied territories, we developed two judicial systems: one — progressive, liberal — in Israel; and the other — cruel, injurious — in the occupied territories. In effect, we established an apartheid regime in the occupied territories immediately following their capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.”

In 2005, Israel’s former education minister Shulamit Aloni argued that Israel is “no different from racist South Africa.” Jewish South African leaders in a famous “Not in Our Names Declaration of Conscience” state, “It becomes difficult, particularly from a South African perspective, not to draw parallels with the oppression experienced by Palestinians under the hand of Israel and the experienced in South Africa under apartheid rule.”

An international campaign for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel has global support, including diverse voices from queer theory icon Judith Butler and South African archbishop Desmond Tutu to Auschwitz survivor and International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network spokesman Hajo Mayer.

Are they all anti-Semites too? This charge, more so than almost any other — including the charge of homophobia — has destroyed careers, eviscerated university departments, and now, tragically, has our LGBT Center turning its back on Palestinians and kicking good activists to the curb. It is a form of “intellectual terrorism,” as BDS leader Omar Barghouti puts it.

Barghouti, by the way, is being prevented by the Israeli government from getting a visa to the United States to tour for his new book, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.

Lucas and other shills for Israel’s crimes keep touting that country as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” and they promote Israel’s LGBT-friendly policies as if those laws can “pinkwash” away the racism and inequality. Palestinian queers who just toured the United States are unequivocal on this question. “There is no magic pink door in the Apartheid Wall,” Sami Shamali explained. Israel doesn’t treat LGBT Palestinians any better than it does their straight counterparts.

As a longtime anti-Zionist Jew and member of Siegebusters as well as the author of Sexuality and Socialism, I am accustomed to occasional rants from right-wingers. I honestly couldn’t give a crap that some Michael Lucas has mobilized his “troops” to fill my in-box with nasty inanities. My line on being called a “self-hating Jew” is the same as journalist Max Blumenthal’s: “I may occasionally hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish.”

The real crime here is that money and power now threaten to transform an institution where ACT UP was born into yet another occupied, homogenized venue where wealthy and powerful voices can squelch all the rest. Don’t let it happen.

Click here to sign the petition to “Save New York’s LGBT Center: Don’t Let Bigots Shut Down Free Speech.”

This article originally appeared in The Advocate.

We’ve Been Attacked by a Rich, Racist Porn Star

I honestly couldn’t give a crap that some privileged, right-wing, porn star shill for Israel’s crimes, Michael Lucas, has mobilized his “troops” to fill my inbox with racist inanities. My line on being called a “self-hating Jew” is the same as Max Blumenthal’s: “I may occasionally hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish.”

The real crime here is that voices of resistance, especially Arab and Muslim resistance, are being silenced in a sanctuary for the oppressed and marginalized, New York’s LGBT Center. Please read the interview with me, below, by Village Voice writer, Steven Thrasher, and click the link to the petition at the bottom to sign and circulate widely.

Also, I will be speaking at the opening night of Israeli Apartheid Week, Monday, Feb. 28, 7:30PM,  at NYU’s Kimmel Center with Stephen Shalom, Ava Houshmand, and Jeff Goodwin on Divestment: A Strategy to End the U.S.-Backed Israeli Occupation.

Here’s the piece from the Voice on The Ruckus over Israeli Apartheid Week, the Gay Center and a Porn Star

Sherry Wolf is a member of the Siege Busters Working Group, which was planning a “Party to End Apartheid!” for Israeli Apartheid Week at the LGBT Center, where they’d met regularly since last summer.

Then, pornographer and ardent pro-Israel Jew Michael Lucas complained on Tuesday about the event, it was canceled, and Siege Busters was evicted from the Center.

Wolf, a long-time and well-known activist for both gay rights and socialism, talks to Runnin’ Scared about her 23 years of being active at the Center, now being labeled an anti-Semitic Jew, and having her group kicked out without so much as a phone call.

Part of what enrages Wolf is that the Center didn’t even bother to contact the group. (The Center said in a statement, “When one group’s meetings or activities interfere with the Center’s focus on our core mission, we reserve the right to ask this group to move.” The Center didn’t mention that it had played host to an Israeli Apartheid Week event in 2008.)

Runnin’ Scared: Did it hurt to have a pornographer call Siege Busters a hate group?

Sherry Wolf: Yes, especially since the charges were so stinging! More than half of [Siege Busters] is Jewish, and the others are mostly Arabs, and they call us anti-Semitic? Isn’t the center a place where different people are supposed to meet and discuss? Shouldn’t Jews and Arabs, gay and lesbian and transgender, working together towards peace be something that is celebrated? We cannot allow a wealthy porn entrepreneur to dictate what kind of speech is allowed, at a center whose very mission is to represent the oppressed and the marginalized!

RS: When did Siege Busters start meeting at the Center?

Wolf: In late August of last year. We’ve been meeting sometimes weekly, sometimes every other week.

RS: Why did you meet at the LGBT Center? Were there many gay or lesbian members, or did one person know of it just as a place to meet?

Wolf: Many of us are gay and lesbian, but it’s never been a condition, since my ACT-UP days, that you had to be gay or meet about a sexuality issue to meet at the Center.

RS: When did you first start going to the Center?

Wolf: In 1988, when I moved back to the city and got involved with ACT-UP.

RS: Are you are of aware, for lack of a better term, of other “non-gay” groups meeting at the Center?

Wolf: Oh, yes! We’ve had anti-death penalty meetings, anti-war events, a whole spectrum of political and non-political meetings there. There’s a group that meets there of straight people who are into spanking! It’s always been a place where people with nowhere else to go could be. It’s atrocious that after 28 years, it’s becoming yet another occupied, homogenized space that only powerful and, frankly, white people dominate. That’s not the mission of the Center.

RS: Are you aware of any controversial events you’ve been a part of ever being cancelled before?

Wolf: An event cancelled? Never. The LGBT Center is the quintessential queer space, in which people who resist all forms of oppression have gathered to find support. I’m an author, of Sexuality and Socialism, and I had my book launch there. What if someone had a problem with socialists? Will we cave to that? The community has to embrace that our identity as LGBT people cannot be narrowly defined by a wealthy porn entrepreneur! I am a lesbian, a socialist, and an internationalist. As a citizen of the world, I have a responsibility and a right to organize with my Palestinian brothers and sisters, particularly because I am a Jewish anti-Zionist. I see no reason why the Center should shut itself down on this issue because of one porn entreprenuer with a platform in the Advocate.

RS: How did you find out your event had been cancelled?

Wolf: Informally, at first. I heard about four o’clock on Tuesday. Interestingly enough, I reached out to [Center Executive Director] Glennda Testone immediately. I hope she eventually returns my call. I tried reaching her. I saw an email that there was a press release and a call-in campaign [from Lucas]. Then, an hour, an hour and a half later, I heard that the event was cancelled, and Siege Busters was barred from meeting there.

RS: So they never even spoke to you before making the decision?

Wolf: No. There was no attempt to the contact the organizers, meet with the group, or even speak with us.

RS: It’s not just the fundraising party that was ended?

Wolf: No. We are not supposed to meet there anymore. You know, I can remember a time, and it wasn’t even that long ago, when people who were transgender were smeared upon, even by people in the gay and lesbian community. Should they be banned? . . . The Center has always been a home to controversy and free speech, and it needs to remain that. This is about saving the Center.

RS: Do you hope to meet again at the Center?

Wolf: We have no hostility towards the Center! But we are fighting for it. If radical people can’t meet there, then it just becomes another occupied space for wealthy bigots. This should not be a place where people defend the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. It’s an attempt to whitewash and pinkwash over the crimes people do not agree with. The Center should stand with the oppression of LGBT people all over the world. If this were Uganda, there would be no problem. But because we’re talking about our Palestinian gay and lesbian brothers and sisters, it’s an issue.

[sthrasher@villagevoice.com]

Please sign the petition to Save NY’s LGBT Center:

Stop Wealthy Bigots From Shutting Down Free Speech

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/savenyclgbtcenter/