Page
15, AMERICAN
FREE PRESS * January
24, 2011
* Issue 4 AMERICAN FREE PRESS
BEHIND THE SCENES
The
Facts About
Martin Luther King
and Zionism
By Michael Collins
Piper
 |
. Many
sources frequently publicize with much hullaballoo
a purported “Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend”
by Dr. Martin Luther King regarding the matter
of “anti- Zionism” and “anti-Semitism.”
But the truth is the letter is a hoax exploited
by leading pro-Zionist figures largely for the
purpose of keeping blacks in America supportive
of Jewish interests.
 The
alleged letter read in part:
“…You
declare, my friend, that you do not hate the Jews,
you are merely ‘anti-Zionist.’ . .
. When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews.
. . .”
Now
here are the cold, hard facts. On Jan. 22, 2002,
the rabidly pro-Israel Committee for Accuracy
in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) published
a special alert to its readers on its Internet
site at camera.org, declaring “Letter by
Martin Luther King a Hoax” and stating flatly
the letter was “a hoax.”
Although
this letter by King is purported to have appeared
in an August 1967 edition of The Saturday
Review, the truth is that no letters from
King appear in any of the four editions of the
Review published in August of 1967.And
while others claimed the statement appeared in
a book entitled This I Believe: Selections
from theWritings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
there is no evidence that such a book was ever
published. It is not listed in a bibliography
of books and materials by and about King that
is available from the Martin Luther King Center
for Social Change in Atlanta, Ga.
Despite
this, some of the following powerful polemicists
who have exploited this forgery to enforce pro-Israel
political correctness within the black community:
•
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quoted the “letter”
before the Israeli parliament on January 26, 2005;
•
Michael Salberg of the Anti-Defamation League
of Bnai Brith (ADL) cited this non-existent letter
in his July 31, 2001 testimony before the U.S.
House of International Relations Subcommittee
on International Operations and Human Rights;
•
Mortimer Zuckerman, billionaire publisher of U.S.
News & World Report (then-president of
the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations) quoted the letter in a column
on Sept. 17, 2001;
•
Ex-Soviet dissident-turned-hardline Israeli extremist
Natan Sharansky cited the letter in a November
2003 article in Commentary, the neo-conservative
journal of the American Jewish Committee;
•
Rabbi Marc Shneier cited the letter in a book
Shared Dreams, which happened to include
a preface from King’s son;
•And
last, but far from least, Abraham Foxman —
the ADL’s much-quoted national director
— has cited King’s supposed rhetoric
in his 2003 book, Never Again? The Threat
of the New Anti-Semitism, as well as in his
own speeches and commentaries including one published
in The Washington Post on Aug. 7, 2001.
Needless
to say, many other people have also cited King’s
statement, relying on what they have seen from
such sources above.
Although
CAMERA rushed to assure its readers that the purported
King letter was a hoax, CAMERA still asserted
that other sources did say that they had heard
King express such sentiments and that King did
consider anti-Zionism to be anti-Semitism.
But
there’s more to the story.
CAMERA
cited pro-Israel publicist Seymour Martin Lipset
who claimed that King had made such remarks at
a private dinner in Cambridge, Mass. in 1968 which
Lipset cited in a 1969 article in Encounter
magazine. And Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) has claimed
that King made the remarks in a 1968 speech at
Harvard.
However,
here’s the problem. This excerpt from the
alleged speech at Cambridge or Harvard sounds
remarkably like the previously cited rhetoric
from the phony letter.
But
more importantly, note this: there are no records
in Stanford University’s archives of King’s
work indicating that King gave any formal speeches
in Cambridge or nearby Boston during that time
frame.
Even
further, The Harvard Crimson reported
on April 8, 1968 (after King’s death) that
King had not been to Cambridge since April 23,
1967, well before the 1968 speech cited many years
after the act by the congressman, who happens
to be one of the few black members of the House
who is a firm ally of the Jewish Lobby.
So
there is serious doubt about even these supposedly
pro-Zionist words from King, wherever or whenever
they were made by him.
The
website counterpunch.org has published an authoritative
report entitled “The Use and Abuse of Martin
Luther King Jr. by Israel’s Apologists.”
The authors, Fadi Kiblawi and Will Youmans, have
summarized the ugly history of the exploitation
of Dr. King’s legacy by pro-Israel propagandists.
To
this day still, Dr. King’s famous (but non-existent)
letter to an anti-Zionist friend still remains
in widespread circulation on the Internet —
even long after the pro-Israel CAMERA reported
it was a hoax.
* * * * * * *
. . ..Michael Collins Piper
can now be heard on the Internet at
michaelcollinspiper.podbean.com.
He is the author of Final
Judgment, the controversial
“underground bestseller”
documenting the collaboration of Israeli
intelligence in the assassination
of John F. Kennedy. He is also the
author of The
High Priests of War,
The
New Jerusalem: Zionist Power in America
, The
Judas Goats: The Enemy Within,
Dirty
Secrets: Crime, Conspiracy & Cover-Up
in the 20th Century,
The
GOLEM: Israel's Hell Bomb,
and Target:
Traficant. These
works can be found at America
First Books and FIRST
AMENDMENT
BOOKS: 1-888-699-NEWS.
He has lectured on suppressed
topics in places as diverse as Malaysia,
Japan, Canada, Russia and Abu Dhabi. |
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(Issue #4, January 24, 2011,
AMERICAN
FREE PRESS)
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