Blacks and Jews: The end of an alliance

by Harold Green -Guest Columnist-

(FinalCall.com) — The recent defeat of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney of the 4th District of Georgia by Judge Denise Majette has caused vast soul searching among Black Americans. We may quibble over the causes of McKinney’s defeat. Yes, there was a low Black voter turnout. Yes, White Republicans crossed over and voted against McKinney in the Democratic primary. Yes, certain prominent Black Americans withdrew their support for McKinney at a critical stage before the election.

While all of the above were contributing factors to McKinney’s defeat, the most significant cause was an outside force that mobilized strong support for her opposition. When asked to identify this force, Georgia state legislator and father of McKinney, Billy McKinney, stated to the media: “J-E-W-S.”

Indeed, it was the Jewish lobby that not only orchestrated, headed, mobilized and funded Congresswoman McKinney’s defeat, these same organized Jews-particularly the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-also defeated Alabama’s five-term Black incumbent, Representative Earl Hilliard, earlier this year.

In McKinney’s case, the Jewish lobby raised $1.1 million for Denise Majette—$500,000 more than McKinney had in her war chest. By stirring up anti-McKinney sentiment in the local and national media and on the Internet-depicting her as racist, pro-Arab and militant—the Jewish lobby frightened many White Republicans into voting in a Democratic primary that they would ordinarily have ignored. Further, by exercising their age-old pressure tactics against Black leaders—threatening economic and political reprisals—the Jewish lobby forced them to withdraw their decades-old support for McKinney. How else do we explain why NAACP chairman Julian Bond, Democrat John Lewis of Georgia’s neighboring 5th District, former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson and Andrew Young, the former Atlanta Mayor and U.S. Ambassador to the UN, all maintained a conspicuous distance from McKinney during the critical period preceding the election?

Following the election, several prominent Jews applauded McKinney’s defeat. They claimed that she was too radical, too critical of Israel and too supportive of Arab causes.

While I share the outrage of many Black Americans over this, the latest successful move by prominent Jews to silence outspoken Black leaders and to set the Black agenda, I also sense that there is greater indignation now than ever before over this ongoing affront. So much so that for many Blacks, THIS IS INDEED THE LAST STRAW!!! Consequently, it is high time-no, long past time-that Black Americans everywhere re-evaluate the so-called Black/Jewish alliance.

Some of our leaders, writers and thinkers have already rushed forward to pursue the normal Black course of action during times of crises between Blacks and Jews. For example, the Rev. Jesse Jackson is talking about healing the current rift so as not to endanger this important liberal, democratic alliance. Furthermore, Professor Ron Walters has written a widely syndicated column that, in effect, minimizes the overarching impact of the Jewish lobby in McKinney’s and Hilliard’s defeats. Walters focuses on collateral issues that, without the influence of the Jewish lobby, would have been as inconsequential in this election as they have been in the past.

This tendency of prominent Blacks to placate Jews by ignoring their excesses or deflecting criticism from them is precisely why so many Jewish leaders and organizations have consistently criticized, defamed, degraded and defeated certain Black leaders with impunity-AND WILL DO SO AGAIN.

Jewish leaders have clearly decided that, no matter how widespread the outrage among Black people, if Black leaders-fearing Jewish reprisals-continue to cower before them, to rationalize their racism and to apologize for their flagrant disrespect for Blacks, Jews will suffer no consequences for their actions.

History teaches us that Jews are not the allies that so many Blacks think they have been. It is now widely known that Jews were as much involved in the African slave trade as Arabs and Christians. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement, Jews as a whole in the North and South were no more outspoken against racism, segregation and discrimination than White Christians. Even during the Civil Rights Movement (which benefited Jews far more than Black Americans), Dr. King’s “Letter From A Birmingham Jail” was directed as much toward Jewish rabbis as toward White ministers, because Jews were generally no more sympathetic to the Black cause than were White Christians in Alabama.

Over the past 30 years, Jewish racism against Black people has grown exponentially. Whenever a Black leader has spoken out against Israel, criticized Jews or otherwise failed to comply with certain Jewish demands or opinions, organized Jewry has mounted a relentless campaign to destroy him.

For decades, Israel was South Africa’s staunchest ally, while American Jews tacitly endorsed this alliance. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that Black people everywhere have consistently sympathized with Jewish calls for recompense for their suffering during the Holocaust, many Jewish leaders and organizations have fervently opposed affirmative action for Blacks and, incredibly, now prominent Jews, like David Horowitz, of the Center For The Study of Popular Culture, and journalist Richard Poe, are at the forefront of the attack against the Black American Movement in support of reparations.

Now, at the turn of the century, powerful Jews have also targeted Black Congressmen, in spite of the fact that nearly all of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus have consistently followed their White colleagues in voting in favor of U.S. military and economic support for Israel.

Although the Jewish lobby has succeeded in defeating McKinney and Hilliard, some Jewish leaders are not jubilant over these developments and are eager to meet with prominent Blacks to mend fences. These Jews realize that, at this juncture in their history-more than at any other time-Jews need Blacks more than Blacks need them. After all, some Jews understand that Black people are the traditional American scapegoats who have shielded Jews from bigotry. In light of this, Black Americans must now ask, what have we received from Jews in return? The answer is clear: Control of Black organizations, stereotypes in Hollywood, attacks against outspoken Black scholars, like Dr. Leonard Jeffries and Dr. Tony Martin, etc. Through it all, however, Black people have remained loyal and sympathetic to Jews.

But the rest of the world is another story.

In their quarterly journal “Response,” the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center reports rising anti-Semitism in Eastern and Western Europe, the entire Middle East, Asia and Latin America. Furthermore, in the United States, growing numbers of White Christians are, on the Internet and elsewhere, questioning America’s blind loyalty to Israel that has insolated the U.S. and increased the threat of terrorism. And, like Black Americans, many Whites are deeply disturbed over the Jewish influence in Congress that has also resulted in the silencing and defeat of certain prominent White Congressmen.

In light of the crisis before us, Black leaders must close ranks and act on one accord. The defeat of McKinney and Hilliard is not the work of a disaffected ally, but of cold-blooded racists who are willing to block Black progress-no matter what the cost to Black Americans in a loss of power and influence-if it conflicts with the overall Jewish agenda.

It is high time, at this historical juncture, for Black Americans-the long-suffering, ever-obliging buffer between Whites and Jews-to step aside and let Jews fend for themselves so that White people will, at long last, stop focusing on Black people and get a good look at American Jews, whose McCarthyistic tactics and stranglehold on Congress threaten to make this country the United States of Israel.

(Harold Green is research director for CEMOTAP-WEST, a Los Angeles-based media watchdog organization.)