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In Which Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer Get PWN3D by the Totally Bogus, MLK 'Zionist' Letter

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What, me worry?1/21/2013 8:14:14 pm PST

Well, most of that Pam quote is correct. The last two lines, if they are correct, had to be quoted from a different source because they are not part of the quote above it.

The original document is a transcript of a Q&A with the 68th Rabbinical Assembly in 1968. Here is a PDF link.

I actually have the original pages scanned on my hard drive. Yes, it’s authenticate.

Dr. King met with Jewish rabbinical leaders 10 days prior to his murder. His friend and fellow Selma marcher, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel was there, along with others.

It’s wonderful to read the whole thing actually. The part Pam quotes comes from questions about the relationship between the Jewish and Black communities. Close friends on one hand, but tinted with racism on the other.

Dr. King talks about some uncomfortable things. One of which is how Jewish landlords (slumlords) were overcharging Black tenants. Although Dr. King is very clear that he is a friend to the Jewish community, he acknowledges this problem exist. He also often speaks in terms of the views of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, not just him personally.

Anyway, you can read it. This bit starts at the bottom of page 9.

What’s purposefully omitted are his comments about the Arabs and he’s very much correct there, too. He links the Arab struggle to poverty, hunger, illiteracy and I’d throw in lack of education or misguided education - propaganda.

The word “Zionism” or “Zionist” does not appear in any of these 19 pages.

On the Middle East crisis, we have had various responses. The response of some of the so-called young militants again does not represent the position of the vast majority of Negroes. There are some who are color-consumed and they see a kind of mystique in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and certainly most of the organizations in the civil rights movement do not follow that course. I think it is necessary to say that what is basic and what is needed in the Middle East is peace. Peace for Israel is one thing. Peace for the Arab side of that world is another thing. Peace for Israel means security, and we must stand with all of our might to protect its right to exist, its territorial integrity. 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 almost can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy. Peace for Israel means security and that security must be a reality.

On the other hand, we must see what peace for the Arabs means in a real sense of security on another level. Peace for the Arabs means the kind of economic security that they so desperately need. These nations, as you know, are part of that third world of hunger, of disease, of illiteracy. I think that as long as these conditions exist there will be tensions, there will be the endless quest to find scapegoats. So there is a need for a Marshall Plan for the Middle East, where we lift those who are at the bottom of the economic ladder and bring them into the mainstream of economic security.

This is how we have tried to answer the question and deal with the problem in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and I think that represents the thinking of all of those in the Negro community, by and large, who have been thinking about this issue in the Middle East.