• • • • THE ·BLACK PANTHERS, JEWS AND ISRAEL. ..• .. '.: .' ;' :.« •... :;;'..'t ):\' • • • by • • • • • • • • Rabbi Albert Rabbi Robert s. Axelrad E. Goldburg • • • • • • • Huey Morris U. Newton Schappes • ,.• Dr. George Wald A Jewish Currents Reprint • • Forty Cents • L Black Panthers, Jews and Israel 1. ALETTER TO HUEY NEWTON By GEORGE W.4LD EAR Huey Newton; The Jews in Israel are no conquer­ D There's so much that I want to say ors. They're refugees; the remnant of to you about black men and Jews that the biggest massacre in history. About it's hard to know where to begin. But 4.00,000 of them are refugees from I'll try. the Arab countries. Since 1948, more There's no experience in the world than half the immigrants came from as much like being black as being a underdeveloped Asian and African Jew: a black man without money, and countries. As of 1968, one quarter of a Jew without money. those persons had had no schooling It's no accident that the self-image at all, and only 28 pe~ tent had got of the blacks in America has been that past 8th grade. About 40 per cent of the Jews in bondage in Egypt. are unskilled workers. "Tell old Pharaoh to let my people There are 2.5 million Jews in Israel. go." "My home is over Jordan." And They're refugees, with no other place all the rest of it. to go. For as long as Israel has existed -22 years-those Jews have been PnoF. GEORGE WALD of the Harvard continuously threatened with a mas­ Biological Laboratories was awarded sacre. Not political domination or a the Nobel Prize in.~· 1967. Since then military defeat-a massacre. (About he has also become widely kTUJwn as a year ago Al Fatah changed its line a great moral voice in the peace move­ from that to democratic co-existence ment to end the war in Vietnam and in an open secular state. There seems as an advocate and interpreter of little unanimity on that score even in campus youth and faculty movements. Al Fatah; yet even if such statements /luey Newton, whose conviction of are to be taken seriously, there are "voluntary manslaughter" lVas reversed plenty of other Arabs still promising by the California Court of Appeals that massacre. Not much to stake one's May 29, 1970, was not released on life on, and that of one's children. bail, pending retrial, until Aug. 5. Meanwhile, The Black Panther April What those people want is one 25 had published a blatantly anti­ small place in the world where Jews Semitic article by Connie Matthews, can manage their own lives. After International Coordinator of the Black 2,000 years of being kicked around, Panther Party. It was in this context the universal scapegoat, burned out, that Dr. Wald sent his letter to Huey murdered, exterminated. Surely you Newton Aug. 24. can understand that. February, 1971 13 As they-as I-try to understand .anywhere else would want no part Party is not anti-Semitic. We've been a place where people can live. We're charged with being anti-Semitic. As a I you. in it. chiefly interested in the survival of \' Arabs without money are another I haven't said anything yet about matter of fact, some statements could our people, but not at the expense of oppressed people. Those are two libera­ American Jews. They come all ways he cited where some member of the other people. Black people in America tion movements. The tragedy is to -just like black people. Some of Party has made some statements in have been persecuted; therefore it's pit them ' against each other, when them hate themselves-j ust like black anger in order to hurt some of our easy for us to identify with other each should be fighting its own class people. Some of them are always try­ White radical friends because we be­ people who are suffering. We have a struggle. ing to cross over-just like some black lieved that they did not live up to long history of being enslaved and I find much to criticize in Israel, as people. the frien(lship agreement. But these murdered. We have wrestled with the I do here. That's the way it is with a But not the best of them. You must were internal fights. They should have question of nationalism and we have lot of Israelis too. Israel was trying know that. The best of them are trying been kept internal, but they were ex· concluded that we have a moral right to be a Socialist country, and getting all the time to help black people to posed and used by the reactionaries, to embrace nationalism. We have a closer to that than any other place realize themselves, Arabs to realize and this was partially our fault be­ moral right to choose separatism, to I've ever been. Now all the things themselves, and Jews to realize them­ cause we indulged in that. move into a separate state just as that most Israelis oppose are being selves, each in his own way. To make But as far as our official position, the Jewish people have that moral forced upon them by the constant a place for all those things. It won't right. I" we are not anti-Semitic. As far as the threat of that massacr~. be easy, but nothing else will do. Israeli people are concerned, we are But we realize that United States That massacre could come at any So now I've said a little of it. not against the Jewish people. We are imperialism will not allow us to sep­ time. The line-up is terrifying. And Everything I know about you is against that government that will per­ arate and live side-by-side with United Nixon's America altogether problem­ good. So I hope we can be friends, secute the Palestinian poeple. We have States imperialism. It's obvious that whether or not we meet. Everything atical. Israel is accused sometimes of to admit that there's something wrong we could not become self-determined being an outpost of American im­ I know about the Panthers makes me in the Middle East. The Palestinian because the United States will not let perialism. Crazy. If it's a matter of want to help. W11atever happens, I'll people are living in hovels, they countries exist 15,000 m.iles away in American imperialism, that brings us do that. It's that Jewish obsession with don't have a land, they've been strip­ freedom. Thev will not let these coun­ squarely on the Arab side. That's what Justice. ped and murdered; and we cannot tries exist in freedom 15,000 miles David Rockefeller tells Nixon all the We need a place to live. You need support this for any reason. We also away, so they certainly will not let time. That's where the oil is; that's a place to live. Wherever it is, there's realize some of the shortcomings of us exist in a separate state in North where the market is. Israel's a com­ always somebody else already there. the United Arab Republic. And our America in freedom. So the question petitor, and a drain. Not good They need to live too. Ies tough, but views on this is that we think that can be put into the future. business. one has to find a way. Sincerely, the people led by the Palestinian peo­ The first task is to transform society If that massacre comes, I should GEORGE WALD ple should be led into a struggle, a so the people can live in freedom. think black persons in America or Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 24, 1970 revolutionary struggle in order to Our central task is to overthrow the transform the Middle East into truly ruling circle, who will not permit a peoples' republic. self -determination to exist in the And at the same time we support world. After we achieve this goal the 2. FROM A-PRESS CONFERENCE a small group of people who are in question of nationalism can be han­ dled. Black nationalists could then By HVEY NEWTON Israel who are revolutionary and who are working to see that the Zionist go to the U.N. and ask for a plebiscite Huey Newton held a press conference Au,g. 26, 1Y70 in the offices of government of Israel is transformed in order to ask the people what way KPFA, the Pa'cifica radio station in Berkeley, Calif. The taped con­ into a secular peoples' state instead they want to go. ference was rebroadcast Aug. 27 by Pacifica station WBAI in New of a religious state. We say that the York. Sept. 11 we wrote to Mr. Newton Jor permission to publish an way the country is operating at this A.fter transformation into (l social­ excerpt from this taped press conference in any edited version he time is the height of chauvinism and ist society there may be no need for approved. It was then suggested to us that we reprint from the text ethnocentrism. I say this because any separation. This transformation can published in The Black Panther, Sept. 5, 1970, pages 16-17. This, state that requires its members to only take place by wiping out Uniterl therefore, is the text now llsed here.-Ed. adhere to a certain religion is a reac­ States imperialism and establishing a tionary state. new earth, a new society, and a new • SO WE would like to reiterate tinian people.