Letters on the Arab-Israeli Dispute in James Forman's "The Making of Black Revolutionaries"

James Forman & Charles Lerrigo, July 6, 1969 at a United Methodist Church in New York
Originally uploaded by panafnewswire.

PANW Editor's Note: Dr. James Forman, former Executive
Secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) and a leading member of the League of Revolutionary
Black Workers (LRBW) and the Black Workers Congress (BWC),
passed away on Monday, January 11, 2005 in Washington, D.C.
at the age of 76.

SNCC was the first civil rights organization to take a
position in opposition to the state of Israel and in support
of the Palestinian struggle for national liberation in 1967.
Below is an article examining the dynamics surrounding the
decision to take a public stand during and after the so-
called six-day war between Israel and Egypt in June of 1967.

The views expressed in the article are those of the author,
Matthew Quest, and do not reflect the opinions of the Pan-
African News Wire.
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Letters on the Arab-Israeli Dispute in James Forman's The
Making of Black Revolutionaries

Matthew Quest

James Forman was the Executive Secretary and Director of
International Affairs of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC). Later, he would be a leader of the Black
Manifesto movement, a call for Black reparations from major
U.S. religious institutions, and the Black Workers Congress,
an organization which emerged from the Detroit based League
of Revolutionary Black Workers.

SNCC (1960-1971) was a multiracial organization which used
non-violent direct action to register Black folks to vote in
the Jim Crow South. Members often faced brutal attacks by
fascists and a white supremacist state often synonymous with
one other. Early American television images of their
subjection to police dogs and high powered water hoses are
legendary. If Dr. Martin Luther King was the figurehead of
the southern civil rights movement, SNCC was the shock troops.

Associated with Stokely Carmichael, the banner of “Black
Power” emerged from SNCC in 1966 foreshadowing its
transformation into a Black nationalist organization. In its
early years SNCC would be part of a social democratic
coalition. They would be careful to maintain their autonomy
from both public communist sympathies and dependency on the
Democratic Party.Later it would be among the first Black
liberation organizations of its generation to take public
militant anti-imperialist positions enduring the wrath of the
liberal-labor coalition which used to cautiously embrace
them. [1]

A major historical figure in these struggles, James Forman
wrote an eloquent and provocative autobiography The Making of
Black Revolutionaries (1972, 1997)[2] , both documenting and
providing important strategic analysis.This essay examines
two letters contained in that text, James Forman wrote to
Stanley Wise, a fellow member of SNCC, regarding the
prospects for Palestine solidarity during the 1967 Arab-
Israeli War. These letters predate the publication of Ethel
Minor’s “The Palestine Problem” in the SNCC Newsletter (July
1967) by a month. The latter was the basis of the first major
public controversy around Black Power and Palestine
solidarity, and accusations that the group was marred by
racism and anti-Jewish bigotry. Minor’s article was not meant
to be a public position by SNCC but an internal document for
discussion. Exposed to public light without SNCC’s consent in
a preemptive strike, and never repudiated, it in effect
became the SNCC position. Nevertheless, whatever its
shortcomings, its explicit pro-Palestine character created a
whirlwind of disputes and condemnations, many which Forman’s
letters anticipated.

It is beyond the scope of this inquiry to make comprehensive
claims about SNCC’s politics on Palestine as a whole, which
would have to be a product of more extensive research. The
type of tactical questions Forman asks in his letters to Wise
about SNCC’s capacity to develop and defend a Palestine
solidarity position are still of much relevance for
contemporary activists. This essay highlights those
considerations. But first, it’s worth reflecting on the Minor
article more closely.

Ethel Minor was a close associate of Stokely Carmichael in
SNCC, leading a study group on Israel/Palestine in which he
participated. Formerly, she was a colleague of Malcolm X when
he was in the Nation of Islam and later in the Organization
of Afro-American Unity. She was known to be friends with many
Palestinians from college. Carmichael credits Minor with
helping to initiate his “long time disciplined study of
Zionism.”[3] Her article “The Palestine Problem” was
subtitled “Test Your Knowledge” and listed thirty
two “documented facts” aimed at giving a brief history of the
state of Israel from its inauguration to the 1967 Arab-
Israeli War. Minor’s article, meant for discussion, was
attributed to SNCC as a whole by Newsweek.

Among other questions, SNCC asked the readers whether they
knew:

That the US Government has constantly supported Israel and
Zionism by sending military and financial aid to this illegal
state ever since it was forced upon the Arabs in 1948? ‘That
the Zioinist terror gangs (Haganah, Irgun, and Stern gangs)
deliberately slaughtered and mutilated women, children and
men, thereby causing the unarmed Arabs to panic, flee, and
leave their homes in the hands of the Zionist-Israeli
forces? ‘That the famous European Jews, the Rothschilds, who
have long controlled the wealth of many European nations,
were involved in the original conspiracy to create the ‘State
of Israel’ and are still among Israel’s chief supporters?
That the Rothschilds also control much of Africa’s mineral
wealth?’ [4]

This article was accompanied by photographs of members of pre-
1948 Zionist terrorist groups, as well as Arab civilians
killed en masse by Israeli soldiers in 1956. These pictures
were accompanied by a caption which noted: “This is the Gaza
Strip, Palestine, not Dachau, Germany.” Another cartoon image
can be seen of a hand with a six pointed star and a dollar
sign on it, holding a hangman’s rope around the necks of
Gamal Abdul Nasser, late president of Egypt, and Muhammad
Ali, former black heavy weight boxing champion. An arm
labeled “Third World Movements” is poised to cut the rope.
[5]

Ralph Featherstone, publicity director for SNCC at that time,
in response to media condemnation that SNCC was anti-Semitic,
wished to clarify that the organization was not against Jews
as a race, but limited its opposition to Zionism and the
State of Israel. Yet Featherstone also felt the need at this
same time to defend an awkward analogy about Zionism in the
Middle East and its similarity or relation to Jewish
shopkeepers’ exploitation of African American urban
communities.[6]

Now, merely in this brief synopsis of Ethel Minor’s “The
Palestine Problem,” and the images and ideas associated with
it, we see a mixture of radical anti-colonial ideas, sympathy
for populist Third World rulers such as Gamal Abdul Nasser,
and African Americans which identified with them, such as the
boxer Muhammad Ali. We also see an unpolished and unexplained
connection of some of the most brutal founders of the
colonial state of Israel with Hitler’s Nazi Germany. [7]
Continuing on what most would see at best as an irresponsible
slide toward an implied embrace of fascist myths, the Minor
article suggests there are inherent Jewish ethnic
characteristics. These would be equivalent to the exploitive
behavior of capitalists and colonizers, whether by the
Zionist state of Israel, the Rothschilds (who were said to
own much of the wealth of Europe and Africa), or the small
Jewish American shopkeeper. Thus whatever actual anti-
capitalist content is suggested within the article’s anti-
colonialism, it was ill-defined, smeared, injured, and could
be called into question.[8] Were capitalist and imperial
relations being objected to in principle? Or was it their
racial origin and nature? The emphasis on who owned the
wealth in African and African American communities suggests
it was primarily the latter.[9]

My intention in this article is not to call into question
SNCC’s internationalism in regard to Palestine solidarity.
Rather, through examination of James Forman’s letters to
Stanley Wise shortly before the debacle around the article by
Ethel Minor, I wish to illustrate the dangers and
considerations for a group seeking to become a Palestine
solidarity organization in the United States. Whatever the
shortcomings of Minor’s “The Palestine Problem,” formulated
to stimulate internal discussion, as per Forman’s earlier
letters, it would have provoked exactly the kind of
discussion that was needed in SNCC.

The summer of 1967 was distinguished by the Black liberation
struggle in the U.S.being noticed by the entire world. Fierce
rebellions in Newark, Detroit, and fifty-five other cities
marked the decline in emphasis of the southern civil rights
movement. Many SNCC activists were going abroad to many parts
of Africa, Latin America, and Asia to forge international
solidarity as recognized freedom fighters. International
support for Black liberation in America compelled those, who
had not yet considered it, to ask what was the African
American relationship to anti-colonial struggles abroad?
Before leaving for Tanzania and Zambia, James Forman wrote
the first of two letters under discussion as a prelude to
encouraging and preparing SNCC to take a position on the 1967
Arab-Israeli War in the Middle East.

In Forman’s first letter to Stanley Wise (June 7, 1967) he
argues SNCC should patiently formulate their position on
Israel/Palestine because the Arab-Israeli War “will not be a
short war. It already has been a long protracted struggle and
it will continue to be one.” SNCC should consider that there
is a large public opinion favorable to the Israelis. Many
Jewish community organizations who previously have been
sympathetic and in some ways sponsored the civil rights
movement constantly lobbied for U.S. support of Israel.
Forman noted that the liberal-labor leadership circle of the
movement, which was more conservative than SNCC, including
African American leaders A. Phillip Randolph and Dr. Martin
Luther King, was openly supportive of Israel. SNCC would need
to be prepared to be attacked in the media.

At the same time, Forman felt awareness of the Arab-Israeli
conflict would heighten the class struggle in the African
American community. The “gut reaction” among most SNCC
members would be against Israel and on the side of the Arabs
reflecting a growing awareness by African Americans of
the “semi-colonial” nature of racism in their own country.
But Forman told Wise, members and particularly those in
leadership positions, should not take these instincts for
granted. "Study of the historical development and
contemporary economic policies of Israel” was very necessary.
Forman explains:

Actually Israel represents an extension of United States
foreign policy as well as an attempt by Zionists to create a
homeland for Jews…the implications…for us, it seems, is not
to fall party to a reactionary position that even the Syrians
and Egyptians don’t articulate: namely, a hatred for the
people of Israel. Rather, they detest what Israel represents—
an extension of imperialism and a violation of territory of
the Arabs, to put it mildly. [10]

After making this point, and emphasizing SNCC must stop
putting off developing an autonomous financial base in the
Black community, Forman detailed different scenarios he
anticipated could occur as a result of SNCC taking a stand on
Israel. He believed like their stance against the war in
Vietnam, “the reaction would be fantastic against us.”

Manning Marable has noted that SNCC was a non-ideological
vanguard organization which “talked the talk and walked the
walk” in their commitment and risk taking, organizing
everyday people, such as sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer, to be
their own leaders.[11] The organization’s unquestionable
historical integrity obscures the group’s inconsistency of
membership requirements and political education.
Acknowledging this is important, not to challenge SNCC’s
historical legacy, but in fact to appreciate the
inconsistencies in less heralded social movement
organizations today, and the real lack of clarity committed
folks have even as they strive to take up difficult positions
and tasks.

James Forman’s scenario questions included possible reactions
from inside and outside SNCC:

A. Why was it necessary for SNCC to issue a statement? What
does this statement do for the people that we are organizing?
Why did we do this when the issue; was and remains touchy in
this country?

B.SNCC is wrong. Did not the Jews help SNCC in Civil Rights?
Is this not a minority issue and SNCC should support
minorities in this country? How could SNCC dare to be so
inhumane as to not recognize the rights of the people of
Israel?

C. This is not any of our business period.

D. SNCC must be isolated further and it must be destroyed and
never forget that it came out in favor of the Arabs (assuming
we do that). [12]

It’s quite illuminating that Forman’s sober assessment of one
of the most courageous radical civil rights organizations
with a mass following was that it had membership who feared
being destroyed. It was not clear at all what an outlook of
international solidarity with non-African people would do for
community organizing among everyday Black folks. “Touchy”
issues, seen not immediately relevant to Black folks, would
not be seen as SNCC business by at least some members. Others
might choose to equate solidarity with Jews as synonymous
with support for the state of Israel. These contradictions
all seem contemporary, if paradoxical, for organizations
explicitly dedicated to Palestine solidarity.But they also
inform why many ethnic and multiracial, religious and secular
organizations do not identify with this cause today. Many
ask: “What would be the benefit to us?”

Clearly from this letter, James Forman, is trying to get SNCC
to turn the corner and be a consistent anti-imperialist
organization. A political organization which is self-
interested in terms of reform, or gains for one narrowly
defined community, cannot maintain such a position. Forman
was not personally sure that SNCC could decide to take “a Pro
Arab position,” yet “increasing horrified at the prospects
for blacks in this country.” Forman explained:

I am also absolutely convinced that we can go nowhere in the
future in terms of programming if we do not accentuate a
class analysis of the national and international scene. We
cannot, for instance, just explain glibly the events in the
Middle East as a struggle of Blacks against whites when the
actors themselves have a different viewpoint. That is not to
say we should not speak of racism for racism is involved in
the Middle East crisis. But it is a serious error to even
think one can eliminate racism without dealing with the
fundamental cause of exploitation, the unequal distribution
of wealth throughout the world, and the desire for those who
have control of the wealth to keep it. [13]

Forman was coming to the conclusion that SNCC, to evolve
radically further, would have to declare itself a socialist
organization to have meaningful international relations. He
was charged with facilitating this responsibility, and to
have a proper method in evaluating people and struggles. This
would bring future controversy but the responsibility of
radical commitments dictated that SNCC rise to the challenge.

"Dear Brother Stanley" begins the second letter to Wise
written a day later. Forman is now on a diplomatic trip to
visit with an ambassador from the West African nation of
Guinea. Whether they are meeting this ambassador in Tanzania
or Zambia is not clear. What is obvious is the following:
Forman observes Floyd McKissick and Lincoln Lynch, two
leaders of Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), another non-
violent direct action civil rights organization of that era
that would soon make the turn from multi-racialism to Black
nationalism, making excuses to the ambassador as to why they
do not publicly support the Palestinian cause. They believe
it would rip their organization apart both through inflaming
internal divisions on the matter and through public scrutiny.
This is the exact crisis that SNCC soon faces.

Interestingly Forman shows both sympathy and disdain for
CORE’s position. Clearly he thinks they should be more
uncompromising. But citing the ideas of Tanzania’s Julius
Nyerere, Forman imagines CORE’s position as equivalent to a
moderate African nation state such as Zambia, which must
compromise at times to attain independence from colonialism.
It is clear in this allusion, and in Forman’s satisfaction at
establishing contacts with many populist African and Arab
ruling elites based at the U.N. as similar to a “people to
people” foreign policy, that he equates the leaders of
certain Third World nation-states as anti-imperialist forces.
[14] Forman writing to Stanley Wise explains:

Frankly, I have not changed my position on the Middle East
crisis since I last wrote. A public stand ought not to come
before there is a special meeting and education of the staff.
I would hate for someone in Alabama to read about the
position of the Central Committee and [have] no education on
the question. Secondly, I am worried about SNCC’s ability to
withstand the external pressures.I know we would almost be
united internally, but the external pressures would be
fantastic, especially in New York. Thirdly, the situation is
very muddy in the Middle East and I think we should give some
time to see what is going to happen. One has to be concerned
about the wording of any position, for that is a very
delicate question given the nature of the government of some
countries. [15]

Under the pressure of realizing the need for public
accountability for taking any position on Israel/Palestine,
not only with Zionists but rank and file African Americans,
James Forman suggests mass and internal organizational
education is important. He argues any stand SNCC takes must
be worded delicately “given the nature of the government of
some countries” implying the possibilities of American state
repression and the desire to unite with regimes imagined as
progressive abroad.

Palestine solidarity activists can learn much from some of
the experiences of SNCC as detailed briefly by James Forman.
Many Palestine solidarity coalitions come together with less
discipline or commitment than did SNCC, who were prepared in
many respects to define the struggle for democracy, and
opposition to white supremacy, as necessarily breaking unjust
laws and confronting the American state. Nevertheless, there
are few understood commonalities with the experience of this
heralded movement organization and Palestine solidarity
activists.

SNCC’s political philosophy was remarkably undefined like
that of many Palestine solidarity activists today. Activists’
visions became more concrete from unexpected confrontations,
difficult to imagine when beginning such work. Opposition to
empire is not a mere slogan, teach in, or charity event. It
is a political campaign against an opponent that will strike
back. Attacks in the media need not be a crisis. If one
prepares they are opportunities for a clear statement of
principles and demonstration of the capacity for action.

Many Palestine solidarity activists are primarily concerned
with securing their own civil and human rights in their own
countries under the logic of ethnic competition, capitalism
and the state. These can account for some of the shortcomings
of SNCC’s perspective. For those with integrity, it takes the
experience of struggling under this rubric to find out that
freedom cannot be secured in this way. The most insightful
freedom fighters in SNCC came to this conclusion.

Palestine solidarity is often conceived as something which
should not offend outsiders and not cause existing community
and cultural organizations to implode. But if they are not
built for Palestine solidarity how can this not be an
eventuality? Consequently, the Palestine solidarity movement
thus far has been unsustainable under pressures, often
unintentionally provoked, by those who wish to avoid conflict
with Zionists and the American state.

Many Palestine solidarity activists, as did most SNCC
activists, do not see a clear distinction between liberal and
revolutionary ideas, nor opposition to empire as a universal
principle. Consequently, they are caught off guard when
Zionists, especially liberal ones, seize what should be their
platform. That is the task in a campaign of defining to the
public what they believe are the principles of democracy and
anti-racism and who and what institutions constitute their
violators.

Ethel Minor’s discussion piece on the Palestine problem
stressing the ethnic character of certain capitalists, Ralph
Featherstone’s equation of Zionist colonialism with Jewish
small business owners in predominantly Black American
communities, and James Forman’s alliance making with newly
independent governments who were willing, despite populist
speeches to subordinate their own working classes to the
logic of international capital, suggests something crucial.
SNCC was unable to consistently apply their vision of direct
democracy as a principle to guide their global politics.
Having a just reputation for facilitating direct democratic
processes in community meetings, encouraging working class
folks on the local level not to be dependent on aspiring
representatives from above, SNCC still at times fell prey to
the logic of capitalism and state power.

Democracy and anti-racism as principles must be defined in
any Palestine solidarity campaign as the negation of all
existing and aspiring states and ruling classes if it is not
to fall prey to accusations that Israel is the focal point of
special unprincipled venom. It is difficult to accomplish
this task. Anti-imperialist solidarity for most activists,
locally and globally, is an attitude of fellowship
subordinated to defense of our individual, or our ethnic
group’s aspiring representatives’ ability to seize power and
patronage for survival under the terms of oppressive systems.

Israel, Zionist Jews claim more or less fairly, would appear
to be justifiably doing the same thing as other states.
Racial and imperial oppression, capitalist and class
relations, cannot be discovered and objected to merely in one
corner of the globe. SNCC was one step further on the road to
revolution by grappling with what it meant to consolidate a
consistent internationalist position. This is a contemporary
task for us all.

Notes:

[1] The standard work on SNCC is Clayborne Carson’s In
Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995. Two
other valuable general works on SNCC to consider are the
following. From the pre-Black Power era, Howard Zinn’s SNCC:
the New Abolitionists. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965. Discussing
SNCC in the context of a general survey of the Black Power
Movement is Robert L. Allen’s Black Awakening in Capitalist
America. Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1990.

[2] James Forman. The Making of Black Revolutionaries.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995.

[3] Carson, 267. See also Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture).
With E. Michael Thelwell. Ready For Revolution: The Life and
Times of Stokley Carmichael. New York: Scribner, 2003. The
late Carmichael/Ture extensively covers his controversial
views on Palestine on pages 557-563. He avoids naming Ethel
Minor by name whom he terms only as a “courageous activist
sister.” He believed her document to be “entirely accurate.”
Her name is mentioned elsewhere in the book but is clearly
marked in the historical record in James Forman’s The Making
of Black Revolutionaries (1972, 1995).

[4] “SNCC and the Jews.” Newsweek, August 28, 1967. 22. Cited
in; Louis Young. “American Blacks and the Arab-Israeli
Conflict.” Journal of Palestine Studies. 2.1 (1972): 70-85.

[5] Young, 77. Carson, 267-269. The content of the Minor
document is also summarized in Robert Weisbord and Richard
Kazarian Jr.’s Israel in the Black American Perspective.
Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1985. 33-36. And in;
Melani McAlister. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media and U.S.
Interests in the Middle East, 1945-2000. Berkeley,
California: University of California Press, 2001. 84-124.

[6] Carson. The analogy of Jewish shopkeepers in African
American urban communities to Zionists in the Middle East I
believe is problematic because it is consistent with a
critique of these communities as “neo-colonies,” a term Kwame
Nkrumah applied to post-colonial Africa. The theory of neo-
colonialism laments the lack of sovereignty of the native
state and ruling class in relation to outside racist and
corporate elements. This seemingly anti-capitalist and anti-
racist analysis obscures that non-native shopkeepers are
insulting simply because petty capitalist exploitation should
be organized by nationalist business owners—thereby negating
whatever injuries were thought to exist previously. While I
see no need for a revolutionary class struggle or anti-racist
vision to prioritize attacking small businesses, national
liberation at its best is not a project which prioritizes
liberating the middle classes. Further Zionism in the Middle
East is not maintained primarily by a conspiracy of Jewish
capitalists, but by the U.S. state and ruling class of
varying religions and ethnicities.

Featherstone was later killed with William “Che” Payne in
March of 1970 in Bel, Maryland. A bomb exploded in their car
rendering their bodies unrecognizable. They were in Maryland
to do solidarity work for H. Rap Brown (now Imam Jamil
Abudllah Amin, and again a political prisoner) who was framed
up at that time for inciting a riot while giving a speech in
Cambridge, Maryland. It was believed these were
assassinations associated with the FBI’s COINTELPRO program
to disrupt domestic radical organizations. Forman, 542;
Carson, 297

[7] “Zionism=Nazism” is often a slogan used to this day by
some Palestine solidarity activists. Seen as extreme and
irresponsible, a relationship can in fact be documented but
is not often explained clearly by activists who use this
analogy. For a discussion of the politics of Zionist terror
gangs and their fascist and Nazi connections see Lenni
Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of Dictators. Westport,
Connecticut: Lawrence Hill, 1983.

[8] Minor’s article suggests at least some influence from her
experience in the Nation of Islam (NOI). The NOI’s record
opposing imperialism is rather a mixed one. If it can be said
to have been an anti-colonial organization most certainly it
was never anti-capitalist. The NOI throughout its history has
promoted white supremacist manufactured ideas about Jews as
good coin such as The Protocols of the Elders of Zionand
Henry Ford’s The International Jew. This is not to say this
was Minor’s intention in this article but rather to take note
of previous influences on her ideas. The emphasis on the
Rothschild family is a particular eyesore, not because of
their reprehensible capitalist activities (which many
nationalists do not oppose in principle), but rather their
supposed Jewish character. Nevertheless, it must be said The
NOI, especially under Malcolm X’s leadership, was certainly a
radicalizing influence on SNCC toward its evolving Black
nationalist and internationalist orientation.

[9] The question that must be raised is not one focusing
solely on ownership which is part of any anti-colonial
struggle, but also on the social relationships that entails
that ownership. To replicate the social relations in
capitalist property relationships negates the anti-capitalist
content of any movement. Hence the critique of Jewish
ownership of African resources can be questioned for its anti-
capitalist merits because on what basis is it anti-
capitalist? If indigenous ruling classes appropriate
resources and rule with capitalist relations then it cannot
be supported just because of the fact that they are people of
color. The same standards of anti-capitalism and democracy
must be applied to all societies or else the possibility
exists that the abilities of people of color in creating an
autonomous anti-capitalist society may be degraded. The
alternative is a world based on direct democratic control of
mines, factories, schools, and neighborhoods with social
relations, whether titled nationalist, religious, or
revolutionary, that entail such dynamics as will solve the
fundamental question of self-management in Palestine, Africa,
and throughout the world.

[10] Forman, 493. The “attitude of Egypt and Syria” referred
to is that of the short lived United Arab Republic federation
led by Gamal Abdel Nasser.

[11] South End Press. “A Humane Society Is Possible Through
Struggle: An Interview with Manning Marable”
http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/marableint.htm

[12] Forman, 494.

[13] Ibid, 494.

[14] A critique of American financial and military dominance
in the world by a peripheral nation-state’s leader can not
with historical hindsight be termed anti-imperialism. Rather
it is obligatory “democratic” rhetoric for subordinating
these nations to the logic of the market by uniting its
working and ruling classes. Observers of the left wing of
capital, the Democratic Party in the USA, can see a similar
analogy in the obviously empty concerns with opposing certain
policies of warfare, but not whether America should be an
empire at all, through other channels such as the U.N. and
World Bank.

[15] Forman, 496.