Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, addressing the "African-Americans Speak Out for Palestine" forum on January 31, 2009 in Detroit. (Photo: Alan Pollock)
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos
By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor
Pan-African News Wire
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Note: The following talk was presented at the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) forum entitled: "African-Americans Speak Out for Palestine." The event was held on Saturday, January 31, 2009 in Detroit. Other panelists included Hadil Katato and Hend Elomari of the Students for Justice in Palestine at Wayne State University, Andrea Egypt of MECAWI, Derrick Grigsby, chair of the Detroit Green Party, Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Rosendo Delgado of Latinos Unidos of Michigan and Debbie Johnson, national committee member of Workers World Party.
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Introduction
Beginning on December 27, Israeli warplanes pounded areas within the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. Immediately in the corporate and government-controlled media outlets, the case for Israeli aggression and United States administration support was made.
According to the political and military pundits, who are recruited, financed and trained by the Pentagon, the intelligence agencies and the private military and security contractors, the root cause of the brute force exemplified by the Israeli Defense Forces(IDF) is the firing of rockets by some elements within Gaza against Israeli-controlled towns on the border with Gaza.
The fact that Palestine has been under an imperialist-backed occupation since 1948 is not mentioned at all by the big business news programs and journals. In attempting to pass off their approach to covering the region as balanced, they almost always equate the bombings and ground assaults on Gaza with the relatively negligible impact of the rockets being fired on Israeli towns from Gaza.
In figures released by the Israeli government itself, the number of casualities were less than 20 people in the three weeks of air strikes and ground assaults by the IDF on Gaza. However, among Palestinians, over 1,400 people have been officially reported killed. Approximately 5,000 were wounded and injured. The IDF used chemical weapons such as white phosphorous, which have been documented to cause unnecessary and egregious permanent burns and other injuries to innocent people.
In addition, a considerable number of news and humanitarian reports were issued that cite the impact of the Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). This weapon causes devastating damage to people in strikes, most of whom are innocent civilians. What was most disconcerting by the Israeli governmental spokespersons was the implication that Hamas was responsible for the hundreds of deaths of children, women and the elderly because they used civilian populations as shields.
Yet it is quite obvious that the long-range bombing of a densely-populated area like Gaza would automatically result in large-scale civilian casualties. The complicity of the western-based multi-national media outlets reminded many of the role of the same firms in the invasion of Iraq. The notion of "imbedded journalists" was not used in the latest IDF attacks on Gaza, but the same method applied.
The corporate media network tells it viewers that they are being prevented from reporting in Gaza, therefore, the personality is broadcasting from the Israeli side of the border. Nonetheless, footage is available from the Arab and other independent television networks that reported from Gaza during the whole period of the Israeli siege between December 27-January 16. Sometimes this footage is used in the aftermath of telling viewers that the media is being kept out. More often than not, the corporate networks show very little of the actual effects of the high-powered Israeli weaponry, which is largely manufactured and paid for by the United States taxpayer.
The point of this presentation is to review the relationship between U.S. foreign policy toward Palestine and the overall anti-colonial struggle which the African continent and African peoples in the west have been intricately involved politically. At the same time, those concerned with correcting the deliberate misrepresentations and distortions of the Palestinian question have an obligation to make as much information available related to the effect of Israeli occupation on the people of this region.
Historical Background to Imperialism, Colonialism and Zionism
Beginning with the conclusion of the 19th century, the world Zionist movement has been allied with the system of western imperialism. This phenomena did coincided with the consolidation of colonial rule in Africa and institutionalized segregation in the United States. Consequently, the struggle against Jim Crow, apartheid and for genuine national liberation of oppressed peoples in Africa and the United States would inevitably clash with efforts geared toward the building of support for the state of Israel as well as Zionist political aims and objectives.
According to Ismael Zayid in his 1980 study entitled
“Zionism: The Myth and the Reality”, he states that: “Zionism, as a modern political creed, emanated in Europe, as a recognizable political ideology, at the end of nineteenth century with three main inherent and fundamental qualities. These three qualities have characterized the movement ever since, and have become inseparable from it. They are namely settler colonialism, racism and expansion.”
These political and economic objectives worked in conjunction with the rise of colonialism in Africa and the institutionalization of legalized racism in the United States. These developments also occurred as a logical extension of the Atlantic Slave Trade between the mid-15th century to the end of the 19th century, when slavery was ended in the United States as a result of the civil war between 1861-1865. In the Caribbean and Latin America, slavery did not end in Cuba until 1878 after a long war for national independence and in Brazil in 1888, after the collapse of the monarchy in the that South American country.
Zionism, Imperialism and the African Liberation Movement
Examples of some of the crudest forms of colonialism in Africa occured with the advent of Dutch and British settler intervention in southern Africa beginning in 1652 and continuing through the early 19th century. However, during the mid-15th century continuing into the early 16th century, the Portuguese and the Spanish engaged in exploration for mineral resources and eventually slaves. The purpose of these expeditions were to break into the world economic system which Europe had played a marginal role prior to the 15th century.
Also the onslaught of Portuguese colonialism in southwest, west and southeast Africa led to one of the most vicious and highly exploitative slave structures in history which lasted nearly five centuries. The colonies of Angola, Sao Tome & Principe Islands, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and Mozambique suffered immensely under colonial rule where Africans were exploited in a slave system that relied on forced labor and mineral extraction including oil exploration, during the 20th century in Angola, Sao Tome and Principe.
The most well-known connection between the world Zionist movement and European colonialism and apartheid took place in the former colonies of Rhodesia and South Africa. According to Zayid in the same referenced study: “From its inception, the Zionist movement saw a natural systematic alliance with European imperialism. The rapid advances of aggressive and chauvinist nationalism in Europe stressed that the superior racial qualities were the basis for the exploitation and ‘civilisational mission’, under the notion of the ‘white man’s burden’.”
Throughout the negotiations involving the Zionist proposals for white penetration into Africa and Asia, [Theodore] Herzl, in the manner of 19th century imperialist thinkers, spoke of imperialism and colonialization as a “noble activity destined to bring civilization to the ‘backward races.’ Viewing the Jewish state with occidental white binoculars, he asserted that this state is designed to ‘form a part of a wall of defense for Europe in Asia, an outpost of civilization against barbarism.’”
African territories were strongly considered as a “homeland” for the Zionist state. This contradicts the proclaimed scriptural basis for the colonization of Palestine. Zayid states that: “In their search for a location for the Zionist enclave, to be created, a variety of options were explored including Uganda (east Africa), Tripolitania in Libya (north Africa), Cyprus (Mediterranean), Madagascar (off the southeast African coast), Congo (in central Africa) and Palestine.”
Joseph Chamberlain, the British racist theoretician told Herzl that: “I have seen a land for you on my recent travels, and that is Uganda. It is not on the coast but the climate of the interior is excellent for Europeans. Though Herzl strongly favored Uganda as the location for the Jewish state, the committee, appointed by the World Zionist Congress to explore the area, found it unsuitable.”
During the period of World War I, Lord Balfour issued his declaration on November 2, 1917 which was utilized as the legal basis for Zionist settlement and the eventual creation of the State of Israel in 1948. The successor to Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, viewed a Jewish settlement in Palestine as a protector of British interests in the region, with specific emphasis placed on safeguarding the Suez Canal. Weizmann’s letter to Churchill in 1921 discussed an “identity of interests” as well as a “natural alliance” between the Empire (Britain) and the Zionist outpost. “If there were no Palestine it would, I believe, be necessary to create one in Imperial interests. It is a bastion to Egypt.” In 1935, labor Zionist Ben Guirion declared at the Nineteenth Zionist Congress that “whoever betrays Great Britain betrays Zionism.” He also stated that the Zionist enclave could maintain “bases of defense on sea and on land” for British imperial interests.
Zayid wrote also that: “Herzl efforts in England included soliciting the backing of major colonialist figures, foremost amongst whom was Cecil Rhodes, the founder of the British colonial outpost in Rhodesia during the late 19th century. In a letter explaining his interest, Herzl wrote that although his project did not involve Africa but a piece of Asia Minor, 'had this been your path, you would have done it yourself by now. Why then did Herzl turn to him, the Zionist leader rhetorically asked? ‘Because it is something colonial was the answer.’ What Herzl sought was a Rhodes Certificate for colonial viability and desirability.”
Weizmann later found an identity of interest with Jan Smuts of South Africa. Smuts addressed a meeting organized by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies and the Zionist Federation in Johannesburg on November 3, 1919 stating that: “I need not remind you that the white people of South Africa have been brought up almost entirely on Jewish tradition. The Old Testament has been the very matrix of Dutch culture, and it is the basis of your Jewish culture; and therefore we are standing together on a common platform.”
By 1948, with the creation of the State of Israel and despite the virulent anti-Semitic ideology of the Afrikaner Nationalist Party, which came to power in the Union of South Africa that same year, the party shifted its position strongly in favor of Israel. It also changed its views in support of Jewish community interests in South Africa.
According to Richard P. Stevens in his study on Weizmann and Smuts, as it related to the apartheid system: “Not only did it perceive the necessity of white solidarity if a minority racial regime were to be maintained. Also Dr. Edwin S. Munger, a long-time observer of the South African scene, saw the post-war Jewish-Afrikaners rapprochement was also due to the feeling of highly influential Afrikaners that ‘the elimination of Jews from South Africa would shake the country to its foundation since it would lead to the withdrawal by wealthy Jews of sufficient capital to precipitate an economic slump.'"
All during the period of Apartheid in Southern Africa, the State of Israel was a staunch supporter of the racist state. Consequently, and particularly after the 1967 so-called six-day war, the African National Congress (ANC), the liberation movement in South Africa, the Southwest African Peoples' Organization (SWAPO), in addition to other liberation movements in Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Guinea-Bissau, as well as independent Algeria, were staunch supporters of the Palestinian national liberation struggle. This fact was used by the former apartheid regime to gain propaganda points in the United States under the guise of fighting terrorism and maintaining western civilization in Africa and the Middle-East.
This alliance between the national liberation struggle in Africa and the Palestinian and other struggles for independence and self-determination in the Arab world continues today in the aftermath of apartheid and the independence of the former colonial nations of Africa. One of the strongest Palestinian support movements exist today in South Africa.
During the World Conference against Racism (WCAR) in 2001 in Durban, South Africa, the United States government under the Bush administration, attempted to sabotage the international gathering because it allowed the Palestinians equal rights of expression and participation. Other issues as well, including reparations for slavery and the right of self-determination for indigenous peoples, drew the ire of the United States administration. So therefore, even today, the American administration and Israel stands on the wrong side of history.
Zionism and African-American Liberation
Africans in the United States have always taken an interest in international affairs. Moreover, the struggle of the African-American people is inherently international because most of them were brought to the U.S. as a result of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Even after the Civil War, Africans from the Caribbean and Latin America immigrated to the U.S. oftentimes through labor contracts between colonial governments working on behalf of corporations with interest throughout the Americas.
During the years of the Great Depression, 1929-1941, the African-American people fought against the economic exploitation and impoverishment prevalent during this period. Blacks in their millions joined mass and labor struggles aimed at pressuring the federal government and private companies to provide better wages and to end national discrimination in employment practices.
One such organization that sought to build a broad front of African-American organizations during the depression was the National Negro Congress (NNC). The coalition brought together hundreds of groups from across the country in order to push for civil rights and labor reform. The NNC had both liberals, socialists and communists within its ranks. One leading activist in the NNC was the Detroit-born Ralphe Bunche, who was educated in political science at UCLA and Harvard and worked as a faculty member at Howard University during the 1920 and 1930s.
Bunche later broke with the NNC for political reasons. He would join the United States military after working on international issues as a faculty member at Howard. During World War II Bunche served as an agent within the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that was formed after the conclusion of the war.
Having been noticed by top military officers and State Department officials during World War II for his worked on African and colonial affairs, Bunche was appointed as Associate Chief of the Division of Dependent Area Affairs in 1944. Bunche was also involved with the initial planning for the creation of the United Nations at the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations in Washington, D.C. in August, 1944.
In 1945, as a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations, he was closely involved in the drafting of the Charter. While attending the first session of the General Assembly in London during 1946, he was asked by the Secretary-General Trygve Lie of Norway to join the UN Trusteeship Department.
Later he was asked to assist in the mediation of the first major international crisis during the formative years of the United Nations, the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. The failure of the implementation of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the UN partition plan of 1947, which called for the creation of two separate Arab and Jewish states, resulted in Israel delcaring itself a state in 1948. The State of Israel was recognized by the UN amid the eruption of war throughout the region. It is important to note that the UN at this time was dominated by the U.S. and European colonial states.
Bunche was commissioned by the UN to serve as an assistant to the Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte as the first United Nations Mediator in Palestine, and the first mediator in UN history. After a ceasefire was achieved in the conflict, Bernadotte and Bunche traveled extensively in the region between Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, seeking to achieve an armstice agreement between the Arab nations and Israel.
However, on September 17, 1948, Bernadotte and a French United Nations Observer were assassinated by a Zionist group known as the "Stern Gang". Bunche then took over as the chief mediator in the conflict and was able to pressure all parties, with the backing of the United Nations and the United States, to sign an armstice in 1949. Bunche was later awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1950 for this act, becoming the first person of African descent to achieve the recognition.
Nonetheless, another major conflict would erupt in 1956 between Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nassar and the nations of Britain, Israel and France. Nassar nationalized the Suez Canal after decades of control by the British and the French. The State of Israel saw this as an opportunity to attack Egypt at the aegis of the British.
Consequently, Israel, Britain and France invaded Egypt and attempted to destroy its military and economic infrastructure. Even though the United States did not support the nationalization of the Suez Canal, the Eisenhower administration viewed the attack on Egypt as an effort by the British and the French imperialist states to regain some of its influence lost as a result of the events of the second World War. The United States demanded a ceasefire within the United Nations and threatened the UK government with a withdrawal of credit which could have bankrupted the British state.
The British accepted their subordinate status within the post WWII international situation and withdrew their forces from Egypt, along with Israel and France. The humiliation of Britain and Israel in this conflict of 1956 enhanced the status of Gamel Abdel Nassar within the Arab world and throughout the African continent. Nassar would go on to become a co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, which formed in 1961 and served as forum for newly emerging post-colonial nations as well as Yugoslavia.
The Suez crisis, which prompted the Soviet Union to threaten to use force in Egypt, revealed growing Soviet efforts to gain greater involvement and influence in the Middle East. To counter this threat and to encourage stability and independence in the area, the United States adopted what came to be known as the Eisenhower Doctrine. In January 1957, President Eisenhower asked Congress, first, for authorization to use military force if requested by any Middle East nation to check aggression; and, second, to set aside a sum of $200 million to ostensibly help those Middle Eastern countries that desired aid from the United States. Congress granted both requests.
In response to revolutionary nationalist upheavals throughout the region, in 1958, Eisenhower dispatched the U.S. Marines to Lebanon in order to prevent the overthrow of a pro-western government. This occured after Egypt and Syria were accused of supporting revolutionary elements in Lebanon and Iraq, where a national democratic uprising occured in 1958 against the monarchy. British troops were sent to Jordan to prevent the uprising from spreading there from Iraq.
In regard to the African-American movements in the United States, the Nation of Islam, which was growing during the mid-1950s under the influence of Malcolm X, took a pro-Egyptian stance surrounding the 1956 Suez Canal conflict. This position would be continued as a result of the changing consciousness among Africans in the U.S.
According to Lewis Young in his article published in the Journal of Palestine Studies in the Autumn of 1972,: "The Nation of Islam, led by Elijah Muhammad, has since 1956 consistenly taken an anti-Israeli stance through its publication Muhammad Speaks; it was, in fact, the only black organization prior to the 1960s, to manifest some concern for the Middle East conflict. This Muslim concern is quite logical given the common religious basis of the organization with most of the Arab world. It was due primarily, however, to the late Malcolm X, who left the Muslims in 1964, that the foundations for this pro-Arab attitude were laid, through his articulation of an anti-Israeli resentment while still serving as the organization's national spokesman."
During the civil rights movement there was a perception of mainstream Jewish-American support for the aims and objectives of Africans in the United States who were demanding the abolition of legalized segregation and full voting rights. Jewish students and religious leaders made strong statements in support of civil rights and participated in marches and campaigns coordinated by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
However, other currents in the African movement, as represented by Malcolm X during and after his involvement with the Nation of Islam, maintained strong support for the Palestinian struggle as well as other Arab states that were attacked and threatened by the Israeli regime. Malcolm X after his departure from the Nation of Islam in 1964 visited Egypt where he crossed over into Gaza and met with some of the founding members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
When the civil rights movement came North in 1966 and with the advent of the Black Power movement initiated by SNCC in that same year, the relations between the African-American struggle and white liberal sympathizers became strained. With the rapid outbreak of urban rebellions between 1964-1968, attention was focused on the role Jewish businessmen and landlords in African communities. However, it was after the so-called six-day war of June 1967, that the split between Jewish liberals and African-American radicalism became pronounced.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in response to the six-day war between Israel and Egypt as well as other Arab nations in the region, began an internal discussion around taking a position against Israel and American foreign policy in the Middle East. Ethel Minor, a former member of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X’s Organization of Afro-American Unity (OAAU) and then of SNCC, wrote a draft discussion document which was leaked to the corporate press criticizing the State of Israel and U.S. foreign policy which favored the Zionist regime.
During the same time period James Forman, the then International Affairs Director for SNCC, held discussions with the Guinean Ambassador to the United Nations, who made it clear that they would be in support of the Arab position in the region. These currents were bound to influence SNCC and its constituency in regard to coming out solidly in support of the Palestinians and other Arab states in conflict with Israel in the region.
Unfortunately, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) refused to come out in support of the Palestinians at that time. King was under fire for his position against the United States war against the Vietnamese people, and probably felt he could not afford to take a stand against Zionism. However, if he had lived beyond 1968, being the honest leader that he was, would have inevitably taken a stand against settler colonialism in Palestine and the Middle East.
Later, the Black Panther Party, the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the All-African Peoples Revolutionary Party, took strong positions in support of the Palestinians and did considerable solidarity work on their behalf. All of these organizations, including SNCC before, took a considerable amount of criticism and vilification in the corporate press because of their views on the Middle East. Nonetheless, because of the work of these organizations, the consciousness related to the plight of the Palestinians in the African community in the United States is far higher than it was during the 1960s and 1970s.
Today even liberal and moderate groups such as Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition support the creation of a Palestinian state. Unfortunately some of these groups have not been prepared to call for the dismantling of the State of Israel as the only real possibility for the creation of a genuine peace in the region. With the aggressive policies of the State of Israel since its inception in 1948, the regime has not proved its willingness to live in peace with the neighboring states in Asia Minor and North Africa. The only reasonable future option for the peoples of this region is the creation of a unitary secular state of Palestine where Jews, Arabs, Muslims and other groups can live equally within a democratic dispensation. The American government has always been opposed to the right of genuine self-determination and independence for the Palestinians.
With the Israeli aggressive war on Lebanon during July and August of 2006, the role of U.S. Imperialism has been made crystal clear. While the American made F-15 and F-16 fighter planes dropped bombs on innocent Lebanese people, the Secretary of State under George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice, stated that the administration would not support a ceasefire and that the genocidal actions of Israel represented the “birth pains of a new Middle-East.” Such venomous rhetoric directed against the peoples of the region has exposed the American regime as the principal threat to peace in the region.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed resolutions during the Israeli war on Lebanon in support of the carnage. Within the Senate, the vote was 97-0 endorsing the Zionist aggression. In the House of Representatives, a few Congresspersons stood up and refused to endorse the slaughter, although the overwhelming majority sanctioned the massive destruction against the Lebanese state and its people.
It was only the efforts of the resistance movement Hezbollah and its allies that successfully fought and beat back the Zionist aggressors. The defeat of Israel in the most recent war against Lebanon has created a political crisis in the Zionist state. Its own military personnel complained of the logistical confusion, the lack of food and water and the fact that millions of Israelis were forced into bomb shelters for over a month.
In regard to public opinion in the United States, more people are willing to speak out against the Israeli aggressive military policies. All during July and August of 2006, mass demonstrations were held both inside and outside of the Arab-American community in support of the peoples of Lebanon and Palestine.
In the Israeli siege of Gaza between December 27, 2008 and January 16, 2009, a similar pattern emerged within the United States ruling class. The Senate voted completely to endorse the genocidal onslaught on Gaza. The House of Representatives had only five Congresspersons who voted against a resolution supporting the aerial bombardment and ground assault against the 1.5 Palestinians in Gaza. Among the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), there were only two members initially reported as voting against the pro-Israeli position.
Yet among the masses of African-Americans and other segments of the U.S. population, the overwhelming sentiment was against the Israeli aggression. The utilization of the war pundits through commercial media further alienated the people from the anti-Gaza campaign. This entire episode was apparently designed to conclude the Bush administration and provide the incoming Obama presidency with a further polarized situation in the Middle East.
Obama immediately appointed an envoy to the region, former Senator George Mitchell, who had worked on the Northern Ireland agreement of the 1990s that suspended the armed struggle inside this British-controlled nation. Obama made reference to the creation of a Palestinian state, but he did not say when this entity would come into existence and he was not specific to the character and location of this state.
Since the 1993 Oslo Agreement, which created the Palestinian Authority, the people of this region have not realized an independent state that has real power and sovereignty. Ultimately it will be up to the Palestinian people and the Arab peoples of the region to decide the direction of their struggle for national liberation.
However, it is instructive to note that when the Palestinian people were given the opportunity for democratic elections they chose Hamas. Since this decision was not in line with the hopes of the United States and Israel, they have failed to recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian's political right to select the form of government that best suits their interests.
In the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza, there were unprecedented demonstrations throughout the United States and the world in solidarity with the Palestinian people. In the city of Detroit, the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War and Injustice (MECAWI), in conjunction with the Congress of Arab-American Organizations and the Palestine Office of Michigan, organized a mass demonstration through downtown Detroit on January 8, 2009, amid the Israeli onslaught on Gaza.
During the annual Detroit Martin Luther King Day rally and march, the central focus of the event was the relationship between the ongoing siege of Gaza by the Israeli Defense Forces, the deepening economic crisis inside the United States and the need for solidarity around these issues of war and social justice. Despite the trip to Israel by the President of the Detroit City Council, there were thousands of people marching through downtown demanding the withdrawal of United States taxpayer subsidies to the State of Israel.
A Black Coalition Against Genocide issued a statement in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza. This was done in New York City to coincide with a demonstration of thousands of people in America's largest municipality, whose Mayor had expressed support for Israeli aggression.
Despite the silence of Barack Obama during his transition period in relationship to the growing deplorable humanitarian situation in Gaza, former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who was the Green Party candidate for President in the 2008 national elections, traveled on the "Dignity" boat to provide aid to the Gazans under Israeli bombardment. The "Dignity" was prevented from carrying out its mission by the Israeli Navy. The boat was forced to dock in Lebanon.
Nonetheless, these actions carried out by MECAWI, the Black Coalition Against Genocide, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, and the countless solidarity coalitions, committees and networks throughout the country, represent a historical tradition of anti-imperialist solidarity with the peoples of the Middle East in support of universal human rights and national liberation.
Conclusion
It is important that oppressed and working people in the United States support the liberation struggles of the Palestinians. There can be no peace in the Middle East without the resolution of the Palestinian question aimed at self-determination and statehood. In addition, the existence of the State of Israel and it security is utilized to justify aggressive policies against Syria, Iran and Lebanon as well as the continuation of the imperialist occupation of Iraq.
One African-American clergyman in Detroit, who is heavily financed by the conservative Christian Zionist lobby in the United States, has declared that he will seek to build support for Israel among blacks in America. This lonely effort will only result in a political dead end. The masses of Africans in the United States see the direct link between their own oppression domestically and the role of the American state in suppressing the peoples of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia. It is only with the total liberation of the peoples of the world from racism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism, will there be the possibility of real peace in the Middle East and throughout the world.
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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. The contents of this article were delivered in part at the "African-Americans Speak Out For Palestine" public meeting in Detroit sponsored by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) on Saturday, January 31, 2009.
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