WALTER L. HIXSON
(L) Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks onstage during the 37th Annual Brooklyn Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Jan. 16, 2023 in Brooklyn, NY. Brooklyn Academy of Music). (ROY ROCHLIN/GETTY IMAGES FOR BAM); (R) U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) 2020 policy conference in Washington, DC, on March 2, 2020. (SAUL LOEB/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March/April 2023, pp. 22-23
History’s Shadows
By Walter L. Hixson
THE DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. federal holiday presents an annual opportunity to celebrate the greatest champion of individual liberty and justice for all in American history. This past January, as always, through written and spoken words, commemorations and community events, and an all-day slate of televised National Basketball Association games, millions of Americans and others around the world paid homage to the martyred civil rights leader.
Sadly, however, MLK Day also presents an opportunity for blatant displays of hypocrisy. It is one thing for white nationalists to deride or ignore the holiday—that is to be expected—but the hypocrisy emanates from prominent politicians who, while rightfully celebrating Dr. King, at the same time display a cynical contempt for his legacy.
Unfortunately, I could cite many examples but will focus on two of the most blatant offenders, two influential members of Congress who, as African Americans and outspoken proponents of racial equality, not only should know better—they do know better. This awareness is what makes them hypocrites.
The two are Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the new minority leader of the House and the first African American to hold such a high position of leadership in Congress. Both men are skilled lawmakers and important voices in the Black community.
Both men are also in the pocket of the Israel lobby.
Until 2021, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee held high-profile annual conferences in Washington, DC in which U.S. politicians competed for invitations to trumpet their loyalty to Israel even as it: violated international law through decades of illegal occupation and settlements; carried out indiscriminate warfare; jailed thousands of Palestinians including children; and designated itself a Jewish-supremacist and therefore an apartheid state.
Booker frequently ingratiated himself at the AIPAC conferences by professing his unquestioned loyalty to Israel. For example, on March 2, 2020, Booker, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reassured the AIPAC throng of the “unshakeable bond” between the United States and Israel, an “indispensable ally” that the United States would continue to “fully support ensuring that they have the means and resources” that Washington annually provides (amounting to billions each year and more cumulative military assistance since World War II than provided to any other country). Booker condemned the BDS movement as “dangerous” and was the only Democratic presidential candidate that year to oppose renewal of the Iran nuclear deal. Booker, who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Israel lobby during his two terms as a senator, reveled in his friendship with AIPAC board chairman, Mort Fridman, with whom he was known to “text message back and forth like teenagers.”
Also cozy with the Israel lobby is Jeffries, who received nearly a half million dollars from lobby groups in support of his 2022 reelection campaign. Declaring in 2019 that he was “proud to be here at AIPAC’s annual policy conference…celebrating and advancing the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Jeffries has now promised to maintain his predecessor Nancy Pelosi’s policy of declining to pressure Israel, which has sworn in an extremist right-wing government that vows to step up an already repugnant level of ethnic cleansing and indiscriminate violence against Palestinians.
Both Jeffries and Booker commemorated the most recent MLK holiday with messages that embraced King’s legacy of support for civil rights and human rights. Their homilies can only be described as hypocrisy in view of their simultaneous and unquestioning support for Israeli apartheid. In a public speech Jeffries condemned those who want to “celebrate [Dr. King] but not elevate the work that he did.” Here Jeffries could have been accurately describing himself. As for Booker, he declared in a YouTube message that he would spend the King holiday “thinking about how to live his words.” As well he should.
Perhaps it is unfair to single out Sen. Booker and Rep. Jeffries—after all many white politicians are guilty of the same hypocrisy. But, as African Americans in leadership positions, Booker and Jeffries could make a real difference if they had the courage to draw the appropriate parallels between racial repression in Israel/Palestine and that which runs through the long arc of American history. Instead of papering over Israel’s egregious civil rights and human rights record they could rally people of color as well as white supporters behind the cause of civil rights and racial equality in Israel/Palestine.
If ever Booker, Jeffries and other Israeli apologists choose to live by Dr. King’s words—to summon the courage to support human rights for all people rather than selling out to a pro-apartheid lobby—their words of commemoration would resonate on MLK Day.
Until that time comes, however, they should stop disgracing with their hypocrisy the holiday that honors a great a man who did have the courage—courage that cost him his life—to demand freedom and justice for all.
History’s Shadows, a regular column by contributing editor Walter L. Hixson, seeks to place various aspects of Middle East politics and diplomacy in historical perspective. Hixson is the author of Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy and Israel’s Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict (available from Middle East Books and More), along with several other books and journal articles. He was a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor.
