Don't Criticize Israel in Election Year

by Alexander Cockburn

McKinney now faces a Democratic primary challenge, just as another member of the Black Congressional Caucus did. I refer to David Hilliard, the first black elected to Congress in Alabama since Reconstruction. For daring to call for some sense of balance in U.S. policy in the Middle East, some attention to what Palestinians are saying, Hilliard was overwhelmed by a primary opponent, middle-of-the road lawyer Arthur Davis, whom Hilliard had trounced in earlier contests, but to whom American-Jewish organizations suddenly shoveled a ton of money. Davis lashed Hilliard for being anti-Israel.

McKinney, who wins her elections by huge majorities, now faces the same treatment, with heavy backing for retired judge Denise Majette from American-Jewish groups. This time, some black leaders are better prepared to stand up and denounce the efforts of well-financed pro-Israel pressure groups to terrorize all critics of Israel's appalling conduct. McKinney is getting support from some Arab-American groups, thus drawing predictable accusations she is being backed by Terror. No one accuses Majette of being backed by Terror, though some of her money is coming from groups supportive of Sharon, one of the prime terrorists in the Middle East today.

Tucker shows that when it comes to the crunch, she is snugged down in the Man's pocket. Her paper has been unrelenting in its attempts to discredit McKinney. "[She] has shown herself to be a fringe lunatic, well outside the congressional mainstream," Cynthia Tucker wrote in one typical commentary.

Outrageously, Tucker asserts McKinney is "incapable of aiding any cause" and has the final pious effrontery to declare that "The plight of the Palestinians and their desire for an independent homeland is a serious cause deserving of thoughtful, mainstream advocates. Hilliard wasn't one, and neither is McKinney."

It reminds me of all the attacks on Jesse Jackson when he ran as a Democratic presidential candidate in the primaries in 1988. I recall scores of earnest columns by white pundits lacerating Jackson for his presumption and hoping that "thoughtful" and "moderate" blacks better suited as candidates would step up to the plate.

I await Ms. Tucker's thoughtful proposals for a Palestinian homeland, or perhaps even a "serious" consideration of their plight.

Pondering what we might call "Tuckerism" (my phrase, not his), Hilliard recently remarked in an interview in The Black Commentator: "There is class warfare in the Black community. In Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, in the areas of Birmingham where what we call the New Blacks live, those that work for corporate Alabama, those that live in subdivisions that are predominantly Black, Davis won just like he did in the white areas."

The Black Interviewer asks Hilliard, "You refer to a Īnatural progression' in Black politics that has been interrupted?"

Hilliard replies: "That's because it was natural -- Blacks building on what the previous generation had added to the foundation. So when you look at the natural progression from Martin Luther King, you would think that you would get to [Kweisi] Mfume, but we've been sidestepped. We've had a Clarence Thomas. We have a Colin Powell. We have Cynthia Tucker. We have all these other people whose ideals and views don't sit on the foundation. It's not building for the masses or building for the race. It's building for self.

"They are black in skin tone but, philosophically, they are not. So, whites understand them better than we do ... You have a Condoleezza Rice: I made it because I'm smart and because of myself. I didn't need affirmative action, I don't believe in it. If I can make it, everybody else can make it."

And if, of course, they can make it by ringing statements of support for Israel-right-or-wrong, thus eliciting huge contributions from Jewish groups, well and good.

Imagine the uproar among the pundits, the Tuckers of this world, if somehow Arab-American money rather than Jewish-American money had been decisive in his defeat!