I Have a Dream

Uploading some music to my iPod this week I came across the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech from 1963, which I had downloaded from the Web for my daughter's social studies class a couple years ago. I should have written this blog on Martin Luther King Day. I only thought of it yesterday, after seeing the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip emancipating themselves for a shopping trip to Egypt.

Of course, the analogy isn't perfect. Yet, everyone involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can learn something by studying what King had to say about the freedom struggle of African-Americans--a fight that had a relatively peaceful and successful outcome, certainly compared to the last 100 years of bloodbaths in the Holy Land. Whether you are supporting Obama or not, Americans can be proud that despite a long legacy of slavery, discrimination and racism, the nation could well elect a man of color 44th President of the United States this year.

Israel and its supporters, including the U.S. government, need to stop viewing Palestinians only as terrorists and recognize the legitimate quest for basic freedom and dignity that underpins their struggle. Even if you accept the myth that the nearly 1 million Palestinians displaced in Israel's 1948 War of Independence fled voluntarily, it should be impossible not to feel empathy for people sitting in refugee camps with keys to their former homes or stateless under occupation for the last 60 years. Indeed, a great many Israelis do feel empathy and have worked to support Palestinians in their hopes for self-determination, but that has not been enough yet.

Here's how King defined his struggle:

The life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land...

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

For their part, Palestinians should have learned a long time ago that the disgraceful use of violence and terrorism is an ignoble means that corrupts rather than enriches their humanity as well as their struggle.

King on the method of struggle:

There is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.

As the superpower taking the responsibility for mediating the conflict, another thing that the Bush administration can learn from one of history's greatest Americans is the need to resolve injustice decisively and quickly.

As King put it 45 years ago:

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

--By Scott MacLeod/Cairo