We are publishing a transcript of Dr. Anthony Monteiro’s opening remarks from the Saturday Free School’s October 21, 2023 session on Israel’s War Against Palestinians, Possibilities of World War, and the Fight for Peace. The Free School meets every Saturday at 10:30 AM, and is streamed live on Facebook and YouTube.
There’s a demonstration at City Hall today at 5 o’clock—and I hope that most of us can make it in support of the Palestinian people—I think in calling for a ceasefire. There was a protest at City Council yesterday I believe, protesting the utter cowardice of Philadelphia City Council in passing a resolution that only gives aid and comfort to the Zionists, and I want to talk about that—what is going on, what the politics are.
Last week we said that the Hamas military operation into Israel had changed the battlefield of struggle of the Palestinian people and pretty much of the Arab nations. And recall that we often talk about Clausewitz, the German historian and theorist of war who said that war is politics by other means, and that armies fight not just to defeat the opposition—the enemy army—but to change the ideological relationships between nations and armies.
What happened on October 7th changed the politics and ideological relations between Israel and the Palestinian people. Jeremiah Kim shared on Facebook an article where the writer pretty much compared this October 7th operation to the Tet Offensive and how after the Tet Offensive, the U.S. army was hesitant to engage what they called the Viet Cong, or the South Vietnamese National Liberation forces on the ground.
The Israeli army has not gone into Gaza because I think they understand that they cannot win a ground war against Hamas in Gaza—that’s one side of it. But they know that Israel is so politically and ideologically fractured, in ways that it has not been in the over 70 years of its history. And Israel cannot fight these types of protracted wars, what we call asymmetric warfare, without securing the political support of the home base and—as important—of the American people.
I would suggest to you that the Israeli regime has lost both, or is losing both. It is, I don’t want to, you know, start singing “Oh happy day” yet, but we’re looking at the imminent defeat of the Israeli regime, and the Israeli people and world Zionism is faced with a reckoning and will have to decide.
I’ll get back to all of that because I want to talk about what the enemy of the Palestinian people looks like today. It is not the same as the Jews fleeing Europe after their Holocaust. It’s not the same people; it’s not the same politics—I’ll get back to that.
Israel doesn’t want to wage a ground war in Gaza. They will lose it. They will lose—it will be an ignominious defeat for them. The only other instance where the Israeli army was unable to defeat an Arab army was in the 2006 attempt by the Israeli army to destroy Hezbollah, which is they say a Shiite-led—probably not Shiite-majority—Shiite-led movement which includes Sunnis and Christians, and probably a lot of people that don’t adhere to any religious belief.
But it is, they say—and this is a way to smear it and say that it is controlled by Iran—to say that it is a Shiite militia and thus to separate it from the mainly Muslim Sunnis that are the Palestinians. This kind of generalizing, you know, “All of the Hamas people are Sunni; all of the Hezbollah are Shiite.”
The Palestinian people are ideologically, religiously and in many other ways diverse. Some are very religious, some are very secular, and so on. Probably the Palestinians are the more diverse and secular of the Arab people these days, maybe not all of them, but they’re one of the most diverse. The Arab people are very, very diverse. Very diverse. This generalization is a way to smear and justify what can only be described as genocide.
But the point that I want to make is that the only time in the almost 70 years of history and innumerable wars that Israel has waged against Arab nations—the only previous defeat was in 2006, by Hezbollah. This is very important because Israel is faced now with a military coming out of Gaza which inflicted a defeat upon them that they never saw coming and they still cannot understand or explain. And it was a defeat. A defeat on many levels; it was a political defeat, it was a defeat for this so-called vaunted intelligence, and a defeat for their whole Gaza policy. I don’t know how else to put it, but that defeat, the magnitude of it is irreversible. Because it fractured Israeli society politically, building upon an already fractured political situation.
They can’t go into Gaza. They know they would be defeated on the ground. They would lose tanks, they would lose armored vehicles, they would lose weapons. But more than anything they would lose soldiers. And this slogan which I want to come back to, “Never again.” And because the Zionists portray Hamas and any Palestinians that resist them as kith and kin, or part of the legacy of Nazism; since they claim that, they then claim the right to do whatever they want and thus every Israeli life is more important than every Palestinian or Arab life. Hence, “never again” means that the Israelis cannot die, but they have the “moral right” to kill.
The moral right to kill, but they cannot die—going into Gaza, they will die. But not only that—the possibility of a full-blown northern front in Israel coming from Hezbollah, which would not wage asymmetric warfare—that is, people’s war, guerilla war—but would wage out-and-out military, you know, missile for missile, cannon for cannon—you know, more traditional warfare.
But more than that, the political situation favors the forces of Hamas, of Hezbollah and other resistance forces including those on the West Bank that are occupied by Israel. This would be a war on multiple fronts including protests and anger among the Israeli people. We cannot rule that out.
I want to restate: war is politics and ideology by other means. You can win on the battlefield and lose the political struggle and hence lose ultimately on the battlefield.
The genocidal war that the Israeli regime is waging against the people of Gaza and the Palestinians in general can only be described as a crime against humanity. This war is what I would like to call a civilization war. A war to destroy a civilization.
But if we think about it, the wars colonialism itself has waged against Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world have been civilization wars. And that the claims of Hitler and the Nazis were only a logical extension of the claims of the colonists. That, in fact, they were making the world “safe for civilization” by destroying civilizations that were not Western.
What I want to emphasize very strongly is that once we look at Israel’s war against the Palestinians as a civilization war—and I will give the architecture of this—it makes clear what we are dealing with. If you want to destroy Hamas, why do you have to bomb a hospital? Why do you have to cut off water and fuel and electricity to a population that is pretty much unarmed? If it is just about Hamas—but the fact is, it is not just about Hamas—it is about Arab civilization and about Islam. And it is about the “right of Israel” to take over all of the land that they, the Zionists claim, was historic Israel. This is why they have to attack, and they do attack, and try to desecrate Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest place in Islam.
Because it symbolizes their utter contempt for Islam. Even for Orthodox Christianity. And maybe for the Baptists, ‘cause that was a Baptist or Christian hospital that Israel bombed.
It is a civilization war. And it is upon the claim that this is the “historic home” of the Jewish people. Although Zionism is not a religious ideology; it is a political ideology. And hence Israel is not a Jewish state, it is a Zionist state. And there is a difference. If Judaism is a religion, and I would say it is, that if it is—as claimed by a serious Jewish scholars and theologians—a moral anchor of the Abrahamic religions: that is, Judaism, Christianity and Islam—if that is true about Judaism, then the state of Israel is not a Jewish state; never was intended to be. If you say, “Well, the majority of the settlers there are Jewish”—but that doesn’t mean that they adhere to the faith that has the name that they have, you know.
I think we have to disentangle Zionism from Judaism. And even if we wouldn’t do it, Jews themselves are doing it; and we’ll talk about Jewish Voices for Peace and “Not in My Name,” and other movements among Jews—in the United States, and certainly in Israel.
So we’re talking about an ideological state, a political state—which the state always is—which has nothing to do, or very little, if anything to do with religion. Their closest connection to ancient Judaism is that they speak—and I want to emphasize this—a form of Hebrew. This is not the Hebrew of the Torah, it is not ancient Hebrew, it is a kind of street Hebrew.
Just a parenthesis—I think they would have done better sticking with Yiddish, because Yiddish is the language of European Judaism, when it is not French or German or Russian, and the greatest body of Jewish literature, which is considerable, is in Yiddish. Although there are Jewish composers—Mahler and others—that compose in the German, the European tradition—the language of Jewish literature is Yiddish. Even in the early part of the twentieth century, Jews who emigrated to the United States spoke and wrote in Yiddish. Just like many of you and your household speak Chinese, in the households most Jews they spoke Yiddish. And they had newspapers in Yiddish. One of the most important socialist newspapers was called The Daily Freiheit; I think Freiheit means freedom. And it was associated with the Communist Party, with the labor movement and so on. It was in Yiddish. And the great treasure store of Jewish literature is in Russia. Even Broadway, and off-Broadway and Tin Pan Alley and all of that; that was Yiddish theater. You hear all of these great Jewish comedians who would perform in the Catskills in New York, this resort area for Jews—well, why did they need their own place, you know? Part of it was that they spoke, and the comedians performed in Yiddish. And they sang Yiddish language songs and poetry.
Israel undermined all that. And so my point is that this fake Hebrew that they talk is, you know, it’s just like, you know, street talk, street Hebrew. And it is to establish a fake identity. So, it is a Zionist state.
I want to say something about what it has evolved into. And this is very important. You know, over the summer and last spring there were a lot of demonstrations in Israel. I mean, hundreds of thousands of people opposing Netanyahu and on the surface, it was his attempt to alter what the Supreme Court of Israel could do. I mean, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people in a very compact, small population of about seven million people.
The society fractured. The military fractured. But it presented an opportunity for the Nazi elements of Zionism to move to the fore.
People say, “Well, how can you say that there are Nazis amongst Jews? They were the victims of Nazism.” Well, both can be true. Both were true, even at the time when Hitler was loading Jews into cattle cars and taking them to concentration camps.
A lot of people, when I mention this, don’t understand. Well, there was a thing called the judenrat; Juden being Jewish, rat being administration. The judenrat were the collaborators and the administrators at the ghetto in Poland, Warsaw Ghetto—even in the concentration camps. There were Jewish admirals and generals in the German Army. And there had always been in Germany and other parts of Europe the assimilated Jews.
And assimilation meant much more than it would mean to us—you know, assimilated Negro and that type of thing—the assimilated Jew became German in every respect. They were—and I won’t go into a lot of detail—they were more German than Jewish. And they had contributed mightily to German culture, especially its musical culture.
But how could a Jew be a Nazi?
Well, if you get to the essence of matters, it’s easily understood. The language and logic of Nazism is the language and logic of the far-right within Israel. They are Nazis, by language and logic.
Listen to the way they talk about the Palestinians. Take “Palestinians” out and put “Jews” in and you say, “Well, that’s Hitler. That’s the Nazis.” And then you say, “No, I just took ‘Palestinian’ out for the sake of seeing whether you could distinguish between this—what the Israeli Nazis are saying and what Hitler was saying; there is no difference.” Just one thing is different: the word, the people that are the targets.
But there are others. For instance, Colonel [Lawrence] Wilkerson—he was the advisor to Colin Powell—Republican, was in a number of Republican administrations, and was the top adviser to Colin Powell concerning the war in Iraq. He was there when they went to the UN with that big lie that justified the war in Iraq. But he said, and you know, a lot of people that are in the highest ranks of government or retired from the highest ranks of government have concluded that this is the most dangerous time for the world’s people since the beginning of the Cold War. That the Biden administration is the most dangerous administration in the history of the United States. And that—and this is Colonel Wilkerson—the Netanyahu government is being directed by Nazis—and he uses the word ‘Nazis’—in the government.
So, in Israel, in newspapers like Haaretz and others, you will regularly see references to what they say ‘the far right’ as a Nazi element within Israel.
I think it is important that we understand that, if we are to understand the political aims of the Israeli government. And it is to force all of the Palestinians out of what they call “historic Israel” by one or another means. That’s why the Egyptians and Hamas said to the Gazans: “Don’t leave. Don’t let them force you into the Sinai Peninsula,” which is part of Egypt, you know.
Because this is part of a plan of erasure and extermination. “Don’t allow them”—and this is what they say to the Arabs and the Muslims in the world—”Don’t allow Nazis and fascists to desecrate Al-Aqsa Mosque.” What was the Israeli temple that they claim they are trying to restore by overturning Al-Aqsa? That temple was destroyed in 70 AD or 70 CE, in other words, 70 years after the death of Christ—you know, that kind of chronological thing doesn’t really fit everything.
But, in other words, literally 600 years before Islam was even thought of, the place Al-Aqsa in Muslim theology, or cosmology, is the place that the prophet Muhammad—when he was under attack in Mecca and Medina—the place that an angel took him to. I’m not arguing for or against it, but it is a place that was occupied by the prophet Muhammad. And so it is a holy place. Third only to Mecca and Medina.
In war, even the Nazis avoided attacking religious places. But you attack the symbols of religion, and it shows us that this is civilizational now. You want to erase a people and their civilization, see what I’m saying? You do not respect anything that these people hold holy or valuable or meaningful. You have utter contempt for that. That is not only the ideology of Nazism, it is the psychology of Nazism. And Nazism believes in eliminating entire populations that they feel are inimical, not just to their political goals, but to what they consider to be civilization. This is huge. This is why we wish to call it a civilization war.
Many U.S. Jews, not to mention Israelis, understand what this is. Because of the vast power of the Zionist establishment—and they’re everywhere; we saw it on full display with respect to the conference at the University of Pennsylvania of Palestinian writers. They attacked that; they attacked the president of the University of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Board of Trustees—arguing that they are complicit with anti-semitism because they allowed a conference of Palestinian writers at the University of Pennsylvania.
There would never have been the same outcry if it was a conference of Jewish writers, many of whom have called for the erasure of the Palestinian people.
And then at Harvard—by the way, do you know the donors, these rich Jewish donors—see, they think everybody is for sale. And just because they’ve been able to buy a lot of black people, which we saw on display with [the Philadelphia] City Council; for sale, black people.
So they can buy the University of Pennsylvania, maybe they can. “So I’m going to withdraw my money from the Wharton School because of this conference.” And then at Harvard, 34 student organizations issued a statement, a manifesto saying that this is all the fault of the Israeli state.
I want to come back to that, because that is a correct political analysis. It is not a concession to anti-semitism, in fact it can be argued that the far-right in Israel is a concession to anti-semitism; I’ll come back to that.
This idea, that our money can guarantee our place in American society—many, many Jews think like that. There has to be a reckoning. Jews will have to have to reckon with this. A lot of Jews say, “Well, I’m not Jewish, I’m white.” Well, you’re white when it serves your interests and you’re Jewish when it [serves your interests]—let’s be real, you have a moral responsibility. To stand up to this.
Now, perhaps the majority of Jews oppose the Netanyahu regime and what is going on in Gaza. Perhaps a majority. If not a majority, at least the majority of young Jews. This creates a problem. That doesn’t mean they are “free at last”—not at all. A lot has to be expelled from their consciousness, from their identity, et cetera. In fact, the Jews need Baldwin as much as black people do. Because the problem is they’ve learned to hate and forgotten how to love. And it’s a problem; they know who their enemies are, and that’s the majority of people in the world, especially the majority of people in the world who are not white.
They’ve learned to hate, but forgotten how to love. And this is why in the demonstration in Washington, the one where there were 300 people within the Cannon building—they say there were 10,000 outside. And a rabbi, a woman rabbi from Philadelphia said, “I’m standing up for the Palestinians in the name of my religion.”
That in the name of the values of Judaism and against—and I think she put it this way—and against Zionism—this split between religion and rabbis and synagogues, and Zionism. And frankly, they’re going to have to expel the Zionists from most of these synagogues, and most of these Jewish schools. And stop sending their children over the Israel so they can establish a “birthright.” An identity with a Zionist project; it ain’t got nothing to do with your religion.
And this woman rabbi and others cited the Torah. And would argue, as is the case, that the Torah and the Qur’an have more in common than maybe the Torah and the Qur’an and the New Testament. They’re very different by the way, and we can get back to that.
It is Zionism that has perverted [Judaism]—it has. In other words, when I’m talking about Judaism, I’m talking about the religion of the Torah. I’m not talking about this other thing. This is a moment of reckoning for the Jewish people. And no matter what immediate polls show, it is fluid, and it is a crisis of Jewish identity and how the Jews want to be known in the world.
A people who are no more than 10 million in a world population of 8 billion cannot always rely upon the white colonial powers to protect them. And I think October 7th and the operation of Hamas showed that all of the military hardware that they can get from the West will not be enough.
What the Israeli Nazis—and I put Zionists/Nazis—are arguing for, almost openly by the way, is for a final solution to the Palestinian question. And you listen carefully to Netayahu—and Biden and them are trying to clean him up a little bit—you listen carefully: what he’s talking about is a final solution. That is Hitler. Final solution to the Jewish question; final solution to the Palestinian question. Erasure of Palestinian civilization and culture. Driving of all Palestinians out of what they call historic Israel, to create—and this is the Nazi, or the German word—Lebensraum or “living space” for Jews.
Horrible. This is grotesque beyond imagination. And once you peel away the surface stuff, and once you separate yourself from the narrative of the ruling elite of the United States as manifested in all of the newspapers and stuff, once you peel away you get to the essence of it. You see what it is: civilizational erasure.
Just a couple more things.
Biden’s speech. Now, we have said time and again—and I said it in an interview with Garland Nixon just Thursday—that the primary task in the election this year is to defeat the Biden administration, as an administration of war and austerity at home. Must be defeated; inconvenient truth—for many, unimaginable. But it must be defeated, in the name of peace. Many people are saying, “What, you want to give us Trump?” Trump is better—far superior to them, to the Biden administration. Frankly, any previous administration in U.S. history is better than these people.
We cannot get it confused. This is an administration of war. Of war. Well, let’s look at Biden’s speech. And I give the guy credit given his dementia, that he’s able to deliver a coherent speech. Though if you listen to the end he was beginning to fade—I said, “Oh, dementia’s kicking in now”—it was 15 minutes, and about ten minutes in he started fading. But he was able to hold together to read the teleprompter. He don’t know what he’s saying.
But anyway, what he argued there is that the world is beset by wars, and wars triggered or carried out by anti-democratic and authoritarian forces. Essentially in two places: Hamas in Gaza, and Putin in Russia. These forces want to overthrow two democracies: the Israeli democracy—I’m trying to prevent myself from falling on the floor laughing—Israeli democracy?—and Ukrainian democracy. Which is even a more grotesque suggestion.
And then he kicks in Taiwan and the southern [U.S.] border. If you read the newspaper there are a lot of different things being said here; it’s clear that he said he wanted 60 billion for Ukraine. Already, officially they’ve given 130 billion. So this is, by half again, more for Ukraine.
Now, I think they had said 40 billion for Israel. But then they kind of marched that back to 14 billion; it’s like, “Don’t believe your lying ears. You thought I said 40, I really said 14.” But no, it was 40. And 10 billion for Taiwan, which is officially recognized by the U.N. and the United States as part of China. We don’t even have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
And I read today—I think it was in the Financial Times—where they admitted 110 billion dollars in this proposal by Biden. All for war.
Can’t underestimate this. It’s not like the United States is not involved in these wars. Because they’re proxy wars does not change the fact that the United States is at war. With Russia, and with the Palestinians, and now China.
We’re a nation at war—let’s face it. And then when the United States sends two aircraft carrier battle groups to the Eastern Mediterranean—let’s be clear—see, they say “two aircraft carriers.” You say, “Oh, that’s just two”—no. Aircraft carrier battle groups which includes at least two cruisers, battleships, and other smaller battleships. Just for one battle group, there could be anywhere upwards of ten, fifteen ships involved, including maybe submarines—nuclear-powered and nuclear-equipped submarines. When they say they have sent two aircraft carrier battle groups, you have to assume those aircraft carriers, cruisers, and submarines are equipped with nuclear weapons, and missiles to deliver them.
This is no small thing. This is war. This is war, and we cannot underestimate it.
Let me just tell you, I woke up this morning and looked at my Facebook. An old friend of mine who was a co-chairman of the Communist Party—good friend of mine—says that in order to defeat— as he says “the fascist danger”—we must defeat Trump, and lock him up. He’s been indicted, he hasn’t been convicted yet. And for a communist to rush to judgment—that’s what they did to the Communists. That’s why Henry Winston was serving an eight-year prison term. So now you gonna rush to judgment.
And I just thought to myself, you know, it’s not just a political failing. But it’s a moral collapse on his part, and all of their parts. This fluid moment where the DSA, Democratic Socialists of America, almost completely behind Biden’s re-election and all of that, are now involved in many of the demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Palestine, you know what I’m saying? And are critical of the Biden administration. Maybe they haven’t yet gone as far as we have, but we still got 12 months to go, you know.
It’s going to be a lot of political education of the American people. They will learn from their own experience. The young people at “elite” universities for the first time see a purpose, a serious political purpose not related to identity politics and cancel culture—but see themselves as involved in real politics to make a real difference in the world. And by so doing, saving their souls.
If young people do not have a purpose, ain’t no reason to live, purposefully. Suddenly they do. Suddenly they do. And you can’t shut them up; you can’t terrorize them, you can’t threaten them. I don’t give a damn how much money you got. So, a very fluid situation. Democratic Socialists of America—pretty much a wing of the Democratic Party, hardly socialist, supporting pro-war people—fluid situation.
Most Republicans knee-jerk would say, “Yeah, Israel has to do so and so and so forth.” Trump is ambiguous. His problem. And I attribute it not just to politics, but failure of moral clarity. You know, they all need Baldwin and Martin Luther King more than they need air.
Of course, Robert F. Kennedy—and we went to his event where he announced he’s going to run as an independent. Hey man, that’s a beautiful move, you’re exposing what this Democratic Party is. But then you’re going to use the talking points of Zionism, “Give them what they need.” Give them what they need? See, when you see a person talking out of two sides of their mouths—it’s a sign of moral duplicity. You’re an amoral, immoral human being. You’re a coward.
I don’t care how many weights you lift and push-ups you do and all that. Hey dog, on the outside you look one way, on the inside you’re nothing but a punk. I say that as a cat of his generation. We always looked at cats like him—privileged cats who could shoot dope and not go to jail and all of that—we always looked at them as punks. You’re nothing. And he proved it. You had the opportunity to stand for something and you retreated from it, at a critical time of peace and war in the world.
Cornel has literally made himself a non-factor in terms of election. But at least he has stood up on moral grounds against the Israeli regime, which puts his life in jeopardy, you know what I’m saying? But the U.S. people will demand more, and are demanding more.
This is a deepening of the ideological crisis of the ruling elite, which we have talked about. And most importantly, for now, of its capacity to wage war. And when we talk about war today, we’re talking about world war. Let’s not take any of this lightly; it is world war they are talking about. You don’t fight and China and Russia, both that have nuclear weapons, at the same time under the guise of “full-spectrum domination.” That’s some bullshit they started back in the Cold War, that we could fight “two-and-a-half wars at the same time.”
But you’re dealing with a different animal now. China and Russia, who are aligned, that have the support of the majority of the world’s population, often called—and I don’t like the word—the “Global South.” Just call it the globe. It ain’t just the South.
But anyway, this full spectrum domination—you can’t do it no more. You send an aircraft carrier into the South China Sea or the Taiwan Strait, it’s just a sitting duck. China will blow it away with a quickness. And you don’t want to go up into Russia.
Now, what do you do? The ruling class has two options: it’s either war, or peace. Every person, especially every leader of the people must take a stance. And again, I want to reiterate: the moral question. Every person, especially in the United States, the great war-maker. I guess I’ll have to use the Iranian slogan, “the great Satan.”
We have to make a moral stance. This will not end with the demonstrations—we have to go to the demonstration today— it further deepens the crisis of legitimacy and capacity of the U.S. ruling class to rule.
Biden said to the American people—every city has gone to austerity budgets ‘cause they can’t fund basic shit like fixing potholes in the street or funding schools or providing for the homeless.
So there’s cutbacks, there’s austerity, and this guy goes before a suffering and immiserated population. I don’t care what you see on the outside, people put their best faces on when they come outside. But at home, they ain’t doing that good. And the children in particular, and this guy’s gonna talk about a hundred and six billion dollars to fund war?
No. This is an outrage. And people will finally understand it. This is a moment of clarity, and people are dissatisfied. We want Biden to lose, but Trump—you ain’t going to just get in there behind the weakness of Biden, ‘cause they can surprise you. You have to stand for something. People are going to think about voting in ways that they never thought about voting.
Here in Philadelphia, we don’t even give a damn about the City Council, the mayor—they’re a bunch of what we call house Negroes. I could use the other N-word but I’m in mixed company.
We have utter contempt for them, and the voting pattern showed it in the primary. Seventy-five percent of registered black voters didn’t even show up. ‘Cause we don’t think they’re worth anything. And then to vote in City Council while people were protesting in the chamber to vote for a resolution that provides aid and comfort to a genocidal regime that is bombing hospitals? No. You can never, ever show your face among black folk who in our majority have always identified more with the Palestinians. People don’t understand this. For this reason, the Jewish establishment in the 1980s began to refer to black people as the most anti-Semitic group in the society. They called us anti-semites. And because our leadership had been bought off and silenced, no one except Farrakhan defended our dignity. They smeared us.
The Southern Poverty Law Center referred to our organizations, including the Nation of Islam, as anti-semitic and terrorist. They smeared us. We’re a poor people; we ain’t got nothing. They smeared and attacked us. And I’ll say it again, and again. It will take generations to repair the relationship between blacks and Jews based upon what they did to us.
I know how I feel about it, and I know the way a lot of other black people feel about it, and you know, most of us don’t have the platform to express ourselves, you know what I’m saying. And those people that listen to [black radio station] WURD—you would think everything is okay between blacks and Jews. It is not. We identify more with the Palestinians. And have, since the Six-Day War in 1967. We’ve been down with the Palestinians.
What’s happening, you hear black people saying, “Well what they’re doing to them, they want to do to us.” Because we’re segregated in almost Gaza-like, open-air prisons. Go to parts of the southside of Chicago; North Philly or West Philly; there are black people so cut off, they don’t know white people. And they see the white world as an enemy, as an oppressor. And then, the group that we had thought was more liberal towards us—and we used to think that. Back in the 50s and 60s, even the 40s—”The Jews have suffered and they will understand our suffering.”
Shit, they flipped that script. And now, they have to atone. They have to atone. We don’t have anything to apologize to them for, including the Million Man March. We can’t do anything unless they approve of it—that’s their mentality. And it’s something that only black folk will understand, because we’re the only ones they treat like that. There’s something about Zionists, that they like to attack weak people, poor people. I’m telling you; stand up to the ruling class? They ain’t going to do that—“We’re going to maneuver with them.” They don’t even stand up to the Christian right. But let a black person say something, “Oh, you gonna lose your job,” or “We going to find a way to search your tax records.”
I just want to end on one thing. This is why the Henry Winston event is going to be very important. The centrality of the struggle for black liberation. Why do you have to cut off, smear and attack the struggle for black liberation and then call us anti-semitic. Because, the American nation cannot move forward in the name of peace and justice for all people, without black folk. The great capacity—I say to Purba, you know, ‘cause she was asking about Robert Dickerson’s funeral and the brother from Yoruba—mentioned everybody but W.E.B. Du Bois—that’s a major weakness. And barely could mention Martin Luther King.
See, the question is, “Is there a Sky? Is there a way out?” Or are we forever trapped in this ghetto produced by the white supremacists? Do we have a fighting chance? There are many people who don’t believe we do. And they would say that pretty much all we have is our culture. “We have to go back to something before slavery, something even more ancient than that. We have to hold onto our values, because we’re lost everything.”
I understand it; I don’t agree with it. The oppressed always have a fighting chance. Always. But there has to be ideological clarity. Ideological and political clarity.
Can I just say one last thing? Because you know, we had gone, and Purba and Sambarta and Michelle, they’d never been to anything like that. So the whole time I’m whispering in their ear: “This is the unity of Christianity, Islam, and African religion.” Great, great thing, that was beautiful to see. Wonderful music. Great music, great dance. Children. But then, there were certain ideological weaknesses, you see what I’m saying? If I’d had a chance to speak, I would have said something different. I have a different worldview. And sometimes I think, and forgive me, I don’t want to seem self-centered.
But I’ve become something of a touchstone because I’ve been around so long. And I’ve never retreated from struggle. I don’t know why, but I never have. It’s a moral imperative. I guess, I picked it up from my mother, that she supported me when I was coming up and different political things—but, I’ve never retreated. I’ve never changed. I know somebody, I think Michelle asked Leo, ‘cause Leo, we’re from the same neighborhood—“What was Tony like when y’all was kids?” He said, “The same as he is now.” And I think it is very true. But, I’ve become a kind of touchstone. Because if you want to retreat, I’m not retreating. A lot of people don’t like me, a lot of people in the cultural nationalist movement, they don’t like me. And why they don’t like me, I don’t know. But it’s not in the jazz movement. In the, you know, Afro-centrists. But it is a worldview ideological struggle that goes back to my youth—never changed.
So you can’t ride two horses going in opposite directions; you have to choose. If you believe there is no way out. There is no fight worth fighting. There is nothing we can do. Then, I’m your—I’ll put it this way—I’m your opponent. ‘Cause I believe there is something that can be done. A lot of people leave the Free School, and they say, you know, “Well, you all want to talk about China and the world and all, and I don’t want to do that.” Okay, leave. I will find a way to regroup and move forward. And I believe, like the Free School, that there is a Sky. We can win. That the contradictions inherent in an oppressive system create opportunities for the most oppressed to break through.
But ideological clarity. And that means the churches, the mosques, the religious communities must fight for ideological clarity. It’s not enough to talk about African culture. What Africa? Who in Africa? We got to be clear. All Africans, even civilizationally—there are multiple civilizations in Africa—it is the foundation of world civilization, of world languages. So everybody on the same page?—I don’t think so. We have to be clear if we are to fight, and that’s my point. And that’s what I was saying to Purba—I was trying to explain different things to them in this beautiful celebration of the life of Robert Dickerson, a great friend of the Free School.
There was nothing, that we would ask of Robert and Wanda they wouldn’t do. And most times, free, I mean bringing The Ebonys, bringing their dancers, to our events, free. This is the kind of people they are. And why would he associate with me, you know. People know who I am, what my history is, you know. Why? And that’s something I’ll never forget.
They were always—I can’t tell you. I couldn’t believe how kind and generous they were to us. In the celebration of the year of W.E.B. Du Bois. Everything.
Avant-Garde: A Journal of Peace, Democracy, and Science 
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