Ta-Nehisi Coates, a Black award-winning writer, thinker and head of the English Department at Howard University, continues to draw fire from Jewish and Zionist groups over his new book, “The Message.”
The book includes three essays about a journey he takes to South Carolina, Senegal and Israel. His visit to and explorations of conditions in the Zionist state are the longest of the essays.
Attacks have come because of his honest analysis of the inequalities and dehumanizing treatment Palestinians suffer. He spent 10 days in Israel, including the West Bank, and saw how Palestinians are humiliated and oppressed.
It reminded him of the legal mistreatment and degradation of Black people in America under segregation and the Black fight to get free of enslavement.
Comparing the abuses heaped on Blacks to Israeli abuses heaped on Palestinians drew strong Zionist condemnations and challenges.
Now a man lauded as a leading intellectual and analyst of race was unqualified to think about and write about parallels between his people in America and Palestinians, who essentially have no rights the Jewish state and its Jewish citizens are bound to respect.
“I would argue what Israeli society is, which is to say segregated, and this runs across the board, and I really, really want to emphasize this because people, for instance, often talk about Palestinian Israeli citizens, but they actually are second class citizens,” said Coates in a MSNBC interview with host Ali Velshi.
“They don’t have the same marriage rights … whole communities in Israel proper have the right by law, I want to emphasize this by law, to discriminate against Palestinian citizens for reasons of what they call custom or culture. We call that redlining in America, right?
“But even redlining wasn’t in federal law, and we are supporting this. We are bankrolling this at the very same time that we run around and talk about our great legacy of overcoming segregation, overcoming slavery, and Martin Luther King is our patron saint,” he continued.
If this is the treatment of citizens, can you imagine the plight of Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel but are ruled by Israel?
Palestinians in the West Bank must travel on separate roads from Jews, and endure roadblocks or questioning from Israeli Defense Force soldiers or Zionist settlers at any time. They must get legal permission from Israeli authorities to collect rainwater. These permissions are rarely granted by the way.
In America, there were separate water fountains for Blacks and Whites, but in the West Bank water from the sky is separated for Israelis and Palestinians, Coates noted in the MSNBC interview.
The Jewish onslaught against Coates started during an encounter with Tony Dokoupil, a Jewish co-host on CBS Mornings. Dokoupil accused Coates of extremism saying, “If I took your name out of it, took away the awards, and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away—the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.”
Dokoupil was belligerent. He was insulting. He was clearly pro-Israel in his perspective and point of view. He never cites anything in the book, not a sentence nor a paragraph to justify his extremism claim. He asks Coates if Israel has the right to exist and demands to know what bothers him so much about Israel?
Coates says he felt the media had lied to him about realities in Israel, that he opposes any ethno-nation state where rights and benefits are doled out based on race or ethnicity. All states maintain their existence through military means and Israel exists and has done the same, he added.
But there was clear paternalism and a bit of racism in the questions from the Jewish host who was given permission to exhibit such conduct as Black co-hosts Gayle King and Nate Burleson said nothing.
Dokoupil is given credit for acting as a “Jewish journalist,” not faking any objectivity, not looking at both sides nor showing fairness. As a Zionist, he is empowered to ask biased questions and even launch attacks and little wrong is seen in that.
Dokoupil was briefly chided by CBS News but that was pretty much rescinded by Shari Redstone, chair of Paramount Global, which owns CBS. She declared Dokoupil performed a “great job” and should not have been reprimanded for not meeting editorial standards. She is also Jewish.
Others followed arguing and writing in the Washington Post, New York Times and elsewhere that Dokoupil was right and asked hard questions. You will never see mainstream Black journalists permitted to do this when talking about the atrocities we have suffered. They tiptoe gingerly around the issue of race and go out of their way to not let their Blackness show.
One of the latest attackers is the American Jewish Committee Global Voice, which blasted Coates, denying Gaza is a “ ‘giant open-air jail,’ where Palestinians face the constant risk of being ‘shot’ by Israeli forces.”
All these things are true and have been documented by Palestinians suffering in this living hell as well as being subjected to indiscriminate bombings, starvation, abductions and as CNN reported Oct. 24, being used as human shields by Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza. They were forced into buildings and places the IDF felt could be booby-trapped under the threat of being shot to death if they did not obey.
Human rights organizations, Jewish Voices for Peace, the international courts and other nations have condemned the Israelis’ horrible acts and crimes against humanity.
Coates “comparing the African American experience in America to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nonsensical. … What is happening in Israel cannot be compared to the American quest to abolish slavery, the civil rights struggle, or the South African movement to end apartheid,” declared AJC Global News.
It’s interesting that anything Israel does can be justified. Her killings, rapes, disappearances, detentions, destruction of homes and lives—even purposely shooting children in the head—can be forgotten.
The problem is Ta-Nehisi Coates refused to unsee realities placed before his eyes—and refused to hide the truth that he saw.
