Jackson Carried Off On the Shoulders of Arabs After Speech

Associated Press

Transcribed from the clipping

“NABLUS, Occupied West Bank (AP) — The Rev. Jesse Jackson fired up a Palestinian crowd to a screaming pitch today with black pride chants in the heart of the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River. The Arabs later carried him off on their shoulders, chanting, ‘Jackson! Arafat!’

‘Do not put symbols over substance, do not allow acts of terror to divert you from a homeland,’ Jackson said after receiving a tumultuous welcome from an overflow crowd of hundreds at the Nablus town hall.

The Palestinian crowd chanted, ‘Palestine is Arabic!’ and raised V-for-victory signs in a reception that contrasted with the cold shoulder the Israeli government gave Jackson because of his support of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Speaking through an interpreter who translated his remarks into Arabic, Jackson supported the Palestinian goal of a homeland but said West Bankers should reassess their tactics, taking the black struggle for civil rights in America as a model.

‘We became disciplined and determined, and nothing could stop us from achieving our human rights and our place in the sun and self-determination,’ he said. ‘You are very close to freedom and liberation,’ he said.

Jackson repeated the message he stressed to Israelis earlier in his tour: ‘Somebody must have the strength to break the cycle of terror and pain.’ Some Palestinians in the crowd shook their heads as Jackson urged moderation, implying criticism of the radical sentiment which prevails in Nablus, the largest city in the West Bank and the most nationalistic.

But Jackson roused the crowd to a screaming pitch with a civil rights cheer: ‘I am somebody!. We can win! We ought to win!. We must win!.’ The crowd reverted to Palestinian slogans as they carried the American from the room on their shoulders chanting ‘Jackson! Arafat!’

Jackson will meet PLO chief Yasser Arafat when he goes to Lebanon after visiting Jordan. Starting his day in Jerusalem, Jackson condemned terrorism in a sermon to about 150 worshipers at the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in the Old City.

‘I shall appeal to the PLO to stop their tactics of terrorism, to recognize Israel’s right and need to exist, to articulate its own goal for self-determination and a homeland and to fight for peaceful coexistence,’ Jackson said.

Earlier, two American Jews traveling with Jackson attacked his motives for the trip after the black leader canceled a meeting with the leader of the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries.

Raymond Mallal, an executive member of the world Sephardi Federation, and Phillip Blazer, publisher of the Los Angeles magazine ‘Israel Today,’ both accused Jackson of using the trip to the Mideast to advance his own political career in the United States.

Blazer claimed to be a good friend of Jackson since the two organizaed opposition to the pro-Nazi march in Skokie, Ill., in April 1978, but Jackson has said that he ‘hardly knows’ Blazer.

In Israeli press reports published today, Jackson retorted that Blazer was using Jackson’s tour in order to get press coverage of Blazer’s publishing and public relations activities.

The Israeli government has turned a cold shoulder to the visiting delegation and Prime Minister Menachem Begin refused to meet them because he considered the group’s pro-PLO leanings antagonistic.”

Context added by this archive

The clearest document in this archive of an American civil rights leader offering the Black American movement to Palestinians as a model, and of Palestinians answering.

Jackson tells a crowd in Nablus to take the black struggle for civil rights in America as their method, leads them in I am somebody, and is carried out of the town hall on their shoulders while they chant his name and Arafat’s. The copy also records that some in the crowd shook their heads at him.

Cite this item

"Jackson Carried Off On the Shoulders of Arabs After Speech," The Grand Rapids Press, 26 September 1979. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1979-011. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1979-011