“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews, You are talking anti-Semitism!”

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a discussion at the home of Marty Peretz in Cambridge, Massachusetts (27 October 1967), as quoted in The Socialism of Fools : The Left, the Jews and Israel by Seymour Martin Lipset in Encounter magazine (December 1969), p. 24; in the anecdotal recounting of the incident Lipset writes:
: One of the young men present happened to make some remark against the Zionists. Dr. King snapped at him and said, "Don't talk like that! When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking anti-Semitism!"
The accuracy and authenticity of this quote was disputed at "The Use and Abuse of Martin Luther King Jr. by Israel's Apologists" by Fadi Kiblawi and Will Youmans at Counterpunch (17 January 2004) http://www.counterpunch.org/kiblawi01172004.html and there is also said to be a speech attributed to King based on this quote which is a hoax, as well as a report which includes criticism of Wikiquote's labeling of this controversial quotation as "Disputed" in "Sorry, Dr. King Did Not Consider You an Enlightened Anti-Zionist. Deal With it." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/douglas-anthony-cooper/martin-luther-king_b_1091950.html by Douglas Anthony Cooper at The Huffington Post (18 November 2011). Further corroboration of Lipset's account of such remarks by King has been made in research done by Martin Kramer posted in "In the words of Martin Luther King…" in his Sandbox (12 March 2012) http://www.martinkramer.org/sandbox/2012/03/in-the-words-of-martin-luther-king. In this he states that he wrote to Marty Peretz "to ask whether the much-quoted exchange did take place at his Cambridge home on that evening almost 45 years ago. His answer: 'Absolutely'."
Disputed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Ci… 1929–1968

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“However, [Novick] does not account for the reality that views of Israel as being "beleaguered" are part of the same Zionist and Israeli strategy positing rising anti-Semitism to garner more support and immigration to Israel after the pool of immigrants had dried up in the mid-1950s. His point is that the perception of anti-Semitism is what led to more talk of the holocaust. However, it is this causal relationship that is suspect. One could posit that perceptions of a "beleaguered Israel," "oppressed" Soviet Jews, and the new "anti-Semitism," as well as talk of the holocaust, are all part of the same phenomenon rather than being caused by each other. One could further posit a different causal relationship with much of the same evidence Novick provides: namely, that it is Zionism, Israel, and America's use of past Jewish victimization to advance the Zionist agenda that informs the exaggeration of the relatively mild Soviet discriminatory policies against Jews (among other national and religious groups facing similiar discrimination) as holocaustal, the presentation of Israel as a victim of the new Arab "anti-Semites," or the condemnation of any criticism of American Jewry's support for Zionism or any criticism of Israel as "anti-Semitic."”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness"

“I'm not anti-Semitic. My Gospels are not anti-Semitic. I've shown it to many Jews and they're like, it's not anti-Semitic. It's interesting that the people who say it's anti-Semitic say that before they saw the film, and they said the same thing after they saw the film.”

Mel Gibson (1956) American actor, film director, producer and screenwriter

"Gibson: I'm not anti-Semitic", Tom Tugend, Jerusalem Post, February 9, 2004

“Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

On Israel, America and AIPAC (2007)
Context: One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it.
Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel's policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel's policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby's success in suppressing divergent views.

“European anti-Semites, Zionism believes that European Jews, unlike European Christians, are not Europeans but foreigners who need to leave Europe to its 'real' people and be 'repatriated' to their own state in Palestine. Today's Israeli Jewish supremacists are reviving anti-Semitic ideas of the turn of the century that had accused Jews of seeking to control the world. From the infamous czarist Protocols of the Elders of Zion to genocidal Nazi propaganda, Jews as a 'power-hungry' people was a notion that was part and parcel of the anti-Semitic lexicon. Today's Israeli Jewish supremacists seem to agree with the anti-Semites that, if Jews do not control the world, they at least control America.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

“But you will never catch Sir Oswald [Mosley] admitting to anti-Semitism. All he does is embody it. He talked of 'the use of Jewish money power to promote a world war.' Taxed on this point, he disclaimed anti-Semitism, by saying that he meant 'not all Jews, but some Jews.' That's as far as he will ever reduce his estimate. The truth, of course, is that the real number of Jews responsible for World War II was zero.”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist

'The Truly Strong Man'
Essays and reviews, The Crystal Bucket (1982)

“Anybody that gives even a just criticism of the Jew is instantly labeled antisemite. The Jew cries louder than anybody else if anybody criticizes him. You can tell the truth about any minority in America, but make a true observation about the Jew, and if it doesn’t pat him on the back, then he uses his grip on the news media to label you anti-Semite.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

May 1963 interview with Playboy, according to 2007 Dictionary of Antisemitism https://books.google.ca/books?id=d5927rY-UgoC&pg=PA289

“Whenever Israel faces a public relations debacle such as the Intifada or international pressure to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, American Jewish organizations orchestrate this extravaganza called the 'new anti-Semitism.' The purpose is several-fold. First, it is to discredit any charges by claiming the person is an anti-Semite. It's to turn Jews into the victims, so that the victims are not the Palestinians any longer. As people like Abraham Foxman of the ADL put it, the Jews are being threatened by a new holocaust. It's a role reversal – the Jews are now the victims, not the Palestinians. So it serves the function of discrediting the people leveling the charge. It's no longer Israel that needs to leave the Occupied Territories; it's the Arabs who need to free themselves of the anti-Semitism.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9035
Other sourced statements

“The anti-Semites will become our most dependable friends, the anti-Semitic countries our allies. We want to emigrate as respected people.”

Theodor Herzl (1860–1904) Austro-Hungarian journalist and writer

The Complete Diaries, p. 84

“There are a large number of claims circulating about rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. When you go actually go through the records, talk to the schools, speak to the deans and so forth, all of these claims turn out to be fraudulent. There’s just no record of this so-called rampant anti-Semitism on college campuses. The most striking example is Columbia University where […] pro-Israel outsiders were disrupting the classrooms of these professors [falsely accued of anti-Semitism], secretly video-taping their lectures and being turned, as the Columbia Report put it, into informers for the pro-Israel lobby. The real story was the harassment of professors who were critical of Israeli policy.”

Norman G. Finkelstein (1953) American political scientist and author

http://www.peuplesmonde.com/article.php3?id_article=381 Interview with Norman Finkelstein]
Other sourced statements

“Due to Zionist tactics of silencing any Jewish criticisms within US Jewish organizations, and their threats to their opponents at the convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in June 1943, Reform Rabbi Louis Wolsey, a fierce anti-Zionist, feared that the prominent American Zionist Rabbi Stephen Wise had 'revealed by his tyranny over the non-conformist what the Zionists would do to the Arabs.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

“When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews, You are talking anti-Semitism!”

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Martin Luther King, Jr. 658

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