When I was covering Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign for the Chicago Tribune, I noticed that nothing energized African-American crowds like the sight of Jackson and Minister Louis Farrakhan joined in unity. There was Farrakhan, the disciple of a separatist, Elijah Muhammad, and Jackson, the protégée of an integrationist, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Yet, here they were together—the Muslim leader from the North and self-styled “Country Preacher” from the South—exhorting African-Americans to support Jackson’s long-shot candidacy and traveling to the Middle East to obtain the release of Lt. Robert Goodman, the Navy bomber pilot who had been shot down while flying over Syria. If Farrakhan and Jackson could get along, it was thought, the prospect of Black unity was within our grasp.

Of course, that partnership was short-lived. Despite having told his campaign staff that he would never repudiate Minister Farrakhan, Jackson, did just that.

Jackson cut his tie with the Nation of Islam leader after Farrakhan described the creation of Israel as “an outlaw act.” A reporter quoted Farrakhan as saying that Israel “will never have any peace structured on injustice, lying and deceit and using the name of God to shield your gutter [he actually said dirty] religion under His holy and righteous name.”

Jackson, in the middle of a trip to free Cuban political prisoners, called Farrakhan’s comments “reprehensible and morally indefensible.”

And things have never been the same. Farrakhan told me that not only did Jackson distance him on the political front, but when the two appeared in public, Jackson would make sure he would be on the opposite side of the stage to make sure that the two of them would not be photographed together.

With tensions boiling in the Middle East, the two leaders, both of whom have met privately with Yasser Arafat, are taking different approaches to helping bring about peace in that region.

Jackson, in a recent column syndicated by the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service, wrote “An Open Letter to Yasser Arafat.” He urged the PLO leader “to call not simply for the end to the terrorist bombings, but for a new commitment to nonviolence as a means to achieve Palestinian statehood.”

Jackson wrote, “Nonviolent resistance recognizes the humanity of your opponents. It challenges their moral sensibility, not their military capacity. It forces them to recognize your humanity. And because it demonstrates your discipline, your commitment, your love of life—it lays the basis for co-existence rather than co-annihilation.”

At a press conference on April 2, the Nation of Islam leader dispensed with Jackson’s “We Shall Overcome” rhetoric of the 1960s and put the onus directly on Israel and its primary benefactor, the United States.

“In the recent Arab League Summit, which he [Arafat] should have been able to attend, he could not attend without Israeli permission,” Farrakhan noted. “You’ve reduced him. Not only in the eyes of the American people and other administrations of governments, you have done the worst thing of all; you have reduced him in the eyes of his own people.”

Farrakhan seeks a different approach.

“If America wants to get Mr. Arafat to stop the so-called suicide bombings, America must encourage Israel to give him something to use as leverage to reign in the more extreme elements of his own people,” Farrakhan suggested. “You give him nothing but demand of him everything.

“What can you give him? You could say to him, ‘Chairman Arafat, we will stop all building of settlements on the West Bank. We will stop bulldozing Palestinian homes, assassinating Palestinian leaders and confiscating Palestinian land.”

Unlike Jackson, Farrakhan also observed how each side is portrayed in the media.

“Those that throw stones at tanks, those that use AK47s are not even called Palestinian defenders. They are called gunmen by the American media. Those men and women and children that are strapping themselves with bombs are called terrorists. Yet, the 70,000 people that live in Ramallah, are they terrified to see tanks, to see helicopter gun ships, to see F16s? Of course, they are. But this is called (Israeli) self-defense while a whole lot of people (Palestinians) are being terrorized.”

On the campaign trail, Jackson liked to remind crowds that when everyone else was talking about freeing Lt. Goodman, “I went and got him.”

Now, it is Farrakhan who doing the traveling, with scheduled visits to Africa and the Middle East. And while the Nation of Islam leader travels abroad, Jesse Jackson has been left behind talking, using language more suited for past civil rights battles than the war that is now at Arafat’s doorstep.