Really nice letter Chuck. .......... "Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman,"  how those names still resonate with us old-timers. It's gratifying  seeing someone who was helped   during those trying times thanking those who offered support as friends and equals.  Should help put to rest some of the nonsense posted here about Jews and the Civil Rights movement.
But what about Israel and the Palestinians?  Looking at Malcom's letter,  the key statement, I believe, concerns  criticism of Israel:   "Such criticism is not inevitably anti-Semitic."
Certainly, many of those who welcomed the creation of the state of Israel after the horror  of the Holocaust, and who regarded Jews as, as you say, "friendly, thoughtful, humanitarians" have been disappointed seeing Israeli settlers steadily encroaching on land most of the world regards as rightfully belonging to  the Palestinians.   
This seems to be the inevitable result of the  Zionist myth "A land without a people for a people without a land."