[Peace-discuss] London Mayor Criticizes Israel, Haaretz Responds

[David Green]

Message: 2         
   Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 10:48:15 -0600
   From: Martha Reese <martha at martinreese.com>
Subject: Guardian: Ken Livingstone op-ed on Israel,
Palestinians (March 
4, 05)

This is about Israel, not anti-semitism

Not to speak out against this injustice would not only
be wrong. It 
would
ignore the threat it poses to us all


Ken Livingstone--Mayor of London
Guardian
Friday March 4, 2005


Racism is a uniquely reactionary ideology, used to
justify the greatest
crimes in history - the slave trade, the extermination
of all original
inhabitants of the Caribbean, the elimination of every
native 
inhabitant of
Tasmania, apartheid. The Holocaust was the ultimate,
"industrialised"
expression of racist barbarity.

Racism serves as the cutting edge of the most
reactionary movements. An
ideology that starts by declaring one human being
inferior to another 
is the
slope whose end is at Auschwitz. That is why I detest
racism.

No serious commentator has argued that my comments to
an Evening 
Standard
reporter outside City Hall last month were
anti-semitic. So I am glad 
that
Henry Grunwald, president of the Board of Deputies of
British Jews, 
accepted
on these pages that "Ken is sincere when he states
that he regards the
Holocaust as the worst crime of the last century".

The contribution of Jewish people to human
civilisation and culture is
unexcelled and extraordinary. You only have to think
of giants such as
Einstein, Freud and Marx to realise that human
civilisation would be
unrecognisably diminished without the achievements of
the Jewish 
people. The
same goes for the Jewish contribution to London today.

As mayor, I have pressed for police action over
anti-semitic attacks at 
the
highest level, and my administration has backed a
series of initiatives 
of
importance to the Jewish community, including hosting
the Anne Frank
exhibition at City Hall and measures to ensure the
go-ahead for the 
north
London eruv.

Throughout the 1970s, I worked happily with the Board
of Deputies in
campaigns against the National Front. Problems began
when, as leader of 
the
Greater London Council, I rejected the board's request
that I should 
fund
only Jewish organisations that it approved of. The
Board of Deputies 
was
unhappy that I funded Jewish organisations campaigning
for gay rights 
and
others that disagreed with policies of the Israeli
government.

Relations with the board took a dramatic turn for the
worse when I 
opposed
Israel's illegal invasion of Lebanon, culminating in
the massacres at 
the
Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila. The board also
opposed my
involvement in the successful campaign in 1982 to
convince the Labour 
party
to recognise the PLO as the legitimate voice of the
Palestinian people.

The fundamental issue on which we differ, as Henry
Grunwald knows, is 
not
anti-semitism - which my administration has fought
tooth and nail - but 
the
policies of successive Israeli governments.

To avoid manufactured misunderstandings, the policies
of Israeli 
governments
are not analogous to Nazism. They do not aim at the
systematic 
extermination
of the Palestinian people, in the way Nazism sought
the annihilation of 
the
Jews.

Israel's expansion has included ethnic cleansing.
Palestinians who had 
lived
in that land for centuries were driven out by
systematic violence and 
terror
aimed at ethnically cleansing what became a large part
of the Israeli 
state.
The methods of groups like the Irgun and the Stern
gang were the same 
as
those of the Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic: to drive
out people by 
terror.

Today the Israeli government continues seizures of
Palestinian land for
settlements, military incursions into surrounding
countries and denial 
of
the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to
return. Ariel Sharon,
Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should
be in prison, not 
in
office. Israel's own Kahan commission found that
Sharon shared
responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Sharon continues to organise terror. More than three
times as many
Palestinians as Israelis have been killed in the
present conflict. 
There are
more than 7,000 Palestinians in Israel's jails.

To obscure these truths, those around Israel's present
government have
resorted to demonisation. Initial targets were
Palestinians, and have 
now
become Muslims. Take the Middle East Media Research
Institute, run by a
former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, which
poses as a 
source of
objective information but in reality selectively
translates material 
from
Arabic and presents Muslims and Arabs in the worst
possible light.

Today the Israeli government is helping to promote a
wholly distorted
picture of racism and religious discrimination in
Europe, implying that 
the
most serious upsurge of hatred and discrimination is
against Jews.

All racist and anti-semitic attacks must be stamped
out. However, the
reality is that the great bulk of racist attacks in
Europe today are on
black people, Asians and Muslims - and they are the
primary targets of 
the
extreme right. For 20 years Israeli governments have
attempted to 
portray
anyone who forcefully criticises the policies of
Israel as 
anti-semitic. The
truth is the opposite: the same universal human values
that recognise 
the
Holocaust as the greatest racist crime of the 20th
century require
condemnation of the policies of successive Israeli
governments - not on 
the
absurd grounds that they are Nazi or equivalent to the
Holocaust, but
because ethnic cleansing, discrimination and terror
are immoral.

They are also fuelling anger and violence across the
world. For a mayor 
of
London not to speak out against such injustice would
not only be wrong 
- but
would also ignore the threat it poses to the security
of all Londoners.


· Ken Livingstone is the London mayor
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005


[This message contained attachments]



________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message: 3         
   Date: Fri, 04 Mar 2005 10:41:55 -0600
   From: Martha Reese <martha at martinreese.com>
Subject: Please write thanks to London Mayor Ken
Livingstone (Sharon, 
Palestinians...)

P L E A S E   D I S T R I B U T E   W I D E L Y

The Haaretz article below describes recent comments by
London Mayor Ken
Livingstone on Sharon, Palestinians. Your message of
support to Ken
Livingstone is particularly helpful at this time.

Ken Livingstone
Mayor, City of London, England
mayor at london.gov.uk


* **

London mayor brands Sharon a war criminal
By Haaretz Service
www.haaretz.com
Friday, March 4, 2005
           
           
The dispute between London mayor Ken Livingstone and
Britain's Jewish
leaders was reignited Thursday night when Livingstone
branded Ariel 
Sharon a
war criminal, the Independent reported on Friday.
           
Livingstone launched a provocative critique of Israel
with accusations 
of
"ethnic cleansing" and demonizing Muslims before
calling for the
imprisonment of its prime minister, according to the
British daily.

The comments were made two weeks after the London
mayor controversially
likened a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp
guard.

Livingstone has refused to apologize for his comments,
repeatedly
emphasising his anti-racist stance and denying that
his words were
anti-Semitic, the Independent reported.

His comments on Israel came to light in a written
response to criticism
levelled at him by the Board of Deputies of British
Jews which was 
published
in Friday's Guardian.

"Israel's expansion includes ethnic cleansing," he
wrote. "Palestinians 
who
had lived in that land for centuries were driven out
by systematic 
violence
and terror aimed at ethnically cleansing what became a
large part of 
the
Israeli state."

He added: "Today the Israeli government continues
seizures of 
Palestinian
land for settlements, military incursions into
surrounding countries 
and
denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror
to return.

"Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war
criminal who should be 
in
prison not in office."

His comments are unlikely to ease already fraught
relations between the
mayor and the Jewish community in Britain.

Tensions came to light last year when Livingstone
invited the Muslim 
cleric
Yusuf al-Qaradawi to speak at a conference in London,
the Independent
reported.

However, at the crux of the current conflict are
comments made by the 
mayor
to Finegold, a reporter at the Evening Standard, last
month. His 
refusal to
apologise for his remarks led to a media storm that
culminated in the 
demand
by Zvi Heifetz, Israel's ambassador to Britain, for an
apology for 
"abusing"
the memory of the six million Jews who perished in the
Holocaust.

"By using such flippant language, Livingstone not only
seriously abused 
the
memories of all those Jews who survived the
concentration camps, but 
also
the British troops who died fighting the Nazis and
their families," he 
said.

Livingstone has stood by his decision that he was not
going to 
apologise for
his words. At one stage, he said that his words were
"not intended to 
cause
offence" and had no intention of trivialising the
Holocaust. But he 
added:
"The form of words I have used are right. I have
nothing to apologise 
for."

Thursday, there was again no sign of apology in
Livingstone's comments. 
He
also claimed in his article that the Israeli
government presented a 
"wholly
distorted picture of racism and religious
discrimination in Europe in 
order
to convey the impression that Jews suffer most
discrimination.

"The reality is that the great bulk of racist attacks
in Europe today 
are on
black people, Asians and Muslims - and they are the
primary targets of 
the
extreme right."

A spokesman for the Board of Deputies told The
Guardian: "Once again 
the
mayor has shown an inability to understand and show
consideration for 
the
Jewish community."