| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fredric L. Rice" |
| Date: |
06 Mar 2005 03:53:45 PM |
| Object: |
Jewish State Leader labeled a War Crimnial |
London Mayor Assails Israeli Leader
By John Daniszewski and Janet Stobart
Los Angeles Times
Saturday 05 March 2005
Denying bias, he calls Sharon a war criminal. Weeks before, he laid
into a Jewish reporter.
London - Mayor Ken Livingstone sparked anger from Israel on Friday
for labeling Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon a war criminal less
than a month after comparing a Jewish reporter for a British newspaper
to a concentration camp guard.
Writing in the left-wing Guardian newspaper, Livingstone responded
to criticism for the earlier remark, citing what he said was his long
record of opposition to anti-Semitism. But then he launched a harsh
attack on the "ethnic cleansing" policies of the Israeli government.
"Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who
should be in prison, not in office," Livingstone wrote. He also
lambasted Israel's seizure of Palestinian land for settlements,
military incursions into neighboring countries and denial of the right
of return for Palestinians, who he said were "expelled by terror."
The comments were reported in Israel just as the Sabbath was about
to fall. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the
mayor's observations were "not worthy of an Israeli response." The
Haaretz newspaper said on its website that the remarks were "unlikely
to ease already fraught relations between the mayor and the Jewish
community in Britain."
In London, Israel's ambassador, Zvi Heifetz, said the mayor was
trying to divert criticism away from his earlier remarks, which
several Jewish groups said were deplorable because they trivialized
the Holocaust.
"The mayor feels the need to emphasize that he's not an
anti-Semite, but only anti-Israeli," Heifetz told the BBC. "We trust
the public to know better and see what stands behind his strategy."
Livingstone resisted calls to apologize for his remarks last month
that compared a reporter for the Evening Standard newspaper to a
concentration camp guard. Prime Minister Tony Blair was among those
who urged him publicly to say he was sorry.
It all began at a party Livingstone threw in honor of former
Culture Secretary Chris Smith to mark the 20th anniversary of Smith's
coming out as the nation's first openly gay lawmaker.
Asked by Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold how the party
went, Livingstone at first refused to reply, said Finegold, who
captured the exchange on tape.
At Finegold's repeated question, "Was it a good party? What does
it mean for you?" Livingstone finally said, "What did you do before?
Were you a German war criminal?"
Finegold replied, "No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal,
and I'm actually quite offended by that. So how did tonight go?"
"Ah, right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a
concentration camp guard. You are just doing it because you are paid
to, aren't you?" Livingstone said.
The mayor said later that he would not apologize for standing up
to what he considered an abusive reporter. "I'm not going to apologize
if I don't believe it. I don't believe I've done anything wrong," he
said.
The 59-year-old Livingstone, sometimes called "Red Ken," is given
to blunt and controversial statements.
He led the Greater London Council during the 1980s, becoming a
nemesis of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She had the council
abolished.
Livingstone broke with the Labor Party to run for mayor in 2000 as
an independent and was elected handily. In spite of his reputation as
a maverick, he has been a popular mayor and secured a second term last
year.
As mayor, his major innovation has been introducing the congestion
charge, a fee that motorists must pay to drive in central London
during peak hours. The fee has curtailed traffic jams, and Livingstone
wants to expand the program.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to Original
This is about Israel, Not Anti-Semitism
By Ken Livingstone
The Guardian U.K.
Friday 04 March 2005
Not to speak out against this injustice would not only be wrong. It
would ignore the threat it poses to us all.
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 governmen.
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.
---
http://www.ElmerFudd.US/ http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
Scientology murder: http://PerkinsTragedy.org
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