When Corbyn’s Labour Party shames the evangelical church

This is a guest post by David Watkins.
We are all now familiar with Ken Livingstone’s controversial claim that

when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.

Thanks to three fine pieces by Paul Bogdanor, we also now know a whole lot more about Livingstone’s “source” for this claim – the anti-Semitic Trotskyist propagandist Lenni Brenner, whose writings have been published by the neo-Nazi Noontide Press. As Bogdanor concludes here, “Brenner is a propagandist, not a historian, and only a fool or a knave would rely on his books.”
As Dave Rich explains here, Livingstone

…was simply regurgitating Trotskyist propaganda that first appeared on the British left in the 1980s and had a strong influence on him. This propaganda cherry-picks examples of contact and negotiations between Zionists and Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s and uses them to place Zionism and Nazism alongside each other, as if they are somehow connected.
Hitler never wanted Jewish rights or self-determination, he wanted the exact opposite. Some Zionists thought they could save Jewish lives by negotiating with Nazis, but this was an act of desperation and nothing more… Mr Livingstone… ignores all this to make his ugly political defamation of Zionism, the very movement that Jews invented as an answer to anti-Semitism.

The affair brings to mind another public figure, also no stranger to accusations of anti-Semitism, who has made a similar claim to that made by Livingstone. On page 243 of his book Christian Zionism: Roadmap to Armageddon? (Inter-Varsity Press, 2004), Stephen Sizer makes the following claim:

…in the 1930s the German Zionist Federation, the Stern Gang and Vladimir Jabotinsky, the founder of revisionist Zionism [i.e. various Zionist groups and leaders], were all sympathetic towards fascism, or collaborated with the Nazis.

Sizer’s source is the same as Livingstone’s: Lenni Brenner. The outcome is the same too. By relying on an anti-Semitic source to link Zionism with Nazism, Sizer – like Livingstone – makes an anti-Semitic statement. That Ken Livingstone and Stephen Sizer should make similar, anti-Semitic claims is unsurprising. What is interesting is the respective reactions to each, from their closest political and/or doctrinal allies. Despite doing so reluctantly, despite remaining in denial about Labour’s anti-Semitism problem (and for all that some continue to dismiss concerns about anti-Semitism as “smears” or as “cynical attempts” to undermine his leadership), Jeremy Corbyn has at least suspended Livingstone pending an investigation, and has set up a fuller inquiry into anti-Semitism (and other forms of racism) within the Labour party. Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has called upon Livingstone toapologise; it remains to be seen whether Livingstone will be banned for life, which appears to be McDonnell’s preferred option. For Sadiq Khan, “Ken Livingstone’s comments are appalling and inexcusable. There must be no place for this in our Party.” Lower down the Labour food chain, a group of London Assembly candidates and council leaders have called for Livingstone’s expulsion.

Such measures and statements are seen by many as half-hearted and flawed. But here’s the thing: these Labour figures have at least said and done something, rather than nothing. They have at least given the impression that they care about the issue. Now let us compare this with the reaction to Stephen Sizer by the conservative evangelical Christian leaders with whom he identifies most closely. It is of course true that Sizer was eventually disciplined by the Anglican hierarchy. However, Sizer identifies himself as a conservative evangelical, and so it is instructive to examine the response to his statement (and other actions) by other conservative evangelical leaders, and compare this with the response to anti-Semitism from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

Sizer’s linking of Zionism with Nazism, and his citation of Lenni Brenner, did not prevent his book being published by Inter-Varsity Press (IVP), probably the leading conservative evangelical publishing house in Britain. (Nor, for that matter, did his citation on pp. 21-22 (and on Press TV) of Holocaust Denier Dale Crowley; nor his subtle insinuation of Israeli complicity in 9/11 in a footnote on p.251.) They did not prevent the book being warmly endorsed by a number of high-profile conservative evangelical leaders, including the late John Stott, the well-known preacher Dick Lucas, the former Principal of Oak Hill Theological College David Peterson, and the trainer, pastor and writer Graham Beynon. IVP later invited Sizer to write a second book on the subject for a more popular audience, Zion’s Christian Soldiers? (IVP, 2008). Whereas Ken Livingstone was suspended from the Labour Party for relying on Lenni Brenner to link Zionism with Nazism, conservative evangelicals did not bad an eyelid when Stephen Sizer did the same.


In fairness, we would not necessarily expect the average evangelical theologian, reviewing a book, to be familiar with Trotskyist anti-Semitism, still less to know about Lenni Brenner. Why wouldn’t they take Sizer’s claim at face value? (A respectable Christian publisher has less excuse, however, for not checking the source of an inflammatory statement.) Twelve years on, however, the evidence of Stephen Sizer’s anti-Semitism is inescapable. He has

• forwarded material written by 9/11 conspiracy theorists and Holocaust Deniers
  
• linked to numerous racist websites and given an interview to another
  
• labelled photographs of Israeli soldiers “Herod’s soldiers operating in Bethlehem today“, mirroring the classic anti-Semitic accusation that all Jews are Christ-killers
  
• promoted, via an interview on his Vimeo site, a boycott of four multinational public companies on the false basis that they “channel their profits to the Zionist agenda” – echoing the anti-Semitic myth that Jewish individuals and companies operate a shadowy influence on world affairs
  
• equated Israeli treatment of the Palestinians with the genocide of 2/3 of European Jewry in the Holocaust - and that on Press TV, the propaganda channel of the Holocaust-denying Iranian regime
  
• spoken at events organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, many of whose branches appear to tolerate anti-Semitism
  
• travelled to Iran as the guest of Zahra Mostafavi, the daughter of the Ayatollah Khomeini – a prominent supporter of the anti-Israel terrorist organisation Hezbollah, who has publicly paid tribute to child suicide bombers for their attacks on Israeli civilians.
  
• worked in Malaysia with known Hamas fundraisers Viva Palestina, there making the outrageous claim that the “Israel Lobby” in the USA “buys every single politician” and again falsely linking Zionists with the Far Right
  
• hosted an article (now removed) on his church website by Holocaust Denier “Israel Shamir”
  
• commented “Bring it on” in response to a call by the disgraced US journalist Helen Thomas for Jews to “get the hell out of Palestine”
  
• made the tasteless insinuation that Monica Lewinsky’s Jewishness motivated Hilary Clinton’s criticism of Israel – undermining any claim Rev Sizer might make that his opposition to Israel is unrelated to the Jewishness of its people
  
• made the deluded suggestion that the world initially held back from imposing a no-fly zone over Libya because Colonel Gaddafi and his son were linked to Israel and the USA by Jewish blood
  
• championed the cause of Islamist hate preacher Raed Salah
  
• suggested (again) that Israel was somehow behind 9/11
  
  

Nick Cohen’s words are apt: “Polite [Christian] commentators say that I must add at this point that ‘[Stephen Sizer] is not an anti-Semite’. Sorry to be a fact-checking bore, but if he isn’t a racist, then he is a remarkably stupid old man who in George Orwell’s phrase is ‘playing with fire without knowing fire is hot’.” Yet there is nothing in Stephen Sizer’s background to suggest that he is stupid. It was the last of the above incidents, in January 2015, which finally prompted the Diocese of Guildford to ban Sizer from using social media for six months and to seek an undertaking from Sizer that he would no longer write or speak about the Middle East. The Archbishop of Canterbury approved. Whilst Sizer apologized – as he has done before – there is good cause to be sceptical. The controversy surrounding Stephen Sizer has been widely reported: in the Jewish press; the Christian press (including the newspaper Evangelicals Now and the widely-read blog Archbishop Cranmer); and in the secular media. It has recently come to light again in connection with Jeremy Corbyn, who once wrote to the Church of England to defend Sizer; and in connection with Ken Livingstone, whose incendiary claim about Nazism and Zionism is similar to the one published by Sizer in 2004. And so this begs the question: how have Sizer’s conservative evangelical peers reacted to his multi-faceted anti-Semitic statements and actions? And how does this compare with the Labour Party’s reaction to Ken Livingstone? The answer, sadly, is disheartening.

• IVP continue to market Sizer’s books. Contrast this with Roy Clements, a previously influential conservative evangelical leader who left his ministry in 1999 as a result of a sex scandal. IVP rapidly pulled his books from the shelves, and no longer market them, even though they were widely considered to be theologically sound. It is hard not to see a double standard here: is racism a less serious moral failing than sexual impropriety?
  
• Christ Church Virginia Water (CCVW) retain Sizer as their vicar, notwithstanding his track record. This is perhaps unsurprising, since the church previously supported his international travel – even to conferences also attended byHitler-lovers and Holocaust Deniers.
  
• Richard Bewes OBE, previously Rector of All Souls, Langham Place, London, had no problem either joining orremaining on the preaching team at CCVW – despite recognising anti-Jewish racism elsewhere.
  
• It is believed that Christianity Explored Ministries no longer retain Sizer as an Advocate (trainer). However, they have made no public statement to this effect, and Sizer’s own website indicates that the association remains.
  
• Sizer’s website also states that he is Vice-Chair of Biblica Europe Ministries Trust. Biblica is the translation sponsor and ministry publisher of the New International Version, the most widely read contemporary English translation of the Bible.
  
• Whilst a handful have expressed private concerns, not a single senior British conservative evangelical leader or ministryhas publicly censured Stephen Sizer or distanced themselves from him.
  
• The South East Gospel Partnership is a group of conservative evangelical churches that work together on things like church planting and training. CCVW remains a partner church. When sent abundant evidence regarding Rev Sizer’s anti-Semitic activities, the SEGP Committee did not engage with that evidence. Their response – unbelievably – was that they saw ‘no justifiable grounds for breaking gospel partnership with Stephen.’
  
  

In short, conservative evangelicals have said and done virtually nothing in response to Stephen Sizer’s anti-Semitism. They have done even less than Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party has done in response to Ken Livingstone’s anti-Semitism – which is saying quite something. If John Rentoul of The Independent can recognise that there is a serious problem with Stephen Sizer, why can’t conservative evangelicals? It’s not too late for conservative evangelicals to show that they take anti-Semitism at least as seriously as Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. It’s not too late for them to publicly censure Stephen Sizer and to distance themselves from him. Hope springs eternal but, sadly, I’m not holding my breath. PS If you’re unsure why some of the things mentioned in this article are “anti-Semitic” as opposed to mere “criticisms of the Israeli government”, this article may help. This Working Definition of anti-Semitism may be helpful too.
PPS The SNP has got in on the act. Conservative evangelicals, what are you waiting for?


http://hurryupharry.org/2016/05/09/when-corbyns-labour-party-shames-the-evangelical-church/

The American Jewish scholar behind Labour’s ‘antisemitism’ scandal breaks his silence

Norman Finkelstein is no stranger to controversy. The American Jewish scholar is one of the world’s leading experts on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the political legacy of the Nazi holocaust. Apart from his parents, every member of Finkelstein’s family, on both sides, was exterminated in the Nazi holocaust. His 2000 book The Holocaust Industry, which was serialised in the Guardian, became an international best-seller and touched off a firestorm of debate. But Finkelstein’s most recent political intervention came about by accident.


What are your thoughts on the Labour 'antisemitism' scandal? Tell us in the comments below.


Last month, Naz Shah MP became one of the most high-profile cases to date in the ‘antisemitism’ scandal still shaking the Labour leadership. Shah was suspended from the Labour party for, among other things, reposting an image on Facebook that was alleged to be antisemitic. The image depicted a map of the United States with Israel superimposed, and suggested resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict by relocating Israel into the United States. It has been reported that Shah got the image from Finkelstein’s website. I spoke with Finkelstein about why he posted the image, and what he thinks of allegations that the Labour party has a ‘Jewish problem’.


Did you create the controversial image that Naz Shah reposted?


I’m not adept enough with computers to compose any image. But I did post the map on my website in 2014. An email correspondent must have sent it. It was, and still is, funny. Were it not for the current political context, nobody would have noticed Shah’s reposting of it either. Otherwise, you’d have to be humourless. These sorts of jokes are a commonplace in the U.S. So, we have this joke: Why doesn’t Israel become the 51st state? Answer: Because then, it would only have two senators. As crazy as the discourse on Israel is in America, at least we still have a sense of humour. It’s inconceivable that any politician in the U.S. would be crucified for posting such a map. 


Shah’s posting of that image has been presented as an endorsement by her of a ‘chilling “transportation” policy’, while John Mann MP has compared her to Eichmann.


Frankly, I find that obscene. It’s doubtful these Holocaust-mongers have a clue what the deportations were, or of the horrors that attended them. I remember my late mother describing her deportation. She was in the Warsaw Ghetto. The survivors of the Ghetto Uprising, about 30,000 Jews, were deported to Maijdanek concentration camp. They were herded into railroad cars. My mother was sitting in the railroad car next to a woman who had her child. And the woman – I know it will shock you – the woman suffocated her infant child to death in front of my mother. She suffocated her child, rather than take her to where they were going. That’s what it meant to be deported. To compare that to someone posting a light-hearted, innocuous cartoon making a little joke about how Israel is in thrall to the U.S., or vice versa…it’s sick. What are they doing? Don’t they have any respect for the dead? All these desiccated Labour apparatchiks, dragging the Nazi holocaust through the mud for the sake of their petty jostling for power and position. Have they no shame?

What about when people use Nazi analogies to criticise the policies of the State of Israel? Isn’t that also a political abuse of the Nazi holocaust?


It’s not a simple question. First, if you’re Jewish, the instinctive analogy to reach for, when it comes to hate or hunger, war or genocide, is the Nazi holocaust, because we see it as the ultimate horror. In my home growing up, whenever an incident involving racial discrimination or bigotry was in the news, my mother would compare it to her experience before or during the Nazi holocaust.

My mother had been enrolled in the Mathematics faculty of Warsaw University, I guess in 1937-38. Jews were forced to stand in a segregated section of the lecture hall, and the antisemites would physically attack them. (You might recall the scene in Julia, when Vanessa Redgrave loses her leg trying to defend Jews under assault in the university.) I remember once asking my mother, ‘How did you do in your studies?’ She replied, ‘What are you talking about? How could you study under those conditions?’. 

When she saw the segregation of African-Americans, whether at a lunch counter or in the school system, that was, for her, like the prologue to the Nazi holocaust. Whereas many Jews now say, Never compare (Elie Wiesel’s refrain, ‘It’s bad, but it’s not The Holocaust’), my mother’s credo was, Always compare. She gladly and generously made the imaginative leap to those who were suffering, wrapping and shielding them in the embrace of her own suffering.

For my mother, the Nazi holocaust was a chapter in the long history of the horror of war. It was not itself a war – she was emphatic that it was an extermination, not a war – but it was a unique chapter within the war. So for her, war was the ultimate horror. When she saw Vietnamese being bombed during the Vietnam War, it was the Nazi holocaust. It was the bombing, the death, the horror, the terror, that she herself had passed through. When she saw the distended bellies of starving children in Biafra, it was also the Nazi holocaust, because she remembered her own pangs of hunger in the Warsaw Ghetto.

If you’re Jewish, it’s just normal that the Nazi holocaust is a ubiquitous, instinctual touchstone. Some Jews say this or that horror is not the Nazi holocaust, others say it is. But the reference point of the Nazi holocaust is a constant.

What about when people who aren’t Jewish invoke the analogy?


Once the Nazi holocaust became the cultural referent, then, if you wanted to touch a nerve regarding Palestinian suffering, you had to make the analogy with the Nazis, because that was the only thing that resonated for Jews. If you compared the Palestinians to Native Americans, nobody would give a darn. In 1982, when I and a handful of other Jews took to the streets of New York to protest Israel’s invasion of Lebanon (up to 18,000 Lebanese and Palestinians were killed, overwhelmingly civilians), I held a sign saying, ‘This son of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Auschwitz, Maijdenek will not be silent: Israeli Nazis – Stop the Holocaust in Lebanon!’. (After my mother died, I found a picture of me holding that sign in a drawer among her keepsakes). I remember, as the cars drove past, one of the guys protesting with me kept saying, ‘hold the sign higher!’ (And I kept replying, ‘easy for you to say!’).

If you invoked that analogy, it shook Jews, it jolted them enough, that at least you got their attention. I don’t think it’s necessary anymore, because Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians now have an integrity of their own. They no longer have to be juxtaposed to, or against, the Nazi holocaust. Today, the Nazi analogy is gratuitous and a distraction.

Is it antisemitic?



No, it’s just a weak historical analogy – but, if coming from a Jew, a generous moral one.

Last week, Ken Livingstone took to the airwaves to defend Naz Shah, but what he said wound up getting him suspended from the Labour party. His most incendiary remark contended that Hitler at one point supported Zionism. This was condemned as antisemitic, and Labour MP John Mann accused Livingstone of being a ‘Nazi apologist’. What do you make of these accusations?


Livingstone maybe wasn’t precise enough, and lacked nuance. But he does know something about that dark chapter in history. It has been speculated that Hitler’s thinking on how to solve the ‘Jewish Question’ (as it was called back then) evolved, as circumstances changed and new possibilities opened up. Hitler wasn’t wholly hostile to the Zionist project at the outset. That’s why so many German Jews managed to survive after Hitler came to power by emigrating to Palestine. But, then, Hitler came to fear that a Jewish state might strengthen the hand of ‘international Jewry’, so he suspended contact with the Zionists. Later, Hitler perhaps contemplated a ‘territorial solution’ for the Jews. The Nazis considered many ‘resettlement’ schemes – the Jews wouldn’t have physically survived most of them in the long run – before they embarked on an outright exterminatory process. Livingstone is more or less accurate about this – or, as accurate as might be expected from a politician speaking off the cuff.

He’s also accurate that a degree of ideological affinity existed between the Nazis and Zionists. On one critical question, which raged in the U.K. during the period when the Balfour Declaration (1917) was being cobbled together, antisemites and Zionists agreed: could a Jew be an Englishman? Ironically, in light of the current hysteria in the UK, the most vociferous and vehement opponents of the Balfour Declaration were not the Arabs, about whom almost nobody gave a darn, but the upper reaches of British Jewry.

Eminent British Jews published open letters to newspapers like the Times opposing British backing for a Jewish home in Palestine. They understood such a declaration – and Zionism – as implying that a Jew belonged to a distinct nation, and that the Jewish nation should have its own separate state, which they feared would effectively disqualify Jews from bona fide membership in the British nation. What distinguished the Zionists from the liberal Jewish aristocracy was their point of departure: as Theodor Herzl put it at the beginning of The Jewish State, ‘the Jewish question is no more a social than a religious one . . . It is a national question’. Whereas the Anglo-Jewish aristocracy insisted Judaism was merely a religion, the Zionists were emphatic that the Jews constituted a nation. And on this – back then, salient – point, the Zionists and Nazis agreed.


John Mann, when he accosted Livingstone in front of the cameras, asked rhetorically whether Livingstone had read Mein Kampf. If you do read Mein Kampf, which I suspect none of the interlocutors in this debate has done (I used to teach it, before the ‘Zionists’ drove me out of academia – joke!), you see that Hitler is emphatic that Jews are not a religion, but a nation. He says that the big Jewish lie is that they claim to be a religion; whereas in fact, he says, they’re a race (at that time, ‘race’ was used interchangeably with ‘nation’). And on page 56 of the standard English edition of Mein Kampf, he says that the only Jews honest enough to acknowledge this reality are the Zionists. Now, to be clear, Hitler didn’t just think that Jews were a distinct race. He also thought that they were a Satanic race, and ultimately, that they were a Satanic race that had to be exterminated. Still, on the first, not trivial, premise, he and the Zionists were in agreement.

As a practical matter, the Zionists and Nazis could therefore find a degree of common ground around the emigration/expulsion of Jews to Palestine. It was a paradox that, against the emphatic protestations of liberal Jews, including sections of the Anglo-Jewish establishment, antisemites and Zionists back then effectively shared the same slogan: Jews to Palestine. It was why, for example, the Nazis forbade German Jews to raise the swastika flag, but expressly permitted them to hoist the Zionist flag. It was as if to say, the Zionists are right: Jews can’t be Germans, they belong in Palestine. Hannah Arendt wrote scathingly about this in Eichmann in Jerusalem, which is one of the reasons she caught hell from the Jewish/Zionist establishment.

Even if there was a factual basis for Livingstone’s remarks, to bring the issue up at that moment – wasn’t he just baiting Jews?



I can understand his motivation, because I’m of roughly his generation. If he was ‘baiting’, it was a reflexive throwback to the factional polemics in the 1970s-80s. Israel marketed Zionists as the only Jews who had resisted the Nazis. The propaganda image projected back then was, the only resistance to the Nazis came from the Zionists, and the natural corollary was, the only force protecting Jews now is Israel. Every other Jew was either a coward, ‘going like sheep to slaughter’, or a collaborator. Those who dissented from Israeli policy back then, in order to undercut this Zionist propaganda, and to strike a nerve with them, would recall this unsavoury chapter in Zionism’s history. Some pamphlets and books appeared – such as Lenni Brenner’s Zionism in the Age of the Dictators (1983) – to document this ‘perfidious Zionist-Nazi collaboration’. Livingstone’s recent comments were born of the same reflex that motivated us back then. These certifiable creeps who went after Naz Shah got under his skin, and so he wanted to get under their skin. That’s how we used to fight this political battle: by dredging up those sordid chapters in Zionist history.

Livingstone based himself on Brenner’s book. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that perhaps Brenner’s book contains factual errors, it’s more of a party pamphlet than a scholarly tome, and it’s not exactly weighed down with copious documentation. Still, the fact of the matter is, when Brenner’s book was published, it garnered positive reviews in the respectable British press. The Times, which is today leading the charge against Livingstone and the elected Labour leadership, back then published a review praising Brenner’s book as ‘crisp and carefully documented’. The reviewer, the eminent editorialist Edward Mortimer, observed that ‘Brenner is able to cite numerous cases where Zionists collaborated with anti-Semitic regimes, including Hitler’s’. So, it’s a tribute to Ken Livingstone that at age 70 he remembered a book he read more than 30 years ago, that got a good review in the Times when it first appeared. If the Times is upset at Livingstone’s remarks, it has only itself to blame. I myself only read Brenner’s book after the Times review.
 
Let’s zoom out a bit. You’ve written a great deal about how antisemitism accusations have been used to discredit and distract from criticism of Israel. Should we see the current campaign against Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Left more generally as the latest episode in that history?



These campaigns occur at regular intervals, correlating with Israel’s periodic massacres and consequent political isolation. If you search your nearest library catalogue for ‘new antisemitism’, you’ll come up with titles from the 1970s proclaiming a ‘new antisemitism’, titles from the 1980s proclaiming a ‘new antisemitism’, titles from the 1990s proclaiming a ‘new antisemitism’, and then a huge uptick, including from British writers, during the so-called Second Intifada from 2001. Let’s not forget, just last year there was a hysteria in the UK over antisemitism. A couple of ridiculous polls purported to find that nearly half of Britons held an antisemitic belief and that most British Jews feared for their future in the UK. Although these polls were dismissed by specialists, they triggered the usual media feeding frenzy, as the Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent hyperventilated about this ‘rampant’ ‘new antisemitism’. It was exposed as complete nonsense when, in April 2015, a reputable poll by Pew found that the level of antisemitism in the UK had remained stable, at an underwhelming seven percent.

This farce happened only last year. One would have imagined that its mongers would be hiding in shame, and that we would enjoy at least a brief respite from the theatrics. But lo and behold, in the blink of an eye, right in the wake of the Pew poll showing that antisemitism in the UK is marginal, the hysteria has started up all over again. The reality is, there is probably more prejudice in the UK against fat people than there is prejudice against Jews.

Ask yourself a simple, but serious, question. You go for a job interview. Which trait is most likely to work against you: if you’re ugly, if you’re fat, if you’re short, or if you’re Jewish? It’s perhaps a sad commentary on our society’s values, but the trait most likely to elicit a rejection letter is if you’re ugly. Then fat; then short. The factor least likely to work against you is, if you’re Jewish. On the contrary, aren’t Jews smart and ambitious? Pew found antisemitism levels at seven percent. Is that grounds for a national hysteria? A May 2015 YouGov poll found that 40 percent of UK adults don’t like Muslims and nearly 60 percent don’t like Roma. Imagine what it’s like to apply for a job if you’re a Roma! So where is your order of moral priorities?

Many of those involved in last year’s ‘antisemitism’ hysterics are also participants in the current campaign against Corbyn.



The question you have to ask yourself is, why? Why has this issue been resurrected with a vengeance, so soon after its previous outing was disposed of as a farce? Is it because of a handful of allegedly antisemitic social media postings from Labour members? Is it because of the tongue-in-cheek map posted by Naz Shah? That’s not believable. The only plausible answer is, it’s political. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the factual situation; instead, a few suspect cases of antisemitism – some real, some contrived – are being exploited for an ulterior political motive. As one senior Labour MP said the other day, it’s transparently a smear campaign.

The ‘antisemitism’ accusations are being driven by the Conservatives ahead of the local and Mayoral elections. But they’re also being exploited by the Labour Right to undermine Corbyn’s leadership, and by pro-Israel groups to discredit the Palestine solidarity movement. 

You can see this overlap between the Labour Right and pro-Israel groups personified in individuals like Jonathan Freedland, a Blairite hack who also regularly plays the antisemitism card. He’s combined these two hobbies to attack Corbyn. Incidentally, when my book, The Holocaust Industry, came out in 2000, Freedland wrote that I was 'closer to the people who created the Holocaust than to those who suffered in it'. Although he appears to be, oh, so politically correct now, he didn’t find it inappropriate to suggest that I resembled the Nazis who gassed my family.



We appeared on a television program together. Before the program, he approached me to shake my hand. When I refused, he reacted in stunned silence. Why wouldn’t I shake his hand? He couldn’t comprehend it. It tells you something about these dull-witted creeps. The smears, the slanders – for them, it’s all in a day’s work. Why should anyone get agitated? Later, on the program, it was pointed out that the Guardian, where he worked, had serialised The Holocaust Industry across two issues. He was asked by the presenter, if my book was the equivalent of Mein Kampf, would he resign from the paper? Of course not. Didn’t the presenter get that it’s all a game?



Compare the American scene. Our Corbyn is Bernie Sanders. In all the primaries in the US, Bernie has been sweeping the Arab and Muslim vote. It’s been a wondrous moment: the first Jewish presidential candidate in American history has forged a principled alliance with Arabs and Muslims. Meanwhile, what are the Blairite-Israel lobby creeps up to in the UK? They’re fanning the embers of hate and creating new discord between Jews and Muslims by going after Naz Shah, a Muslim woman who has attained public office. They’re making her pass through these rituals of public self-degradation, as she is forced to apologise once, twice, three times over for a tongue-in-cheek cartoon reposted from my website. And it’s not yet over! Because now they say she’s on a ‘journey’. Of course, what they mean is, ‘she’s on a journey of self-revelation, and epiphany, to understanding the inner antisemite at the core of her being’. But do you know on what journey she’s really on? She’s on a journey to becoming an antisemite. Because of these people; because they fill any sane, normal person with revulsion.

Here is this Muslim woman MP who is trying to integrate Muslims into British political life, and to set by her own person an example both to British society at large and to the Muslim community writ small. She is, by all accounts from her constituents, a respected and honourable person. You can only imagine how proud her parents, her siblings, must be. How proud the Muslim community must be. We’re always told how Muslim women are oppressed, repressed and depressed, and now you have this Muslim woman who has attained office. But now she’s being crucified, her career wrecked, her life ruined, her future in tatters, branded an ‘antisemite’ and a closet Nazi, and inflicted with these rituals of self-abasement. It’s not hard to imagine what her Muslim constituents must think now about Jews. These power hungry creeps are creating new hate by their petty machinations. As Donald Trump likes to say – it’s disgusting.

Labour has now set up an inquiry that is supposed to produce a workable definition of ‘antisemitism’ – which is to say, to achieve the impossible. It’s been tried countless times before, and it’s always proven futile. The only beneficiaries of such a mandate will be academic ‘specialists’ on antisemitism, who will receive hefty consultancy fees (I can already see Richard Evans at the head of the queue), and Israel, which will no longer be in the spotlight. I understand the short-term political rationale. But at some point, you have to say, ‘enough already’. Jews are prospering as never before in the UK. The polls show that the number of, so to speak, hard-core antisemites is miniscule. It’s time to put a stop to this periodic charade, because it ends up besmirching the victims of the Nazi holocaust, diverting from the real suffering of the Palestinian people, and poisoning relations between the Jewish and Muslim communities. You just had an antisemitism hysteria last year, and it was a farce. And now again? Another inquiry? Another investigation? No.

In order to put an end to this, there has to be a decisive repudiation of this political blackmail. Bernie Sanders was brutally pressured to back down on his claim that Israel had used disproportionate force during its 2014 assault on Gaza. He wouldn’t budge, he wouldn’t retreat. He showed real backbone. Corbyn should take heart and inspiration from Bernie’s example. He has to say: no more reports, no more investigations, we’re not going there any more. The game is up. It’s long past time that these antisemitism-mongers crawled back into their sewer – but not before humbly apologising to Naz Shah, and begging her forgiveness.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-stern-weiner-norman-finkelstein/american-jewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda

Scholar?


 

He has had countless historians discount his views as gibberish and still sassy backs this anti-semitic tripe?

What more proof do you need she is as racist as they come?



Now a real historian, to prove sassy is a racist low life scum



But Mr Livingstone's version of history contained several errors, as Timothy Snyder, Yale University history professor and author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, explains below.

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It is inconceivable that Hitler could have wanted to move Jews to Israel, because there was no such place in 1932.
Using the word "Israel" when what is meant was "the British mandate of Palestine" has the unfortunate consequence of stripping away the actual historical context and putting the words "Hitler" and "Israel" in the same sentence.
Hitler was not a supporter of Zionism.
He believed, on the contrary, that Zionism was one of many deliberately deceptive labels that Jews placed upon what he believed to be their endless striving for global power and the extermination of the human species.

'Categorically false'

From Hitler's point of view, Jews were precisely not normal human beings because they did not care about territory, but cared only about global domination.
"He was supporting Zionism" is categorically false and reveals a total and fundamental misunderstanding of what Hitler's anti-Semitism was all about.
Tens of thousands of German Jews did emigrate to Palestine before British policy made this all but impossible. And some German officials did take an interest in Zionism. But there was never a German policy to support Zionism or a future Israel.
On the contrary, the German orientation in the Middle East was to support Arab nationalism. The official German policy, enunciated clearly in 1937, was to oppose the creation of a State of Israel.

'Logically inconceivable'

Before, during and after 1932, Hitler referred to the Jews as a problem for the entire world, not simply for Germany.
When the Holocaust took place, the vast majority of Jews killed were people who lived beyond Germany.
Both in theory and in practice, Hitler's extermination of Jews was international, applied to millions of people. For this reason as well, it is logically inconceivable that his ideas could ever have been limited to sending German Jews to Palestine.
Well before 1932, in his book Mein Kampf, Hitler had made clear that the Jews were, in his view, a "spiritual pestilence" that had to be removed from the face of the earth in order to rescue the human species, the natural order of the planet, and God's creation.
It was not clear just how this could be carried out; but there is no sense in which the idea of deporting Jews to Palestine is sufficient to this vision.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-36165298


Even the BBC as left as it is can recognise racist Jew hatred when they see it in this vile claim

Also I answered this all before sassy and you ran away from answering?





Here is my views to you agan





Need to clear up some very poor misinformation that has been presented to defend Ken Livingstone. Which really goes to show how little people understand Histprically about Zionism, The British mandate of Palestine, Nazi Germany, Hitler, Arab Nationalism.

Lets start with the claim that Livingstone made.
That Hitler was a Zionist.
That is why people are rightly utterly appalled by his revisionist fabricated history
The Haavara agreement has nothing to do with supporting Zionism or the creation of a Jewish State. It was a means for Nazi Germany, to rid the country. Of what they termed “The Jewish Problem”. In fact Hitler even criticised the agreement when it was created, which was before he was made Dictator, which came in 1934, not 1933. He only agreed to this in the years 1937-39 and only then to encourage the remaining Jews still there to leave.

The fact is though the agreement was a way to counter and break the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933. So Nazi Germany had three motivations for signing the agreement. Which allowed for “German Jews” to transfer “property” to the British Mandate of Palestine? The First was to encourage Jews to emigrate out of Germany. The second as stated was to break the Anti-Nazi boycott. The third was help combat the high unemployment levels. So it was in the best interest of Nazi Germany before the war started. To assist Jews leaving, but at a price. As Germany was economically very weak at this stage. The agreement made no reference to either supporting the creation of a Jewish state or supporting Zionism. German Jewish emigrants had to pay the equivalent of a thousand pounds sterling in a company. That money paid for German exports to import to the British Mandate of Palestine.
So Livingstone was so wrong and historically insulting to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust. That he has placed Zionism on a par with Hitler and Nazi Germany itself. Hitler was a supporter of Arab nationalism, not the creation of a Jewish state. Before the “Final Solution” was implemented, Hitler wanted rid of the Jews out of Germany. He saw the Jews not by an religious association, but as a Sub Human Race. So Hitler would have never supported Zionism, as its Jewish Movement

"Zionism is the Jewish national movement. "Zionism" derives its name from "Zion," (pronounced "Tzyion" in Hebrew) a hill in Jerusalem. The word means "marker" or commemoration. "Shivath Tzion" is one of the traditional terms for the return of Jewish exiles.  "Zionism" is not a monolithic ideological movement. It includes, for example, socialist Zionists such as Ber Borochov, religious Zionists such as rabbi Kook, extreme nationalists such as Jabotinski and cultural Zionists exemplified by Asher Ginsberg (Ahad Ha'am). Zionist ideas evolved over time and were influenced by circumstances as well as by social and cultural movements popular in Europe at different times, including socialism, nationalism and colonialism, and assumed different "flavors" depending on the country of origin of the thinkers and prevalent contemporary intellectual currents.  Accordingly, no single person, publication, quote or pronouncement should be taken as embodying "official"  Zionist ideology.

So Livingstone was historically wrong and even worse dehumanizing Jews who support Zionism in its many varied forms. So it was in the interest of Nazi Germany to sign the agreement. That allowed for the purchase of German exports, an extortionate price. Jews had been on the receiving end of countless boycotts within Germany, since 1921. Violence and SA thugs had been for the previous few years. By preventing anyone from entering Jewish properties, businesses etc. In April 1 1933 (Fools day, I know), the Nazi’s implemented the boycott of Jewish businesses and Professionals Nationwide. So for years, the German Jews have been targeted with countless Boycotts, within German. Over a decade before the Nazi’s came to power. Even before Hitler came to power, he had been calling for nationwide boycotts against Jews. This had been so effective. That many German employers would no longer employ Jews. They were also barred from many places like hotels.

Life would have at this point seemed very bleak for the German Jews at this point. As what sort of future now lay for them in Germany? Clearly for many German Jews, who could afford to, was to leave. Some would leave for America, other European countries. Its no surprise, that by a month later. The “Zionist Federation of Germany”. Submitted an application to transfer capital from Germany to Palestine. As seen Germany was economically weak and wanted to appear to the rest of the world as assisting German Jews. So all this agreement made, was to allow, through a steep cost. Some economic support to German Jews when they migrated back to their ancestral lands. What is omitted by Sassy within all of this of course. Is that not all German Jews were Zionists. Also other Zionists did not agree with the  Haavara agreement. As they were opposed to any cooperation with Nazi Germany Now Non-Zionist German Jews. Refused to back the agreement. As they held out hope of the Anti-Nazi boycott, would be able to apply enough pressure to restore Jewish rights in Germany.

Now Jews had been returning to the Middle East, since the 1700’s. So Jews had been fleeing persecution in Europe, before the concept of Zionism itself. Jews had also survived two genocides by the Romans. The Romans understood Von Clausewitz’s strategy on Absolute War. Before Von Clausewitz’s put pen to paper. The Romans had used far more extreme methods. The Romans dealt with years of zealots and sicarii terrorism with extreme measures. Also crushing two major Jewish revolts.  The second also saw the Romans exiles the majority of the Jews. Though by the time of the crusades. Many Jewish families had returned to the area and estimates place the Jewish population in the Holy Lands at between 250,000 to 300,000. After the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem. Most Jews had been slaughtered and forced into exile. Leaving around 1000 Jewish families still living with what was formerly Israel and Judah..
Now here is the saddest part of this whole episode. Due to the fact, the US and Europe had placed restrictions on immigration. Where between 1933 and 1939 and the outbreak of the war.  Where with the 1939 “British White Paper”. Limited Jewish immigration to 75,000, over 5 years. Just 15,000 a year to Palestine. They were not to know the British, but with the already restricted immigration in the rest of Europe. This paper also signed the death sentence of hundreds of thousands of Jews.

Approximately 282,000 Jews had left Germany and 117,000 from annexed Austria. Of these, some 95,000 emigrated to the United States, 60,000 to Palestine, 40,000 to Great Britain, and about 75,000 to Central and South America, with the largest numbers entering Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Bolivia. More than 18,000 Jews from the German Reich were also able to find refuge in Shanghai, in Japanese-occupied China.
At the end of 1939, about 202,000 Jews remained in Germany and 57,000 in annexed Austria, many of them elderly. By October 1941, when Jewish emigration was officially forbidden, the number of Jews in Germany had declined to 163,000. The vast majority of those Jews still in Germany were murdered in Nazi camps and ghettos during the Holocaust.

https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005468

With the outbreak of the war, then more than any other time, Jews needed the freedom to leave from the rest of Europe to flee to safer countries. As the Nazi made huge gains in the early part of the war. This then place millions of more Jews within German  control, who did not stop immigration until 1941. So the restricted by the allies to immigration and the “British White paper” denied many Jews the ability to leave, who did not support Zionism. Or of those who did, who refused to cooperate with the Germans. The allies through fear, denied entry to hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigration applications.  Just try to imagine, how many more lives could have been saved, if we had some of the leaders in Office today, rather back then. They may have won the conflict the allies, but the 1938 and 1943 conferences, both maintained the status quo, by keeping severe restrictions to immigration. The “British White Paper”, in my opinion, as well as the poor incompetence during the Bengal famine. Are two of the darkest and poorest decisions made. I mean the British had only two decades previously, agreed to the 14 point plan by Woodrow Wilson. Number 10 of this plan, was Self Determination for the peoples of Eastern Europe. All minority people of course,  which led to many treaties and the annexation of land, to form, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Finland, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia. Let alone the Middle Eastern nations.  

That this paper was formed off the back of the 1936-39 Arab revolt in the Mandate. In other words, as well as the appeasement to Hitler by Chamberlain in 1938 at Munich. The British caved into Arab threats and violence. I mean even in the 1939 London Conference, set up to negotiate an agreement between Arabs and the Jews. Was doomed from the off, where the Arab authorities only attended. On the condition, that they would not have to meet the Jewish representatives. The very people needed in order for the conference to be successful. So the British bowed down in the aftermath of a revolt which killed many British troops as well as Jews. This to their shame, and the fact, they fail to ensure both parties met for the negotiations. Plus the deliberate refusal by the Arabs to allow for the formation of an Israel state. Are the major causes, for as to why the conflict has continued to this day. Most Jews and Arabs have been recent immigrants, over the last 100 years. Its shows that at this time the level of antisemitism, as it had been for centuries. Was not confined to Nazi Germany.

It may make some of you sit up and think about the current Syrian crisis. When some here bemoan the numbers. Just think about this. If we had of acted and stepped into this conflict as a peace keeping force. Gaining control of the area. There would not have been the millions of displaced Syrians. While it may seem daunting over the numbers and I understand people’s concerns. It’s only a temporary measure. Until stability can be brought about in Syria. So those against refugees and armed intervention,

may want to rethink their strategy on this. The more we sit back, the longer and increasingly bigger. The refugee crisis will remain.

My final point is on the actual holocaust itself and showing further that Hitler was no Zionist. All the lands Hitler conquered. He placed many Jews with Ghettos and to start with. Mass shootings of Jews. Hitler fundamentally supported Arab nationalism. Had Rommel succeeded in North Africa. In defeating the British and her allies.. Rommel would have pushed onto the Middle east. Which would of denied the British Empire, not only access through the Suez Canal.  Which with German U-boats at their height in 1942, would have brought Britain to its knees. Losing this vital gateway and access for shipping of imports, through the Mediterranean to Britain.  If this lifeline to Britain’s overseas territories, had been severed.  The ships would now have to sail all around the Cape of Africa and then onto Britain. More importantly the vast loss of access to Middle East Oil.

In Jan 1942, Japan and Germany agreed to carve up a greater part of the world. The Middle east was going to be an area of German influence and control. Hitler had vowed the previous year to the Grand Mufti. That he would murder all the Jews of the Middle East. Which was part of his “final solution” to exterminate all Jews.  It suited Nazi Germany’s purpose to help and asset German Jews to leave. In order to help the German economy grow again. As seen all areas conquered by the Nazi’s. Saw millions, shot, hanged, gassed, starved to death.  Hitler since after the loss of WW1, held the Jews accountable for this defeat. The concept and idea to rid the world of the Jews had been forming in his minds for years after. Which these views can easily be picked on within Mein Kampf. The “Final Solution” was inevitable, once Germany had gone to war. The Nazi’s needed time to build up their economy and military strength. It was when the war started, that the beginnings of the international Nazi policy to wipe out the Jews took real form

So maybe Ken Livingstone, may want to tell the 60,000 Jews lucky and sensible enough to get out whilst the going was good between 1933 and 1939 by going to Palestine and ensured some chance for the future through the export agreement. That his dehumanizing now of these surviving 60,000 Jewish survivors. Which even worse by falsifying that Hitler was a Zionist, is making those survivors, complicit to the holocaust. Though an invented associating, fasly claiming Hitler was a Zionist. That has to go down as one of the worst lies in history.

To where Livingston must think, they should have been murdered like so many other ethnic groups, political prisoners, homosexuals, Gypsies, etc.  Is not only beyond contempt, but further proves the hate and falsified organised industry against Israel. Doing their upmost to dehumanise, delegitimize, hypocritical shameful boycotts against the Israeli people. Which also effects many employed Palestinians working and employed within Israel.  This ss sadly history repeating itself all over again, Before it was the Nazi’s, Far right, Communists, Arab nationalists who falsified countless accusations labelled at the Jews. In order to achieve manipulating many people to hate, dehumanize, delegitimise Jews. Today, it’s the Far Right, some on the Left, the regressive hypocrites, with no change from the Arab world.

The problem with Livingstone, is that he follows the discounted falsified views made in the book. Zionism in the Age of the Dictatorsby Lenni Brenner.  Many people have easily show this book to lack credibility. It certainly makes for good reading people able to accuse one of the Zionist groups of collaboration with Nazi Germany. It’s the sort of want material lefties dream of, where they fail to actually research many of the accusations made. Also  wrongly cast all Zionists as all following the same ideologies, political beliefs, religion etc. As seen earlier. Zionism has many variations, but fundamentally, without  the agreement of paying for exports. Would then as many of the 60,000 German  Jews, have then been able to migrate to the Mandate? Its seems very clear, that if they had of waited as other Jews, did. Whilst still applying to gain entry to other nations as refugees. Or hope the Anti-Nazi Boycott, would force the Nazi’s hand, to give better rights to Jews. Propves fundamentally, that boycotts really do not work. Even the boycotts of South Africa, never brought about the end of Apartheid. It would then have placed many of these German Jews left stuck now to late to find sanctuary elsehwhere

It really scares me to think, some of these hates, may actually and have done so, wished Hitler had won the war. Just imagine if Malta had been invaded, thus easy the supply to North Africa for the Axis. As stated, Rommel would not have then been hampered by a lack of reinforcements, lost in transportation. The door would have been open to the Middle East. How many more Jews would have then died?  Maybe some of the hate Brigade needs to seriously actually learn some real history for a start. Not the invented nonsense used to defend an low life like Ken Livingstone. As that makes you also complicit to his claims. Peace cannot come by others trying to do what the Nazi’s did before to the Jews. If you want to criticise proven wrongs done by Israel. That is acceptable, but downright comparisons to Nazi Germany, Apartheid,  Claiming Gaza is a concentration camp, hypocritically calling only for people to single out Israel with  Boycotts bans etc. Is sadly ensuring, that those that claims these lies are ultimately repeating history. Doing all that the Nazi's once did previously falsifying and inventing the most outrageous accusations. All of course to cast Israel to being worse that North Korea and ISIS.

You want peace, start by helping to push both sides to come to terms and sign a lasting treaty. For the security and future of people on both sides.

Do you know what is the worst thing about this whole shameful falsified accusation made by Livingston. As it was done in the defence of Nas Shah. Someone proven to be promoting antisemitism and thus racism. His motivation was to defend a racist by lying.  He sought to invent such a whopper of a lie, by accusing Zionism as comparable and complicit in evil as Nazism. Claiming Hitler was a Zionist. In order to excuse, deflect attention, render all Jewish and non-Jewish Zionists as far worse by association of Zionism to that of Nas Shah’s antisemitism. He would then share the very same beliefs as Hitler. Where they both justify and defend  people promoting hate through racism, by downgrading, deflecting and utterly lying about antisemitism itself .

How many times is Sassy going to continually go unchallenged,  by supposed righteous people on here? When she in the main posts up fabricated lies, in order to incite and promote hate against Israel. If fails to even be classed as any genuine criticism. If she did the same against Muslims, some on hear would have not refrain from speaking out and countering her. Though because there is only one Jewish state in existence, and the only real Democracy within the Middle East. Where the Israeli Arabs have more rights than Arabs do in any Arab majority nation. We sadly witness, by the same self righteous, remaining silent or worse defending such poor views

.I do not cast all Muslims are wrong and back progressive and secular Muslims to help bring Islam in the 21st century. I would not even cast all the people of a nation as wrong and complicit to wrongs done by a nation. Yet daily those driven from a desire of hate to see the destruction of Israel. They do not care at all about neither the Palestinians or Israeli’s. They do not want to have a solution, but constantly fuel and ensure the conflict continues.

I am glad some do challenge, but the fact some do not because they have been brainwashed by her lies over the years. May make people reconsider how they are constantly prejudge Israel and take for granted many falsified accusations labelled against Israel. You really have to ask, whether these same people driven to invent countless lies against Israel are indeed racist. As they constantly fail to hold a single Arab nation, its people, Government, laws, customs etc. To the same accountability as Israel and Israeli Jews.  I mean the very fact, Israel has had countless resolutions levelled against them by the UN, compared to the single one for Syria, is staggering. You really then have to question, if indeed those deciding to vastly and only condemn Israel.  If they do view Arab  as inferior. As this would be the only possible explanation for why so many human rights abuses by these nations are continually ignored. I really hope that is not the case, and that these people, are just blinded by their negative emotive head. I really think that the UN has ceased to be anything other that easily swayed and controlled by money and oil. The sooner we rid ourselves being reliant to this fuel source the better.

As  To the same Like I said, only two peoples can bring about a solution to this conflict and it has to come from a lasting agreement from the Palestinians and Israeli’s.

Where many here need some more historical lessons to further add to this very point and show further how they argue and show the worst double standards.
Look where sanctions, falsehoods, fabrications about Iraq led to.
The Iraq War
Yet as seen here the goal is very much the same, by making Israel out to be the world’s greatest evil. To the point of no return, that will lead to a withdrawal of support to Israel, which would then leave it very vulnerable to attack by Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah etc. Who’s goal, is the same, the destruction of Israel. Or even more extreme, that Israel is forced to pull out of the UN and the new Lefties that have been using the Bush mantra and methodology would be calling for war and the invasion of Israel.

I am only returning to simple for the majority of the time, correct falsified lies posted on this forum, mainly about the ones. That are motivated to dehumanise, delegitimize and promote hate against Israeli’s and Jews. You will not see me start many threads now. After the absurd accusations levelled at me. Kind of like what Israel goes through, by those driven by negativity.. I have decided to sit back away from many of the problematic situations.
Apologies for the long post, but after being wrongly accused of my posts only being C&P and not any opinion, well, then expect more of my replies now to be the same, just to further label how poor such a claim made was.

I shall leave you for now, with a statement.







Addressing the 2010 Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal, the US State Department’s special envoy for monitoring antisemitism, spoke plainly:

[W]hat I hear from our 194 posts around the world, and from our close relationship with NGOs in the US in other nations, opposition to a policy by the State of Israel morphs into anti-Semitism easily and often. We record huge increases in anti-Semitism whenever there is activity in the Middle East. This form of anti-Semitism is more difficult for many to identify – but if all Jews are held responsible for the decisions of the sovereign State of Israel, when governments call upon and intimidate their Jewish communities to condemn Israeli actions, when academics from Israel are boycotted – this is not objecting to a policy – this is anti-Semitism. Our State Department uses Natan Sharansky’s framework for identifying when someone or a government crosses the line – when Israel is demonized, when Israel is held to different standards than the rest of the countries, and when Israel is delegitimized. These cases are not disagreements with a policy of Israel, this is anti-Semitism. The US is often the only “no” vote in international bodies who seem to have an obsession with condemning Israel.

http://www.newsfixboard.com/t15774-ken-livingstone-s-zion-gaff