Ken Livingstone Warns He Will Sue Labour If He Is Expelled For Anti-Semitism

by Guest Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:17 am

First topic message reminder :

Ken Livingstone has warned he will take Labour to court if it expels him over alleged anti-Semitism.

He had told BBC Radio London last April that in Adolf Hitler’s policy in 1932 “was that Jews should be moved to Israel”. “He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews,” he told the Vanessa Feltz show.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ken-livingstone-judicial-review-labour-party-anti-semitism-michael-mansfield-imran-khan-jeremy-corbyn_uk_58d54dd5e4b03787d357fadb?utm_hp_ref=uk&utm_hp_ref=uk

This is the problem with the Far Left.

Israel did not exist in 1932, so ho could he move them to Israel?

Delusions. What he is referring to. Is the Haavara agreement between German Zionist Jews and the Nazi Germany. Of which many other zionists were against, but considering the hate many Germans Jews faced. You can hardly blame them for wanting to cut a deal, simply to get out of Germany with some of their property.

Which the Nazi's only did, to try and break the anti-Nazi boycott. It was also seen as a way of getting rid of Jews. Hitler never even supported the agreement and criticized this in 1932. He only supported the agreement between 1937-1939. Only 60,000 German Jews were able to emigrate to Palestine, of which the Nazi's exploited them of their money and property out of 522,000. There is nothing in the agreement that backs and supports the creation of a Jewish homeland or nation in former Judea and Israel.

The agreement was controversial at the time, and was criticised by many Jewish leaders both within the Zionist movement (such as the Revisionist Zionist leader Ze'ev Jabotinsky) and outside it.^[4] For German Jews, the agreement offered a way to leave an increasingly hostile environment in Nazi Germany; for the Yishuv, the new Jewish community in Palestine, it offered access to both immigrants and some economic support; and for the Nazis it was seen as a way of breaking the Anti-Nazi boycott of 1933, which had mass support among European Jews and was thought by the German state as a potential threat to a fragile German economy.

The Haavara Agreement was thought among some Nazi circles to be a possible way to rid the country of its supposed "Jewish problem." The head of the Middle Eastern division of the foreign ministry, the anti-Nazi Werner Otto von Hentig, supported the policy of concentrating Jews in Palestine. Hentig believed that if the Jewish population was concentrated in a single foreign entity, then foreign diplomatic policy and containment of the Jews would become easier. Hitler's own support of the Haavara Agreement was unclear and varied throughout the 1930s. Initially, Hitler criticized the agreement, but reversed his opinion and supported it in the period 1937-1939.
After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the program was ended.

Zionism

noun
1.
a movement for (originally) the re-establishment and (now) the development and protection of a Jewish nation in what is now Israel.

So how in anyway, was Hitler supporting Zionism, a belief in a Jewish homeland for the Jews in Israel, of which none existed at this present time? When his intention all along was to eradicate them? The Nazi's in the 1930's were not strong enough to start murdering Jews on any scale, as it could likely lead to war. They certainly persecuted the Jews and treated them as inferior Until Germany was strong enough to go to war.. So this agreement does not mean Hitler of the Nazis supported the ideology of Zionism. Like I say the Far Left are truly it seems Nazi apologists. I hope he does go to court, as he would need to show Hitler actively believed and supported a Jewish homeland for the Jews in its previous nation of Judea and Israel.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 9:59 am

So German Jews wanting to escape Germany and then being exploited in the process, is Hitler supporting Zionism?

What a crock.

Ken is a nasty antisemite as seen by how he attacks a newspaper, calling them fascists and then one of its reporters, who he knew was Jewish, calling him a concentration Guard.

Its clear Ken does not respect the right of self determination of the people of Israel, as he believes that refugees have no right to settle in their ancestral lands.

How on earth is that then Hitler supporting the creation of a Jewish state.

Ken will lose because he is a vile racist and defender of antisemites as seen from the videos

12 hours left Rags

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:09 am

Thorin wrote:So German Jews wanting to escape Germany and then being exploited in the process, is Hitler supporting Zionism?

What a crock.

Ken is a nasty antisemite as seen by how he attacks a newspaper, calling them fascists and then one of its reporters, who he knew was Jewish, calling him a concentration Guard.

Its clear Ken does not respect the right of self determination of the people of Israel, as he believes that refugees have no right to settle in their ancestral lands.

How on earth is that then Hitler supporting the creation of a Jewish state.

Ken will lose because he is a vile racist and defender of antisemites as seen from the videos

12 hours left Rags

Hitler probably didn't care where the Jews went, but the Zionists did. That's why they did a deal with the Nazis.

You have misconstrued the meaning of the word "supported". One can support another person even if they don't agree with them. KL didn't say that Hitler supported the concept of Zionism. The Zionists and Hitler/Nazis had a mutual interest - to get Jews out of Germany. Perhaps a better word would have been "assisted".

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:13 am

Raggamuffin wrote:
Thorin wrote:So German Jews wanting to escape Germany and then being exploited in the process, is Hitler supporting Zionism?

What a crock.

Ken is a nasty antisemite as seen by how he attacks a newspaper, calling them fascists and then one of its reporters, who he knew was Jewish, calling him a concentration Guard.

Its clear Ken does not respect the right of self determination of the people of Israel, as he believes that refugees have no right to settle in their ancestral lands.

How on earth is that then Hitler supporting the creation of a Jewish state.

Ken will lose because he is a vile racist and defender of antisemites as seen from the videos

12 hours left Rags

Hitler probably didn't care where the Jews went, but the Zionists did. That's why they did a deal with the Nazis.

You have misconstrued the meaning of the word "supported". One can support another person even if they don't agree with them. KL didn't say that Hitler supported the concept of Zionism. The Zionists and Hitler/Nazis had a mutual interest - to get Jews out of Germany. Perhaps a better word would have been "assisted".

So if Hitler did not care, how was Hitler supporting Zionism

Are you claiming Refugees going to their ancestral land. Where already before the end of WW1 and Hitlers rise to power. The Balfour agreement had decided to create a home for the Jews? Which the British later went back on?

So how is refugees going to the Mandate of Palestine supporting Zionism?

Zionism, is the creation of a Jewish nation in what was formerly Judea and Israel

Show me where Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish nation?

If you think refugees fleeing Germany is supporting Zionism, then you clearly are talking gibberish and fail to understand what Zionism is.
So what Ken said, was based off his belief that Jews cannot have a right to self determination and a home.
He made this unfounded claim in the attempt to deligitimize the right of Israel to exist.

As that is what you fail to grasp

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:17 am

Thorin wrote:
Raggamuffin wrote:

Hitler probably didn't care where the Jews went, but the Zionists did. That's why they did a deal with the Nazis.

You have misconstrued the meaning of the word "supported". One can support another person even if they don't agree with them. KL didn't say that Hitler supported the concept of Zionism. The Zionists and Hitler/Nazis had a mutual interest - to get Jews out of Germany. Perhaps a better word would have been "assisted".

So if Hitler did not care, how was Hitler supporting Zionism

Are you claiming Refugees going to their ancestral land. Where already before the end of WW1 and Hitlers rise to power. The Balfour agreement had decided to create a home for the Jews? Which the British later went back on?

So how is refugees going to the Mandate of Palestine supporting Zionism?

Zionism, is the creation of a Jewish nation in what was formerly Judea and Israel

Show me where Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish nation?

If you think refugees fleeing Germany is supporting Zionism, then you clearly are talking gibberish and fail to understand what Zionism is.
So what Ken said, was based off his belief that Jews cannot have a right to self determination and a home.
He made this unfounded claim in the attempt to deligitimize the right of Israel to exist.

As that is what you fail to grasp

He was supporting Zionism by giving the Zionists what they wanted - a way for Jews to leave Germany and go to Palestine.

Nobody has said that refugees fleeing Germany is supporting Zionism - we're talking about the Zionists who did the deal.

Where did Ken say that Jews cannot have a right to self determination and a home?

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:19 am

Raggamuffin wrote:
Thorin wrote:

So if Hitler did not care, how was Hitler supporting Zionism

Are you claiming Refugees going to their ancestral land. Where already before the end of WW1 and Hitlers rise to power. The Balfour agreement had decided to create a home for the Jews? Which the British later went back on?

So how is refugees going to the Mandate of Palestine supporting Zionism?

Zionism, is the creation of a Jewish nation in what was formerly Judea and Israel

Show me where Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish nation?

If you think refugees fleeing Germany is supporting Zionism, then you clearly are talking gibberish and fail to understand what Zionism is.
So what Ken said, was based off his belief that Jews cannot have a right to self determination and a home.
He made this unfounded claim in the attempt to deligitimize the right of Israel to exist.

As that is what you fail to grasp

He was supporting Zionism by giving the Zionists what they wanted - a way for Jews to leave Germany and go to Palestine.

Nobody has said that refugees fleeing Germany is supporting Zionism - we're talking about the Zionists who did the deal.

Where did Ken say that Jews cannot have a right to self determination and a home?

PMSL

Zionists wanted a nation.

He never gave them that and also many other zionists were against the treaty, including Hitler himself.

Zionism, is the creation of a Jewish state.

He neither gave them this or supported Zionism

Ken has said many things to deligitimize the right of Israel to exist./

So again, for the 8th time show me where Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish state.

This is your last chance

Fail to do so and you are out of the debate.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:24 am

Thorin wrote:
Raggamuffin wrote:

He was supporting Zionism by giving the Zionists what they wanted - a way for Jews to leave Germany and go to Palestine.

Nobody has said that refugees fleeing Germany is supporting Zionism - we're talking about the Zionists who did the deal.

Where did Ken say that Jews cannot have a right to self determination and a home?

PMSL

Zionists wanted a nation.

He never gave them that and also many other zionists were against the treaty, including Hitler himself.

Zionism, is the creation of a Jewish state.

He neither gave them this or supported Zionism

Ken has said many things to deligitimize the right of Israel to exist./

So again, for the 8th time show me where Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish state.

This is your last chance

Fail to do so and you are out of the debate.

So how does one create a Jewish State? By encouraging Jews to move there, right? One can hardly have a Jewish State with only a few Jews in it. They have to be a majority, and the Zionists wanted German Jews to move there in order to help achieve that.

We're not talking about all Zionists, we're talking about the ones who did the deal with the Nazis.

For the last time, nobody said that Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish State. He wanted them out of Germany, the Zionists wanted them to go to Palestine, so they did a deal.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:26 am

No evidence provided

You had your chance

Now you are out of the debate

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:29 am

Thorin wrote:No evidence provided

You had your chance

Now you are out of the debate

In other words, you can't think of anything more to say because you know I'm right. Your obsession with the word "supporting" has got the better of you, together with your lack of understanding of what happened in Germany.

By the way, there are articles out there which claim that KL said that Hitler was a Zionist, and the authors of the articles have made a case against him based on that lie. People need to get it right before they spout off.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:30 am

Still no evidence

Put up your evidence

Until you do, your words and poor arguments are based on lies

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:32 am

Thorin wrote:Still no evidence

Put up your evidence

Until you do, your words and poor arguments are based on lies

Where are the lies? Point them out.

Your other problem is that you're seeing what happened in Nazi Germany as something that happened overnight. It didn't - there was a build up to the "final solution" over many years.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:34 am

Still no evidence that Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish state, just more lies

Try again

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:35 am

One reason that people are outraged by anyone mentioning that the Zionists did a deal with the Nazis is that they think it suggests that the Zionists colluded with the Nazis in the destruction of the Jews in Germany.

This is not the case. The deal was made early on, and the Zionists didn't know what would happen later on. They were negotiating with the Nazis in order to save Jews from persecution and also to help fulfill their own wish of a homeland for the Jews.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:37 am

Thorin wrote:Still no evidence that Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish state, just more lies

Try again

Nobody suggested that he did, so you're using a straw man argument. If you can't progress beyond your own misunderstanding you will get nowhere, and it will be clear that you're not actually interested in the subject at all.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:37 am

Still no evidence Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish state and yet more lies

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:42 am

Thorin wrote:Still no evidence Hitler supported the creation of a Jewish state and yet more lies

You have been unable to point out these lies, and you are persisting with your straw man argument. I will continue to post about this as it interests me, and it would be great if others had some views on it, but as you are merely trolling you are no further use to me in this thread.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 10:44 am

Zionism is the belief to have a Jewish nation.

Supporting some Zionists fleeing Germany, is thus not supporting Zionism.

As to support Zionism, would be to support the creation of a Jewish state

Hence the claim made by Ken was based off a lie, as seen Rags is also lying and fails to back her claim with evidence.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:10 am

Here's an interesting article:

The Transfer Agreement enabled both Germany and the Jewish community in Palestine to achieve key objectives. Transfer helped Germany defeat the boycott, create jobs at home, and convert Jewish assets into Reich economic recovery. It helped the Zionists overcome a major obstacle to continued Jewish immigration and expansion in Palestine.

In the painful choice between relief vs. rescue, most of the Jewish world opted for relief; that is, defending the right of Jews to remain where they were as free and equal citizens. But the Zionist leadership favored rescue, which was completely in keeping with their solution to anti-Semitism--a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/could-we-have-stopped-hitler

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:11 am

Zionism is the belief to have a Jewish nation.

Supporting some Zionists fleeing Germany, is thus not supporting Zionism.

As to support Zionism, would be to support the creation of a Jewish state

Hence the claim made by Ken was based off a lie, as seen Rags is also lying and fails to back her claim with evidence.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:17 am

A point which I made myself.

Those who would condemn the Zionist decision to enter into a pact with Hitler have the luxury of hindsight. In 1933, the Zionists could not have foreseen the death trains, gas chambers, and crematoria. But they did understand that the end was now at hand for Jews in Europe. Nazism was unstoppable. The emphasis now became saving Jewish lives and establishing a Jewish State.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:19 am

Zionism is the belief to have a Jewish nation.

Supporting some Zionists fleeing Germany, is thus not supporting Zionism.

As to support Zionism, would be to support the creation of a Jewish state

Hence the claim made by Ken was based off a lie, as seen Rags is also lying and fails to back her claim with evidence.

So where is the evidence that Hitler supported and backed the creation of a Jewish nation?

What Ken and rags are saying, that helping some Muslim refugees flee persecution, is supporting Islam.

Really?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:35 am

Not all Zionists supported the Haavara Agreement of course, and it caused a great deal of division in Germany and also in Palestine.

One of the Zionists who negotiated the Agreement was killed in Tel Aviv, and his murder remains unsolved, but was he killed for doing a deal with the Nazis?

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:36 am

Still no evidence for Rags false claims

Supporting some Zionists fleeing Germany, is thus not supporting Zionism.

As to support Zionism, would be to support the creation of a Jewish state

Hence the claim made by Ken was based off a lie, as seen Rags is also lying and fails to back her claim with evidence.

So where is the evidence that Hitler supported and backed the creation of a Jewish nation?

What Ken and rags are saying. Is that helping some Muslim refugees flee persecution, is supporting Islam.

Really?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 11:44 am

So Ken Livingstone has researched this properly, and he's right - there was a deal where Hitler did indeed support a group of Zionists in encouraging Jews to move to Palestine.

Those who have deliberately chosen to misinterpret his words, or even change them, are clearly not thinking straight or are even deliberately stirring it up. Perhaps if had changed one or two words, they wouldn't have had the chance to twist what he said. He has clarified what he meant, but that's not good enough for them. This is clearly a witch hunt.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:13 pm

Thorin wrote:Still no evidence for Rags false claims

Supporting some Zionists fleeing Germany, is thus not supporting Zionism.

As to support Zionism, would be to support the creation of a Jewish state

Hence the claim made by Ken was based off a lie, as seen Rags is also lying and fails to back her claim with evidence.

So where is the evidence that Hitler supported and backed the creation of a Jewish nation?

What Ken and rags are saying. Is that helping some Muslim refugees flee persecution, is supporting Islam.

Really?

You have misunderstood again. It was Jews in general leaving Germany, and the point of the Haavara Agreement was that they weren't just leaving Germany, they were specifically going to Palestine because of the deal between Zionists and the Nazis.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:38 pm

Still no evidence for Rags false claims

Supporting some Zionists fleeing Germany, is thus not supporting Zionism.

As to support Zionism, would be to support the creation of a Jewish state

Hence the claim made by Ken was based off a lie, as seen Rags is also lying and fails to back her claim with evidence.

So where is the evidence that Hitler supported and backed the creation of a Jewish nation?

What Ken and rags are saying. Is that helping some Muslim refugees flee persecution, is supporting Islam.

Really?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:41 pm

Can you stop spamming the thread please Didge? I answered your post, which you had already posted twice, and now you've posted it again.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:42 pm

Still no evidence for Rags false claims

Supporting some Zionists fleeing Germany, is thus not supporting Zionism.

As to support Zionism, would be to support the creation of a Jewish state

Hence the claim made by Ken was based off a lie, as seen Rags is also lying and fails to back her claim with evidence.

So where is the evidence that Hitler supported and backed the creation of a Jewish nation?

What Ken and rags are saying. Is that helping some Muslim refugees flee persecution, is supporting Islam.

Really?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:45 pm

Reported for spamming.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:47 pm

Still no evidence for Rags false claims

So where is the evidence that Hitler supported and backed the creation of a Jewish nation?

What Ken and rags are saying. Is that helping some Muslim refugees flee persecution, is supporting Islam.

Really?

When I see evidence then the debate can continue.

There is no evidence that Hitler supported zionism.

Hence its a fabrication and if the mods support Rags here, then they are supporting a lie also, by allowing her to continue to lie and get out of answering and posting the relevant evidence.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:59 pm

The Zionists who did the deal in 1933 didn't know that the Nazis would end up killing so many Jews in such a heinous way, and the Jews who opposed the Zionist deal didn't know that would happen either. They saw Germany as their home, and they wanted to stay, even things were difficult for them. At the time, Jews were discriminated against, and there had also been a boycott on their businesses - possibly in retaliation to the international boycott by Jews of German goods, or possibly not, but who could have predicted what would happen later? In addition to that, only Jews with a certain amount of money could take advantage of the Transfer Agreement.

As it turns out, the Zionists who did the deal saved many lives, although perhaps their primary goal was to further their own aims of a homeland for the Jews. For the Nazis, the deal meant that many Jews would probably leave, and they also probably hoped that it would end the threats of boycotts on German goods. Therefore, there were mutual benefits to both parties.

Interestingly, many Jews in Germany opposed boycotts of German goods because they feared that there would be reprisals against them.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:02 pm

So again how is helping Zionists then supporting Zionism? When Zionism, is the creation of a Jewish state? Thus that is supporting some Jews/ Zionists leave Germany. To support Zionism, would mean Hitler supporting the creation of a Jewish nation. He never did. Its like claiming that Israel supports Hamas, because it treats Hamas supporters in its hospitals. Its like claiming helping Syrian Muslim refugees is supporting Islam. In other words the claim is gibberish and nonsense.

As again Zionism, is about the creation of a Jewish state in the territory of former Judea and Israel.

Hitler at no point supported that and thus could not have supported Zionism

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:06 pm

The Zionists of course wanted a homeland for the Jews, but perhaps they didn't predict what would happen if they achieved their aims. For a Jewish State to succeed, that would involve many Jews moving to the area, and then what happens to the population who are already there?

Perhaps they could have foreseen that after the State of Israel was established there would be a backlash from Arab nations, but could they foresee the war of 1967 which largely led to the long-standing problems in the area?

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:07 pm

Antisemitism, as we have learned from the recent brouhaha in the Labour party, occurs across the left-right political spectrum, not forgetting liberals in between.

On the left, it originally took the form of identifying Jews, most of whom were poor, as a powerful financial cabal (in which the Rothschilds figured prominently), which is why the 19th century German labour leader August Bebel called antisemitism "the socialism of fools".

An extreme racist nationalist seeking to build a workers' party, Hitler blamed Jews for parasitically subverting the vitality of the Aryan-Germanic "race" but also for the political Marxism that sought to plunge society into class warfare for their own benefit.

Like some of his antisemitic precursors, he thought Jews should be segregated or expelled, but in the toxically turbulent aftermath of the First World World War , he countenanced more lethal "solutions" to what Karl Marx and others had dubbed "the Jewish Question" since the 1840s.

In 1922 Hitler told an army journalist that on coming to power he would publicly hang Jews until there were none left in Germany. Two years later in Mein Kampf he wrote: "If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain".

Brenner cannot point to a single contact between Hitler and Zionists of any stripe

And so we come, incredibly, to the controversies rocking the British Labour party in early summer 2016.

Hitler's words in the 1920s make a nonsense of Ken Livingstone's dim-witted assertion that a "sane" Hitler somehow lost it regarding Jews after 1932. But what of Livingstone's equally risible, perhaps snide, claim that until then Hitler was a closet Zionist?

Faced with the facts of the Holocaust, those antisemites who do not simply deny it, invariably opt for "evidence" of collusion between victim and oppressor. Since many left-wing antisemites also detest the state of Israel on "anti-colonial" grounds, they eagerly alight upon any "evidence" of contacts between Nazis and Zionists who did indeed seek a Jewish state.

The evidence for collusion is pretty slim, as Yehuda Bauer showed in a detailed book which explored the 1933-38 Haavara Transfer Agreement; the 1938 Evian Conference, negotiations in Slovakia in 1942-43, and the "trucks for blood" parleys in Hungary in 1944. Only the first concerns us here, and all of these dealings between Nazis and a few Jews took place in conditions of blackmail, coercion and in the last two cases mass murder.

This has not stopped far right or left-wing ideologues (like the American radical Lenni Brenner whose Zionists in the Age of Dictators Livingstone has cited) from straining the objectively episodic and marginal into something maliciously significant.
Neither Brenner nor Livingstone can point to a single contact between Hitler and Zionists of any stripe, and nor was pre-war Palestine "Israel" but a British-ruled mandate until 1948.

The Haavara transfer agreement was negotiated between the Zionist Federation of Germany and the German government. It was a bit like an immigrant investment visa scheme of the kind many countries have, but with the catch that these emigrants were being coerced to leave Germany. It allowed wealthy German-Jewish emigrants to surrender their assets before they left Germany. Proceeds were moved to a company in Tel Aviv, which used them to purchase exported German goods in Palestine. Less than half of the profits were in local currency to the new emigrants, with the rest going to local projects.

From the Nazi viewpoint, the aim of the agreement, which lasted until 1938, was to subvert a not very effective international boycott of German goods. This was why the transfer agreement was vehemently opposed by Polish Jews, who saw that it would not benefit any poor Jews, and worse, might encourage their own right-wing government to follow suit.

In the event, by the late 1930s the Poles were toying with a French plan to deport Jews to Madagascar, a scheme the Nazis also briefly ran with, until the outbreak of war meant it was unfeasible because of British domination of the sea lanes.

The Nazis next reverted to what they had only essayed in November 1938, bundling stateless Jews over the border, opting in 1941 to deport all Jews to occupied eastern Poland, where they killed them in the millions, in conjunction with the Jews they deported to or found in the Baltic States and the Soviet Union.

Rather than Hitler wanting to help the creation of Israel, which would not have helped win Arab allies - of whom the Mufti of Jerusalem was the most antisemitic in a competitive field - the Nazis had an SS "Einsatzkommando Egypt" ready to kill the 700,000 Jews in North Africa and the Levant if the battle of El Alamein had gone the other way.

Hatred of Israel has so blinkered elements in the Labour party that they will clutch at any straw to discredit it. Their loathing of the US comes a distant second, though they also imagine US foreign policy is directed by a powerful Zionist cabal.

But to revert back to August Bebel, I am more worried by the fact that there is no cure for stupidity. Corbyn and Livingstone are incredibly poorly educated by the lights of past Labour leaders from Gaitskell to Wilson. Both are consumed by serial causes, about which they read just enough to reinforce what are emotional prejudices, for why else pass over the 25 or so other conflicts not involving Israel in the Middle East? Maybe that's why Corbyn could denounce antisemitism, though not his old mucker Livingstone, at a May Day rally with the face of Stalin, a notorious antisemite and mass murderer, staring benignly at him from the larger Communist banners. Ignorance is bliss as they say.

Michael Burleigh is a historian and expert on Nazi Germany

https://www.thejc.com/comment/analysis/history-shows-hitler-never-was-a-zionist-1.56518

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:27 pm

That whole article is based on a lie or a misunderstanding.

But what of Livingstone's equally risible, perhaps snide, claim that until then Hitler was a closet Zionist?

This is not what KL claimed, but the lie persists amongst those who wish to see him expelled.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:36 pm

Jeffrey Herf, author of the award winning book ‘Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust’, and Professor of History at the University of Maryland, examines the historical accuracies behind ex-Mayor of London Ken Livingstone’s charge of Hitler as a Zionist. This week Cambridge University Press has published his new book, Undeclared Wars with Israel: East Germany and the West German Far Left, 1967-1989.

During the Cold War the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact Allies and the Western far-left spread a variety of lies about the history of Zionism, the most famous of these falsehoods being the assertion that Hitler and the Nazi regime were supporters of Zionism. It was a falsehood that fit well with another big lie of Communist Cold War propaganda, namely that Zionism was itself a form of racism. If the latter were the case, it would make logical sense that racists such as Hitler supported Zionism. The fact is however that Hitler and the Nazis despised Zionism and did all they could to defeat it.

Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London and a long-standing prominent figure on the British left, has now repeated the myth of Nazi support for Zionism. However, what was a required and standard slogan of the Communist regimes, parties and the Western far-left during the Cold War, now faces opposition from some members of the British Labour Party. That a man as prominent as Livingstone, whom the citizens of London elected as their Mayor for eight years, repeats such rubbish says a great deal about the ideas that have been circulating in what presents itself as a major cosmopolitan city. At least parts of Britain’s left have sunk to the status of a provincial intellectual backwater. Livingstone and those who agree with him are oblivious of the following well-established historical facts.

First, Hitler despised Zionism. In fact he ridiculed the idea as he was convinced that the Jews would be incapable of establishing and then defending a state. More importantly, he and his government viewed the prospect of a Jewish state in Palestine as part of the broader international Jewish conspiracy which his fevered imagination presented as a dire threat to Germany. While (after robbing them of most of their possessions) the Nazis did allow some German Jews to leave the country in the 1930s in order to travel to Palestine, that policy was primarily driven by a desire to get the Jews out of Germany rather than to build a Jewish state in Palestine. By the late 1930s the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who later collaborated with the Nazis in wartime Berlin, had informed German diplomats stationed in Jerusalem that the entry of Jews into Palestine from Germany was angering local Arabs. For reasons of their own, the Nazis cut off Jewish emigration in 1941 to pursue their goal of murdering Europe’s Jews. This ignorance about the implications of the Holocaust is stunning. As the Israeli historian Anita Shapira has pointed out, it is only a half-truth to say that Israel was founded because of the Holocaust. The other half of the truth is that literally millions of Jews in Europe who might have contributed to the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine could not do so because the Nazis had murdered them. The Holocaust itself was an enormous blow to the Zionist project.

Second, Livingstone displays an ignorance of the history of World War II in North Africa. In November 1941, Hitler promised the Mufti, then in Berlin, that if and when the German armies were successful in the Caucuses, they would drive south to destroy the Jewish population then living in areas controlled by Britain in North Africa and the Middle East. In the summer and autumn of 1942, German General Erwin Rommel’s Afrikakorps drove east from Tunisia to be met by forces from Australia, New Zealand and Britain at the Battle of El Alamein in Egypt. Nazi propaganda in those weeks and months urged Arab listeners to “kill the Jews,” dispensing with any distinctions between Zionists and Jews. As the German historians Martin Cuppers and Klaus Michael Mallman have demonstrated in Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews of Palestine, it was only the Allied victory at El Alamein over Rommel’s forces that prevented the arrival of SS units eager to carry out mass murders of Jews in North Africa and Mandatory Palestine. Livingstone appears unfamiliar with this glorious page in the history of British anti-fascism.

While actions speak louder than words, Nazi propaganda aimed both at German audiences and at Arabs in North Africa and the Middle East constantly denounced Britain, the Jews and Zionism. This Nazi flood of anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish hatred is documented in my book Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, which the leaders of the Labour Party really ought to read. Nazi propagandists claimed that a Jewish state in Palestine would be a “Vatican for the Jews,” that is a power centre of an international Jewish conspiracy and thus a threat to Germany. They also argued that an Allied victory would be a victory for the Jews. They repeated lies that a Jewish state in Palestine would be a threat to the religion of Islam in the entire Arab Middle East. Zionism was described as a form of “Jewish imperialism” that was linked to British and American imperialism, and even to “Jewish Bolshevism” in Moscow as well. In the postwar years, neo-Nazis and Islamists in the Middle East viewed the establishment of the state of Israel as confirming these Nazi anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. In short, in both word and deed, Nazi Germany did all it could to ensure that a Jewish state in Palestine never would emerge.

Livingstone appears ill-informed about the decisive role that British anti-fascism in World War II played in defeating Nazi Germany’s efforts to murder the almost one million Jews of North Africa and the Middle East. One of the great successes of the Cold War propaganda campaigns waged by the Soviet Union, its Warsaw Pact allies, Arab states most hostile to Israel as well as the Palestine Liberation Organization was its suppression of the actual history of Nazi anti-Zionism and even the role the Soviet Union played in helping to defeat it. In the immediate postwar years, before Soviet leaders sought to drive out Western influence in the Middle East and gain control over Western Europe’s supply of oil from the region, the Soviet Union supported the establishment of the state of Israel. After the “anti-cosmopolitan purges” of the early 1950s, the history of Soviet Zionism became as embarrassing as the actual history of Nazi anti-Zionism. Neither fit into the dogmas of Communist anti-imperialism which, it appears, have now filtered into some ranks of the Labour Party.

Anti-Semitism, like all forms or racism and religious hatred, is built on lies and distortions about the past and present. Around the world, London stands for worldliness, cosmopolitanism and often for an understanding of history. When the former Mayor of this city reveals how little he knows about World War II and Britain’s role in it, one has to wonder what has happened to the qualities we admire in British intellectual life.

http://fathomjournal.org/hitler-and-the-nazis-anti-zionism-2/

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:44 pm

Nick Clegg said this:

I never ever thought I would see the day that mainstream, well-known politicians like you would start raking over Hitler's views in a way that people would simply not understand.

Does he think we're all thick? It's quite obvious to me what JL meant.

http://www.itv.com/news/update/2016-04-28/nick-clegg-tells-ken-livingstone-his-actions-were-weird/

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:45 pm

Nick Clegg?

Ken Livingstone Warns He Will Sue Labour If He Is Expelled For Anti-Semitism - Page 4 3489511464

Since when was he a historian?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:55 pm

Thorin wrote:Nick Clegg?

Since when was he a historian?

Did someone claim he is? scratch

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:57 pm

Raggamuffin wrote:
Thorin wrote:Nick Clegg?

Since when was he a historian?

Did someone claim he is?

So how can he claim to know what Ken meant?

Do you want to see what many more historians say about Ken on this issue and how they ridicule his claims of Hitler supporting Zionism?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:01 pm

Thorin wrote:
Raggamuffin wrote:

Did someone claim he is?

So how can he claim to know what Ken meant?

Do you want to see what many more historians say about Ken on this issue and how they ridicule his claims of Hitler supporting Zionism?

He didn't claim he knew what Ken meant, he said that people wouldn't understand what he meant - ie, the general public.

I know of the articles, and I disagree with them. They usually misquote him anyway.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:07 pm

Raggamuffin wrote:
Thorin wrote:

So how can he claim to know what Ken meant?

Do you want to see what many more historians say about Ken on this issue and how they ridicule his claims of Hitler supporting Zionism?

He didn't claim he knew what Ken meant, he said that people wouldn't understand what he meant - ie, the general public.

I know of the articles, and I disagree with them. They usually misquote him anyway.

Eh?

That makes zero sense, if he claims people would not understand what he meant, then he is claiming he understands what he meant.

So you disagree with all the top historians lol

Thanks, that just sums up how you clearly want to avoid what is really known and stubbornly defend an antisemite.

You are done here, but thanks for your poor defense of a hater.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:32 pm

Thorin wrote:
Raggamuffin wrote:

He didn't claim he knew what Ken meant, he said that people wouldn't understand what he meant - ie, the general public.

I know of the articles, and I disagree with them. They usually misquote him anyway.

Eh?

That makes zero sense, if he claims people would not understand what he meant, then he is claiming he understands what he meant.

So you disagree with all the top historians lol

Thanks, that just sums up how you clearly want to avoid what is really known and stubbornly defend an antisemite.

You are done here, but thanks for your poor defense of a hater.

Nick Clegg said people wouldn't understand what Ken said, so he seemed to be implying that people are a bit thick. Which bit of that did you not understand?

Which top historians? You ignored all the articles I posted by historians, so you have no room to talk.

I'm not done here, and I'll continue posting about the subject for as long as I see fit.

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:35 pm

Just in case you still don't understand:

3.34.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:37 pm

Which means Clegg is claiming to say he understands what he meant..

Historians?

I posted two already and can post many more for you

You are well and truly done for supporting a hater here

You fail to understand what Zionism is and failed to offer any proof Hitler backed the creation of a Jewish state.

You constantly avoided providing this and the simple reason is that Hitler never supported Zionism.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-historians-take-down-livingstons-claim-that-hitler-supported-zionism/

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:39 pm

John Mann appeared to understand what Ken meant, although he made the mistake of implying that Ken said Hitler was a Zionist, which he didn't say, but hey ...

Anyway, he said that Hitler blocked any attempt to get Jews into what was then Palestine. So then - why did he not block the Haavara Agreement?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:40 pm

Thorin wrote:Which means Clegg is claiming to say he understands what he meant..

Historians?

I posted two already and can post many more for you

You are well and truly done for supporting a hater here

You fail to understand what Zionism is and failed to offer any proof Hitler backed the creation of a Jewish state.

You constantly avoided providing this and the simple reason is that Hitler never supported Zionism.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-historians-take-down-livingstons-claim-that-hitler-supported-zionism/

Look, if you're a Zionist who's crying about the remarks, don't take it out on me. I have no dog in this fight - I'm simply telling it how I see it.

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:41 pm

Raggamuffin wrote:John Mann appeared to understand what Ken meant, although he made the mistake of implying that Ken said Hitler was a Zionist, which he didn't say, but hey ...

Anyway, he said that Hitler blocked any attempt to get Jews into what was then Palestine. So then - why did he not block the Haavara Agreement?

PMSL

Ken claimed Hitler supported Zionism

How is that being distorted?

So again Zionism is the creation of a Jewish state on former Judea and Palestine

"Livingstone sought to support his thesis that Hitler was a backer of Zionism by alleging that he had stood out against other Nazi leaders who feared the creation of a Jewish state. Bauer dismissed this as “pure nonsense.”
“Hitler agreed that the establishment of a Jewish state would create a Jewish Vatican and opposed it, but the ideology of expelling Jews was more important,” said Bauer.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-historians-take-down-livingstons-claim-that-hitler-supported-zionism/

by Guest Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:42 pm

Raggamuffin wrote:
Thorin wrote:Which means Clegg is claiming to say he understands what he meant..

Historians?

I posted two already and can post many more for you

You are well and truly done for supporting a hater here

You fail to understand what Zionism is and failed to offer any proof Hitler backed the creation of a Jewish state.

You constantly avoided providing this and the simple reason is that Hitler never supported Zionism.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/top-historians-take-down-livingstons-claim-that-hitler-supported-zionism/

Look, if you're a Zionist who's crying about the remarks, don't take it out on me. I have no dog in this fight - I'm simply telling it how I see it.

So you are against the existence of Israel then?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:46 pm

I think you Zionists need to explain what you're so upset about. I mean - if Ken had said that Zionists supported Hitler, I could understand you lot being a bit upset, but he didn't say that. Jews who don't support Zionism don't have a reason to be upset either. John Mann said the remarks were grotesque, but then he thinks that Ken said Hitler was a Zionist. Even if he had been a Zionist, what would be offensive about that?

by Raggamuffin Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:47 pm

Thorin wrote:
Raggamuffin wrote:

Look, if you're a Zionist who's crying about the remarks, don't take it out on me. I have no dog in this fight - I'm simply telling it how I see it.

So you are against the existence of Israel then?

No, and I didn't say I was. You're worse than John Mann!

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