Ken Livingston

The perfect fumble said:
Reply to the above and we have a dialogue, otherwise we can ignore each other and go our separate ways.
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All you do is quote my own posts back at me and add nothing of your own but obfuscation. What is the question you're asking me to reply to?

And answer my question - what do you understand by 'anti-Zionism'?

This guy - is he anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic?
 
Prestwich_Blue said:
All you do is quote my own posts back at me and add nothing of your own but obfuscation. What is the question you're asking me to reply to?

And answer my question - what do you understand by 'anti-Zionism'?

This guy - is he anti-Zionist or anti-Semitic?
Click to expand...

Very close to the line! In fairness the interviewer was trying his hardest to make it about Jews, whereas the interviewee was trying his hardest to avoid that word. I did wonder if he was getting stitched up ,but the quote (if it was true?) He attributed to netanyahu was a little too close to Holocaust denial for comfort IMHO. Don't know anything about downing tbh, but he sounds like he probably has some good points but they are ruined by his being a bit of a conspiracy nut.
 
I think a lot of people walk upon the rice paper ever so carefully
Anti semetic is anti semetic
If they wish to dumb it down by included zionism as a seperate entitiy then so be it
If you hate jews then just come out and say it
We know who you all are.
 
Taximania said:
I think a lot of people walk upon the rice paper ever so carefully
Anti semetic is anti semetic
If they wish to dumb it down by included zionism as a seperate entitiy then so be it
If you hate jews then just come out and say it
We know who you all are.
Click to expand...
Tbf its a bit of a fucking minefield to say the least isn't it? I've learned a bit (in between the mud slinging) from this thread, but if anything I feel less able to critisise Israeli foreign policy now than before. The terms isreal/i, Zionism, Jewish are so inextricably linked it would seem its genuinely very difficult to have a pop at one without offending the whole?. I think this is in equal part the fault of anti-semites hiding their poison behind other terms, as well as netanyahu and other RW isreali politicians deliberately blurring the lines in terminology to stifle uncomfortable debate.
 
Helmet Cole said:
Tbf its a bit of a fucking minefield to say the least isn't it? I've learned a bit (in between the mud slinging) from this thread, but if anything I feel less able to critisise Israeli foreign policy now than before. The terms isreal/i, Zionism, Jewish are so inextricably linked it would seem its genuinely very difficult to have a pop at one without offending the whole?. I think this is in equal part the fault of anti-semites hiding their poison behind other terms, as well as netanyahu and other RW isreali politicians deliberately blurring the lines in terminology to stifle uncomfortable debate.
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And that's probably the best and most succinct post in this thread. Both extremes have made rational debate almost impossible.
 
The controversy reflects the increasing tendency of politicians to play the man rather than the ball. The right demonise immigrants and benefit claimants. The left demonise capitalists. It seems that the left are incapable of separating out legitimate criticism of Israeli policy without ending up abusing ordinary Israelis.
 
Taximania said:
I think a lot of people walk upon the rice paper ever so carefully
Anti semetic is anti semetic
If they wish to dumb it down by included zionism as a seperate entitiy then so be it
If you hate jews then just come out and say it
We know who you all are.
Click to expand...

So why do you need them to say it?

Zionism is a separate entity, hence why not all Jews are Zionists. There are even Jewish organisations seeking to abolish the state of Israel because they believe the Zionism inherrent within that system is the 'exact opposite of Judaism'.

Would you consider a Jewish person who doesn't identify with Zionism to be any less Jewish than someone who does?

There are a lot of people out there who don't have an issue with the existence of the state of Israel but are against the continual 'development' which in many cases involves terrorism and human rights abuses. Plenty of people have attached the word Zionism to this expansion for whatever reason and that's where the 'anti Zionism' label comes from.

It's not a bunch of anti semites trying to be secret about their anti semitism, it's a clumsily worded attempt to show that they fundamentally disagree with the policy of a state which does things like bomb United Nations schools.

As previously alluded to, Netanyahu endorses this finger pointing as a deliberate and transparent attempt to destebalise any legitimate complaints levelled at his government's actions.
 
This (long) article is well worth reading.

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

https://opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-...h-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda

Three extracts below but I do recommend reading the entire piece.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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