As mayor, Livingstone has shown he is a staunch supporter of those who sustain and commit terrorism and suicide bombing in Israel. After the 7/7 London bombings he compared Likud to Hamas, and he has accused Israel of crimes against humanity for defending its population from murderers.
The latest Livingstone furor began when he was asked a reasonable question in a reasonable manner by a reporter from the London Evening Standard. There is, however, no love lost between Livingstone and the Evening Standard, and so the mayor responded by calling the reporter a concentration camp guard. The reporter, who happened to be Jewish, told Livingstone he was offended. Rather then apologize as any normal person – even a politician – would do, Livingstone, true to his nature as a bully and a brute, refused. He then compounded the problem by being less than forthright about what happened – only to be exposed by the recording the reporter had made of the mayor’s comments.
Despite calls from Tony Blair, the Commission for Racial Equality and others, Livingstone still refused to express any contrition and was taken by the Board of Deputies of British Jews before the Standards Board for England, which found him guilty and suspended him from office for a month.
Red Ken was at it again recently when he told two Jewish property developers involved in the construction projects for the 2012 Olympics that they ought to go back to Iran and the ayatollahs (the two men are from India). Ordinary white Englishmen have been arrested for saying such things to Muslim and non-white immigrants. In typical leftist smear fashion, Livingstone went on to accuse his critics of “dancing on the memory of the Holocaust” after they dared criticize him.
Red Ken is the embodiment of the most pernicious of all types of anti-Semitism – an anti-Semitism that is nearly universal on the Left. This anti-Semitism hides behind anti-Israelism and lies to itself and others about its true nature. This is a political worldview that George Orwell caught so well and is as true now as when Orwell was writing. It is a worldview where everything means its opposite. It is a worldview in flight from rationality.
It is a worldview that thrives on euphemism. Thus, “human rights” has come to mean a reduction of rights for the majority but an increase for immigrants, terrorists and criminals. It is a worldview that has created a situation where Muslims are allowed to march through the streets with placards that call for beheading and massacring their enemies, while those who object a tad too strenuously to those placards are threatened with jail.
It is a worldview in which freedom means being allowed to think and say whatever people like Red Ken want you to think and say, and where any other opinion is tarred as “fascist.”
Of course these same people are also anti-American and anti-Christian, but that is beyond the scope of this article. Unfortunately, this is an anti-Semitism that entices many Jews who for whatever reason fall prey to its pseudo-morality and become some of its most active proponents. Our sages labeled such Jews the eruv rav.