 |
 |
 |
|
|
London Mayor Ken Livingstone (AP)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 4, 2005 |
|
| |
London mayor Ken Livingstone denounced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a war criminal, accused Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing, and rejected accusations of anti-Semitism, and brushed off fresh calls to apologize for his comparison of a Jewish reporter to a concentration camp guard.
In Israel, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the mayor's comments "aren't even worthy of an Israeli response."
Sharon "is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office," he wrote in the The Guardian, noting that even an Israeli commission had faulted the prime minister for a measure of responsibility in the massacre of Palestinian Arabs in refugee camps in Lebanon by Lebanese Christians in 1982.
The mayor also denounced Israeli settlements in the territories and the Israeli denial of Palestinians' "right to return."
"Sharon continues to organize terror," Livingstone said. "More than three times as many Palestinians as Israelis have been killed in the present conflict."
"Israel's own expansion has included ethnic cleansing," he added. "Ethnic cleansing, discrimination and terror are immoral."
The Mayor went so far as to say that Israeli policies were endangering people in London. "They are also fueling anger and violence across the world. For a mayor of London not to speak out against such injustice would not only be wrong -- but would also ignore the threat it poses to the security of all Londoners."
Livingstone was responding to a newspaper article by Henry Grunwald, the head of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, urging the London mayor to apologize for comparing a Jewish newspaper reporter to a Nazi death camp guard.
Livingstone insisted that it was essential to separate criticism of Israeli policies from anti-Semitism. He accused the Israeli government of deliberately trying to blur the distinction. He said that it has for the past 20 years "attempted to portray anyone who forcefully criticizes the policies of Israel as anti-Semitic. The truth is the opposite: the same universal human values that recognize the Holocaust as the greatest racist crime of the 20th century require condemnation of the policies of successive Israeli governments," he wrote.
The Labour mayor defended his record on fighting anti-Semitism and racism, and rejected a fresh call from a Jewish community leader to apologize for the uproar caused by his Nazi camp guard comparison.
"No serious commentator has argued that my comments... were anti-Semitic," Livingstone wrote in The Guardian.
Livingstone is being investigated by the Standards Board for England, a government watchdog, over whether he breached a code of conduct in his comments. If he is found to have broken the code, he could be suspended from office for up to five years.
The complaint that has been launched by the Jewish community is separate to the issue of anti-Semitism," spokesman Jason Pearlman said Friday. "He seems unable to show an understanding for the concerns of the Jewish community."
Livingstone "is trying to deflect attention away from his own behavior by targeting Israel," Pearlman added.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
