Livingstone May Just Get It
SomethingJewish nails an unexpectedly impressive interview with London mayor Ken Livingstone on his feelings towards Jews and Israel:
I remember the defence committee of the Board back in the mid-80s said I was the biggest threat to British Jewry since Oswald Moseley and I thought that’s a smidgeon over the top. Perhaps some might believe it, I don’t think most of them do.
Because when I became leader of the GLC in London we worked with Arab groups, as we work with any other group, and the Board of Deputies also asked me to give them a veto over Jewish groups we funded.
They didn’t want me funding the Jewish socialist group, the Jewish Lesbian and Gay Group – and we said no. The Board of Deputies is probably the biggest single strand of opinion in Judaism in Britain, but it’s not unanimous. I mean, lovely old lady came in, when I reaching up to buy my copy of the Jewish Chronicle in Waitrose, and said, “they don’t speak for all of us,” and it’s so true.
[…] I am just critical of the state of Israel, but then so are they. I think for people who aren’t Jewish they think the Board speaks for Judaism, but they no more do that than the Muslim Council of Britain speaks for Muslims. They’re strands, and they are important.
I have to say though, when my predecessors on the British left in the 1930s – the socialists and the communists and trade unionists – were all campaigning and calling for a boycott of Nazi Germany, the Board of Deputies opposed it. They are one strand of opinion, they’re often wrong, sometimes they’re right, but they don’t speak for the community any more than I speak for London. Some Londoners agree with me, some don’t, but I never wander round saying “I am the voice of London,” I’m just me, I get elected.
haha if Ken Livingstone will run for Knesset then maybe I should too!
They are one strand of opinion, they’re often wrong, sometimes they’re right, but they don’t speak for the community any more than I speak for London. That is a great quote from London’s mayor. Something to remember next time he trots off to speak for London at some official function…
Ken Livingstone will run for Knesset: um, what?
livingston is a Jew hating british piece of dreck
Loved his comment,
“We know my grandmother was born in 1888 in London, which was the exactly the time that vast numbers of refugees were coming in from the Tzar. So it could have been. As I said, religion has played no part in my life. But it would be fun to know. Then I could be a self-hater, couldn’t I?”
In the event of a coup, I bet Livingstone would be the first to be killed by the fundamentalist Jew-hating Muslims he loves so much.
man i wonder if the people commenting even took the time to read the article
Oh I read it, all right. But I filed his rationalizations in the same place I file “Some of my best friends are Jews, BUT…” or “Now I’m not saying ALL Jews are bad, BUT…”. Livingstone is a knee-jerk ultra-leftist anti-semite, and if I were a Londoner I’d be campaigning daily for his ouster in the next election.