[Closed] Ken Livingstone steps in to calm antisemitism row in the Labour Party.

JY re the Saudi point - again its the government that should be the focus of your critism and certainly not people you meet in the street (reference singing "rockets over Tel Avi " to a fellow student) - obviously to me you wouldn't do either but there are many who do and incite others within the Labour Party (and broader left wing movements)

@kimbers that petiton totally misses the point and is part of the problem if I may say so. "Respected member" I think NOT

reference singing "rockets over Tel Avi " to a fellow student

fellow student at Oxford?
thats a failure of the univeristy

for some reason Oxford Uni is unwilling to clampdown on its societies, whethger its Bullingdon yobs burning money in front of homeles peoople
or labour society ****s being anti-semetic

any other Uni would've booted them out, the privileged few at Oxford can get away with what they like

they were too scared of loosing donnations to remove a statue of a guy that held views like this..

One of Rhodes's primary motivators in politics and business was his professed belief that the Anglo-Saxon race was destined to greatness as, to quote his will, "the first race in the world".[2] Under the reasoning that "the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Rhodes

“There is quite a bit of uproar among the wider campus and student community,”

I heard that they were slightly incandescent...

@tmh Welsh Labour asked him not to come !!

Oliver Letwin = racist

[url= http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12/30/oliver-letwin-racist-comments-riots-disco_n_8893124.html ]huffpost[/url]

There is one hell of a lot of attempts here and elsewhere going on to deflect attention away from the issue

@kimbers they where members of Oxford University Labour and Momentum - not just a University issue. Good friends of ours daughter suffered years on anti-Semitic abuse at Cambridge mostly from the "Palestinian Society" - so not affiliateded with Labour I believe although I suspect had many members in common. This Oxford abuse very much was

When will Labour publish their report following their investigation into anti-semitism in the party ?

I know Jambas, hence my joke about Plaid Cymru

Unlike Scotland, the incumbent's record is very much under scrutiny. Hence I am sure that PC would want to have Jezza there to put him on the spot. As is it, he is staying away and the whole debate according to the (apparently very unreliable 😉 ) BBC is being dominated by Port Talbot (which I was relived to hear from a third generation worker last night is easy to make profitable again)

CTK - that is just desperate. Not perhaps the most desperate attempt to deflect attention from the grubby attitudes of the extreme left - one did link to an article mentioning a Tory Leadership contest with Ken Clarke as a candidate, but really desperate and transparent none the less.

There is one hell of a lot of attempts here and elsewhere going on to deflect attention away from the issue

Oh the irony 😆
Truly it is beautiful to behold. 😆

Yes if only we would all just pretend that disliking israel is disliking jews and only the left has a problem with racism and a dislike if israel shows you are a racist....you [ right wing] guys are proper cracking me up with your polemic here never mind the appeal to the "real issue".

Shame thet facts are getting in the way of that view eh damn them

Good friends of ours daughter suffered years on anti-Semitic abuse at Cambridge mostly from the "Palestinian Society"

This thread really has become sublime comedy
Chapeau.

CTK example is pretty poor to be fair and a long time ago but Kimbers gives good links that prove the point.

Ha, fair play it was a long time ago, but only in the public domain recently and little was made of it considering what a clear cut and horribly ugly example of racism it is.

Livingstone gone good, he does not know or care to moderate himself, he is a liability to Labour.

Does labour have a problem with anti-semitism not even close FFS!

Good old politics - taking an important subject and using it lazily like a club to bash at a political party to do as much damage as possible to gain points..

Come on @Jambayala...sure Corbyn has handled it badly and it's another example of his poor leadership in the context he has to work within...but to say anti-Semitism is endemic in Labour is just silly and emotive...something that shouldnt be done with such an important subject.

anyway, you can all stop bickering now.
Galloway will be on C4 news later to add to the calming.

Good old politics - taking an important subject and using it lazily like a club to bash at a political party to do as much damage as possible to gain points..

Party politics and a public hungry for sensationalist news... Nightmare combination.

but to say anti-Semitism is endemic in Labour is just silly and emotive...something that shouldnt be done with such an important subject.

All depends what you agenda is though. If it's to rubbish the left no matter what, then it makes perfect sense to jump on whatever bandwagon is going that way...

Andrew Neil nails it, join at 35 seconds:

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1217762898247739&id=282235521800486

Galloway will be on C4 news later to add to the calming.

s'ok a weasel in a science experiment has replaced Labour not being any more anti-Semitic than any random portion of the population on the front page of BBC web page.

As you were.

@Stoner - Thanks I'll catch that
@outof likewise we missed it last night, agreed suicide from Labour

@eden I really think its a major problem, I think his election as leader gave those anti-semites a renewed lease of life not least through his promotion of a number of them. When you have a leader who gave credibility to Hamas and Hezbollah members inviting them to Westminster and describing them as Friends you are fanning the flames. I think Corbyn has good intentions but is very naive in which he approaches these issues.

@JY I don't think the left/Labour is the only faction/party with a racism issue - I do think they are the one major party with a material issue though. Oxford Uni abuse of Jews by Labour activities has been accepted by the party and the University has taken disciplinary action. What we don't know is the contents of the Labour investigation as Corbyn has kicked it into the long grass (in my view as cintents where damning and he wanted it pushed back till after the May elections)

I know its not strictly related but this just made us laugh

There you go - support Zionism or you're a racist

Hasn't Diane Abbot been accused of racist comments a few times? Not sure if she was suspended. If not KL shouldn't have been IMV.

At the end of the day, Ken Livingstone's statement has a fairly solid basis in fact...

FFS. Yes it does but to bring that up in a discussion about antisemitism is a bit like like bringing a shit into an operating theatre to make a point about hygiene

So facts must be concealed, or misrepresented for political gain?

Handy stuff this outrage...

No it just wasn't relevant. He didn't mention area 51.

It's highly relevant, as Nazi policies had a massive effect on Jews and thus the creation of Israel.

In turn, Israeli propaganda is very efficient at getting people the world over hyped by Anti-Semitism.

Same old same old, Judaism is fine and dandy, Israeli government policies (and their support by our government(s)) are shite.

Aside from the tenuous link of Foo Fighters in WW2, Area 51 is irrelevant here, unless you have someting you wish to divulge?

Er they've got Hitler in a jar there and they've cloned him to make the shadow cabinet?

Ken Livingstone is a loud mouthed **** and he was shooting from the hip with bullets of pure stupid. But he's not an antisemite, the labour party is not antisemitic and some right wing Zionist Jews are a bit prickly. And CMD is pisding himself laughing at the whole sorry mess.

@jive, the integrity (absolute lack of) of Livingstone's remarks where dealt with in the Channel 4 news piece I posted. Jews with a preminition about Hitier contacted him to try and get Jews out of Germany. He declined to give them travel permits, he did not want Jews moved elsewhere, he had other ideas.

Livingstone is going the same was as Galloway, he'll be expelled in due course

I've given you a pretty solid base to start from here:

So a bit more background to this:

[img] [/img]

[b]Between 9 September and 9 October 1934 the Nazi Party Berlin newspaper Der Angriff, founded and controlled by Joseph Goebbels published a series of twelve pro-Zionist articles by Mildenstein under the title A Nazi Goes to Palestine. In honour of his visit, the newspaper issued a commemorative medallion, with the swastika on one side and the Star of David on the other.[/b]

In the summer of 1935, then holding the rank of SS-Untersturmführer, Mildenstein attended the 19th Congress of the Zionist Organization in Lucerne, Switzerland, as an observer attached to the German Jewish delegation. Mildenstein's apparently pro-Zionist line was overtaken by events, and after a dispute with Reinhard Heydrich in 1936 he was removed from his post and transferred to the Foreign Ministry's press department. [b]He had fallen out of favour because migration to Palestine was not proceeding at a fast enough rate.[/b]

Mildenstein had taken an early interest in Zionism, even going so far as to attend Zionist conferences to help deepen his understanding of the movement. He actively promoted Zionism as a way out of the official impasse on the Jewish question: as a way of making Germany Judenrein (free of Jews). S[b]ome Zionists, whose movement had grown tremendously in popularity among German Jews since Hitler came to power, co-operated. On 7 April 1933, the Juedische Rundschau, the bi-weekly paper of the movement, declared that of all Jewish groups only the Zionist Federation of Germany was capable of approaching the Nazis in good faith as "honest partners".[/b] The Federation then commissioned Kurt Tuchler to make contact with possible Zionist sympathisers within the Nazi Party, with the aim of easing emigration to Palestine, and Tuchler approached Mildenstein, who was asked to write something positive about Jewish Palestine in the press.

Interestingly, [url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_von_Mildenstein ][b]Leopold Von Mildenstein[/b][/url] was responsible for recruiting Adolf Eichmann, who in turn was one of the major organizers of the Holocaust:

Eichmann was invited by Leopold von Mildenstein to join his Jewish Department, Section II/112 of the SD, at its Berlin headquarters.

Yet when Nazi hunters captured Adolf Eichmann, Mildenstein avoided prosecution:

after the capture of Adolf Eichmann in 1960 [b]he claimed immunity as an intelligence agent of the U. S. Central Intelligence Agency[/b], a claim which was neither confirmed nor denied.

Considering Allen Dulles' (a key operative of US Intelligence, who later became head of CIA) pivotal role in funding the Nazis before WW2 and ensuring continued support for financing via the Bank of International Settlements (see more here and here ) this is potentially an area of grave concern.

Here's another excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on Leopold Von Mildenstein:

[b]On his return to Berlin, Mildenstein's suggestion that the solution to the Jewish problem lay in mass migration to Palestine was accepted by his superiors within the SS.[/b] From August 1934 to June 1936 Mildenstein worked in the headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the security service of the SS, in Section II/112, in charge of the Jewish Desk, with the title of Judenreferent (Jewish Affairs Officer). [b]This title meant that he was responsible for reporting on "Jewish Affairs" under the overall command of Reinhard Heydrich.[8] During those years, Mildenstein favoured a policy of encouraging Germany's Jewish population to emigrate to Palestine, and in pursuit of this policy he developed positive contacts with Zionist organizations. SS officials were even instructed to encourage the activities of the Zionists within the Jewish community, who were to be favoured over the assimilationists, said to be the real danger to National Socialism. Even the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of September 1935 had a special Zionist provision, allowing the Jews to fly their own flag.[/b]

Keep digging and see what you find...

Ah, thanks JHJ, so it seems as if there is some sort of worldwide Jewish conspiracy after all, eh?

Who knew?

So the american right engineered ww2 in order to establish the state of Israel. Makes sense now you put it like that.

Redken was not making some earth shattering disclosure to rock the state of Israel he was pointing out, in just about the most moronic way imaginable that your support or otherwise for the state of Israel does not define whether you are an anti Semite.

If it was a Jewish conspiracy, why would there be such tolerance of extensive relations with Saudi Arabia?

Banks innit - where do you think all those Saudi Oil Sheiks keep their money?

it seems we've got this all sewn up JHJ, maybe we should publish our findings!

Aye, but surely constantly arming the blighters could make for tricky negotiations... there again, the oil for arms aspect of Al-Yamamah made billions, most of it ghosted away to mysterious offshore slush funds.

Well, at least Prince Bandar did his best in Syria...

Hmmm

How can there be a Jewish conspiracy when they only make up less than 0.4% of the population! What Jewish vote are politicans gaining and what Jews are there to orchestrate it with such small numbers?

This article sums the issue up well:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/28/antisemitism-rocked-labour-self-belief?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Gmail

Actually, you’re just like a concentration camp guard. You’re just doing it because you’re paid to, aren’t you?” If you’re Jewish, and live in London, you might dimly recall those words. But if not, here’s a clue. They were spoken to a Jewish reporter a decade ago by the man who today indignantly described himself as having fought a lifelong battle against discrimination – shortly before being suspended from the Labour party for potentially bringing it into disrepute with clumsy references to Hitler.

[img] [/img]

Can't help thinking there's a bit off this going off currently.

I know it's not subtle but I've heard no one talk of Livingstone's freedom of speech here like we all did when it came to Charlie Hebdo - which is all the debate centred on. (I know folk died but maybe we should debate before it gets to that.)

Also reminds me of the time Galloway was on QT and the Jewish chaps would not let him make his point. (IIRC Galloway was attacked prior to this because of his views by the Kung Fu kicking bloke who deemed him anti-Semitic.)

I think Corbyn has good intentions but is very naive in which he approaches these issues.

Yep, cos your sophisticated approach has been such a towering success in the middle east. Jeez. You couldn't make it up.

Oh. Hang on. You just did.

I don't think shooting people is the same as heckling them. We've got a long tradition of heckling in this country and a fairly short one of shooting people, thankfully

JY I don't think the left/Labour is the only faction/party with a racism issue - I do think they are the one major party with a material issue though.

Nothing will convince you as its your politics before reality. Amusingly some of your "evidence"* explicitly stated that you could not link it to labour

* posh for unevidenced anecdote.

Thought this was appropriate to remember...

[img] [/img]

Pushed to say whether he regretted bringing the German dictator into the debate, Livingstone said: “I regret mentioning Hitler because it brought up this nonsense.

“I’m sorry that I said that because it’s wasted all this time but I can’t bring myself to deny the truth and I’m not going to do that. I’m sorry it’s caused disruption.”

Earlier in the interview Livingstone had said: “This is not about antisemitism in Labour. Its embittered old Blairite MPs. They are whipping this up.”

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/30/ken-livingstone-blames-embittered-blairite-mps-for-antisemitism-row

Its a very effective ad hom.

Also worth noting the Tories tactic in the mayoral election as they are perfectly happy to play the "race guard "via dog whistle tactics against a Muslim, I am sure there is an equally "endemic" problem in their party.

Also worth noting that an analysis of who supports racism - be it the aprtheid state and who opposed it then it is almost always the right wint that are the racists and the left who are not. Clearly racists are more likely ot be right wing than left wing so the"endemic claim" is BS

TO be clear i am neither claim all right wing folk are racists, that is BS, nor that no left wing person is racist but on average rogth wing folk are more racist than left wing

I like that old Jewish fella who said

'anti-semites used to be people who don't like Jews, but now anti-semites are people that Jews don't like'

🙂

“This is not about antisemitism in Labour. Its embittered old Blairite MPs. They are whipping this up.”

That and the right wing press who just jump on any band wagon to bash Corbyn....

[url= https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1504/26120213274_3970b39559_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1504/26120213274_3970b39559_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/FN9VoJ ]Jews for Jeremy[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

TO be clear i am neither claim all right wing folk are racists, that is BS, nor that no left wing person is racist but on average rogth wing folk are more racist than left wing

bo****ks

"On average" - laughable, any figures to back that up?

There is so much hypocrisy in the way parts of our media and some of our political establishment treat issues with Israel and other Middle East states. The same hypocrisy is applied to free speech and criticism of Judaism and Islam...

It seems ingrained and also to be getting worse. I am so tired of media bullshit and political spin. The whole system - globally and nationally is broken.

They're [the right] also, as studies have shown, thicker as well. To be fair, one wouldn't need studies, they show it to us every day here on our little forum.