COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE IDEPENDENT
Absolutely right, Mr. Livingstone, this is a deliberately
created fury to hurt Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.
David Cameron has shown himself an unpleasant mediocrity in
nearly everything he has undertaken.
But he has truly surpassed himself with this new McCarthyite
campaign against Corbyn’s Labour.
It should make all people sick over the complete lack of
respect for democratic values.
_____________________________
Response to another
reader’s comment quoting Naz Shah’s apology in Parliament:
No one should be quoted in the fashion you have quoted
Naz Shah as proof of her anti-Semitism. It is inherently unfair.
All thinking people know she would have been speaking under
intense pressure, both from outside and inside of her party.
Quoting her in this fashion is a bit like quoting some of
America's Guantanamo torture victims on their guilt for crimes they never did
and for which they received no legal trial.
We can all judge statements of genuine hate, including hate
of a people just for what they are - which describes all forms of genuine
prejudice including anti-Semitism.
And we are all perfectly capable of judging an outburst of
anger and disapproval and frustration at the shameful behaviors of a state like
Israel.
They are not the same thing, no matter how many times you or
anyone else repeat that they are.
And Naz Shah’s original words were exactly of this nature,
reflecting frustration and anger over the behaviors of a state, not hatred of a
people.
Criticizing Israel is exactly the parallel of criticizing
the old Soviet Union. Doing either of these cannot be regarded as an expression
of hatred, either of Jewish people or of Russians.
For God's sake, the greatest terrible state in modern
history was Germany 1933-45 and run by Germans. Was criticizing the Reich
hatred of all Germans?
Of course not, and it is not a whit different in the case of
Israel, a state which in fact has violated every international law and
convention concerning human rights that we have.
