Opinion

Note to Ken Livingstone: The British Labour party has supported Zionism much more than the Nazis ever did

The recent remarks of the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone supposedly in support of another British Labour politician, Naz Shah, who had shared a social media post depicting a map of Israel transferred to the United States has ignited a debate on the extent of anti-Semitism in the British Labour Party.

In defence of Shah, Livingstone felt compelled to remind people that certain Zionists in 1930’s Nazi Germany came into an agreement with elements in the Nazi regime to transfer German Jews to Palestine. And indeed there is nothing remotely mutually exclusive about being both anti-Semitic and pro-Zionist. But, why he needed to drag this minor episode of European Zionist history, the Haavara agreement, into the mix in a supposed defence of Shah is bewildering.

More bewildering when one considers the fact that British imperialism was the most consequential partner to the Zionist colonial settler project in Palestine in the inter-war period. In 1917 when the British government issued the Balfour Declaration there were between probably 70,000 Jews in Palestine as opposed to at least 700,000 Palestinians. The British Empire’s policy was to establish a “national home for the Jewish people” and use its “best endeavours to facilitate” this achievement.

From the very beginning prominent members of the British Labour party fully endorsed this imperialist-colonial project in Palestine. The first ever Labour prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, wrote a book called “A Socialist in Palestine”, wherein he wrote that Palestinian demands for self-determination were deprived of “complete validity” because the biblical stories he was reared on as a child rendered, “Palestine and the Jew can never be separated.” [1] Furthermore, Palestinian Arabs were incapable of developing the resources of their country and as such there is an “alluring call” [2] for “hundreds of thousands of Jews” [3] to colonize Palestine. Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, another prominent Labour (and former Liberal) politician in the inter-war period argued that democracy in Palestine is only viable when the “Jews are in a majority” [4] and once the “higher civilization” of immigrant Jewish settlers “is numerous and wise enough to make democracy safe for all” they would then be able to “range up beside the other self-governing dominions” [5] of the British empire.

In parliament in the early 1920’s Wedgewood claimed Zionist were ‘teaching’ native Arabs how to claim for higher wages from their elite and this is why there was opposition to Britain’s Zionist project. [6]

When Palestinians revolted up between 1936-1939 it was prominent members of the British Labour Party which claimed that this uprising was inspired by Mussolini’s Italian fascist. In partnership with the British Empire, the new Zionist militias Great Britain had trained crushed the uprising with full support of the Labour Party. Absurdly, as Palestinians were being violently oppressed by British imperialism and its Zionist protégé, many left-wing Britons travelled to Spain to fight in its civil war on the side of republicans! Imagine, what people would have thought of a group of Americans in the midst of the invasion and war on Iraq in 2003 deciding to go on a revolutionary lark to Mexico while their own government is destroying Iraq?

The 1947-48 ethnic cleansing of Palestine was carried out under British Labour Party’s watch. Ken Livingstone’s hero, the late Labour politician, Tony Benn sold nuclear material to the Zionist regime when he was a government minister in the 1960s.

The Haavara agreement lasted from 1933 until the start of the second world war, but the British Labour endorsement of Zionist colonialism began before the 1920’s and has continued to this day. So why is Ken Livingstone and his ilk keen to drag out Zionist collusion with elements in the Nazi regime yet never broach the subject of the British Labour party’s actual facilitation of the Zionist colonial project in the same period?

It wasn’t the Nazis who issued the Balfour Declaration – it was Great Britain. Nazis didn’t have 20,000 soldiers in Palestine in the 1930s, the British did. It wasn’t Nazi Stormtroopers that proudly walked round with smashed Palestinian brains in their tobacco tins, it was Tommy. It wasn’t the Nazis that denied and crushed the Palestinian request for representative democracy in the 1930s, it was Great Britain. When Palestine was ethnically cleansed it happened under British Labour party watch, not Nazis. These are facts Livingstone and his wing of the British Labour Party could do well to note if they are to avoid accusations of anti-Semitism because let’s face it, the only truth Zionists have (or most likely, appropriated) is that some in the anti-Zionist movement are nothing but anti-Semites. A truth Ken Livingstone has provided credence to over the last week.

Notes

  1. Ramsay MacDonald, “A Socialist in Palestine”, Jewish Socialist Labour Confederation – Poale Zion, 1922, pg.18
  2. Ibid. pg.17
  3. Ibid. pg.19
  4. Josiah Wedgwood, “The Seventh Dominion”, The Labour Publishing Company Limited, London, 1928, pg. 4
  5. Ibid. pg. 33
  6. Commons Debates, Fifth Series, Vol. 143, Column 307, 14th June 1921
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Yes, it is important for Livingstone to admit to the Balfour-beam in his English-Labour eye before pointing derisively to the Nazi-mote in some early Zionist’s eye. (“And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” Matt. 7:3)

Still in the UK remember Lying Mark Regev?

Here he is lying through his teeth, and those lies being challenged by that great interviewer Jon Snow (wish we had a few journalist with spine like him)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_-76H-YRjs

Looks like Regev is muddying up the cesspool and messing with UK politics and policies, just like the zionist mouthpieces do in the US. The lying and manipulating of politicians go on.

Professor Finkelstein has an interesting article on the Livingstone affair and a reputable Pew survey last year on anti-Semitism in the UK ,revealed an underwhelming 7%. https://opendemocracy.net/uk/jamie-stern-weiner-norman-finkelstein/american-jewish-scholar-behind-labour-s-antisemitism-scanda

NU’MAN ABD AL-WAHID- “These are facts Livingstone and his wing of the British Labour Party could do well to note if they are to avoid accusations of anti-Semitism….”

Lord help us, Ken Livingstone can’t try to defend Naz Shah against shameful and totally unjustified smears unless he condemns the history of British imperialism in Palestine? Otherwise, he can rightfully expect to be charged with anti-Semitism himself? Did the charges of anti-Semitism come from non-Zionist British imperialists? Or did they come from Zionist attack dogs? Pointing out Zionist hypocrisy may have been poor strategy, however, the de facto support for this type of smear by Nu’Man Abd al-Wahid suggests that he may well be part of this shameful orchestrated campaign of vilification. Real anti-Semitism in Britain is negligible (Zionist ravings notwithstanding), whereas the attack on Naz Shah is despicable and Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent capitulation both shameful and an indication that he doesn’t have what it takes to change the British political economy even slightly.

Would he have been subjected to the flowery welcome or welcomed by flower if Livingstone rattled out the truth this way: ” WE have made mistakes . We did commit blunder in supporting Balfour .We did by protecting nascent Jewish inflow and immigration based colonialism ,delaying and not implementing various white papers and by killing Palestinian resistance . We should not have done .We should not have supported Zionism the moment we knew that it was -the Zionism- was entering collaborative relationship with Hitler”

He was sandbagged and he (Livingstone ) was ambushed by this guy confronting him . This a discussion that should be done out in open in town hall with experts giving their facts ,sharing their sources and opining afterwards .

Anti Muslm sentiments in England has been rising since Iraq War 2 .Blair has been constantly trying to prop up his image,build his portfolio (based foreign-finances ,donations,and speech fees ) by polemics against mulsim ,Islamic leaders and cultures .
He has said most uncouth words against Muslim and Islam . How that rat is superior in nay way to the lowest scum on earth let alone Livinstone? How is not that ANTI- SOMETHING? we need a word smith to build the new word But the concept is there . Much more that antisemitism the world is facing entrenched ,ingrained, raw ,organic ANTI SOMETHING that affects Muslim and that just scalped the head of the Muslim member