If Israeli police had killed a Brazilian national mistaken for a suicide bomber, Ken Livingstone would be among the first to condemn Israel.
A few days after the July 7th terrorist attacks in London I wrote an article about London’s mayor, Ken Livingstone, in which I argued that Livingstone was no Rudy Giuliani. I argued so based on Livingstone’s warm welcome and defense of Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an al-Jazeera television host who has defended Palestinian homicide bombers and Livingstone’s own eagerness to bash Israel at every turn.
Several readers were aghast that I could take Livingstone to task in this manner. After all, his city had just been hit in a terrorist attack and more than 50 people died as a result. How could I be so crass and insensitive? If anything my assessment was cautious and restrained:
I suspect that Livingstone will keep his distance from the likes of al-Qaradawi for the time being. Or at the very least he will be more circumspect with his audiences…Livingstone is in a position where he must govern a city and now that the city he is governing has been attacked cannot afford to make such reckless statements. At least for now.
In time, Livingstone will go back to blaming Israel for the world’s ills. He will slander President Bush. He will call for British withdrawal from Afghanistan and Iraq.
Well, not a fortnight passed before Livingstone reverted back to form. On July 20th, Livingstone held his first press conference since the July 7th terrorist attacks and took direct aim at Israel with several statements.
First, he equated Israel’s Likud Party with Hamas, describing them as “two sides of the same coin.” Funny, but I don’t recall any Likud Party member going into the West Bank with the intent to blow up not only himself but every civilian he could possibly kill and maim.
But wait. Livingstone has an explanation for that. “Given that the Palestinians don’t have jet fighters, they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In that unfair balance, that’s what people use,” said Red Ken.
Well, heaven’s to Betsy those poor Palestinians. Why, they only can use their own bodies to kill innocent civilians. What a shame. Never mind that Palestinian homicide bombers mix rusty nails and HIV-infected blood with their explosives. Never mind that when after a homicide bombing has taken place they will wait for the ambulances to arrive and then detonate another homicide bomb, killing doctors and EMTs so that they can thwart the rescue effort. Never mind that these homicide bombers are promised 72 virgins when they reach heaven through their mosques, madrassas and their satellite television feeds.
But Livingstone can only pity the poor Palestinians, who don’t have jet fighters and face an “unfair balance.” Livingstone, the socialist that he is, would no doubt support a fairer and more equitable distribution of weaponry. One wonders if Livingstone would support Israel if it were to give the Palestinians jet fighters with which they could kill Israelis. Would that address this so-called “unfair balance?”
Of course, the London Mayor was not done yet:
If a young Jewish boy in this country goes and joins the Israeli army, and ends up killing many Palestinians in operations and can come back, that is wholly legitimate. But for a young Muslim boy in this country, who might think: I want to defend my Palestinian brothers and sisters and gets involved, he is branded a terrorist. And I think it is this that has infected the attitude about how we deal with these problems.
It seems to me that Livingstone believes in the notion that war equals terrorism. In the Israeli army, there are rules of conduct and engagement. Breaches of these rules of conduct and engagement are dealt with severely. When military operations are conducted every effort is exhausted to minimize, if not eliminate, the possibility of civilian casualties. Indeed, there have been instances where the Israeli Army has protected Palestinian civilians from Jewish settlers. Terrorism, on the other hand, accords no such decorum. Everyone is fair game — man, woman, child, household and even village. Homicide bombings have occurred on buses, in cafes, in discotheques, in ice cream parlors and in university cafeterias. They are carried out in an attempt to kill as many civilians as possible and to intimidate those who live in cloistering themselves into submission. If Livingstone cannot discern between law abiding soldiers accountable to the people to whom they serve, and murderous terrorists accountable to no one except to kill people in the name of purifying Islamic fundamentalism, he can be characterized in only one of two ways. Either he is willfully blind or he is a supporter of Palestinian terrorism. I cannot help but suspect it is the latter rather than the former.
Indeed, one ought to read Melanie Phillips’ article on the subject. Phillips points out that only Israelis can serve in the IDF and that Livingstone’s comments about “Jewish boys” suggested dual loyalty. She also pointed out that Livingstone appeared on Radio Four the following morning and justified Palestinian homicide bombing by arguing that Palestinians did not have the vote. Never mind that nearly all of Gaza and the West Bank were transferred to the Palestinian Authority under the terms of the Oslo Accords. Never mind that Palestinians were under the totalitarian control of Yasser Arafat, whose term as President only expired when he did. Never mind that the quality of life diminished for Palestinians under Arafat’s control. But then why let the facts get in the way of an argument?
Yet there is even a more telling reason to believe that Livingstone supports Palestinian terrorism (or at the very minimum does not support Israel’s right to defend itself from it). Since Livingstone’s comments, there have been a series of terror attacks in London. On July 21st, there were explosions at several London Underground stations as well as on a bus. One of them was at Warren Street on the Northern Line, which I often used to travel to Westminster when I was a parliamentary intern in 1995. Fortunately, there were no fatalities.
On July 22nd, London police shot and killed a man at the Stockwell London Underground station who was believed to be connected to terrorist attacks on the 21st. Livingstone defended the actions of the London Police stating, “If you are dealing with someone who might be a suicide bomber, if they remain conscious, they could trigger plastic explosives or whatever device is on them. Therefore, overwhelmingly in these circumstances, it is going to be a shoot-to-kill policy.”
Yet the following day it was revealed that the man shot and killed had, in fact, nothing to do with the bombings. The man killed, Jean Charles de Menezes, was a 27-year-old Brazilian citizen. His only mistake was running away from the police. Whether there was any kind of language barrier is unclear.
What is clear, however, is that if Israeli police or military had killed a Brazilian national mistaken for a homicide bomber that Ken Livingstone would be the first to condemn Israel. After all, it was only this week that Livingstone declared that Israel had “done horrendous things which border on crimes against humanity in a way they have indiscriminately slaughtered men, women and children the West Bank and Gaza for decades.” It appears now that the shoe is on the other foot. What was that about not judging someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Ken Livingstone may have taken the first step on that journey.
It is easy for Livingstone and his ilk to vilify Israel when they have until now never been put into the position that Israel has found itself since its very birth. In the course of defending one’s own populace errors will be made. These errors will often be ones that cannot be taken back. These are errors for which there are no easy apologies. Perhaps now it might dawn on Livingstone that Israel is actually trying to defend itself and in so doing sometimes makes honest mistakes, rather than killing people “indiscriminately” as he himself has described.
Yet I am not that optimistic. This week was not the first time that Ken Livingstone has demonized Israel nor will it be his last. Should he again criticize Israel in the same manner he did this week it would send the message that while Britain can defend itself even if it sometimes kills innocent people; Israel is not allowed to do the same. For Ken Livingstone, Israel is not allowed to defend its people, not allowed to make mistakes, and if innocents are killed by homicide bombers then it is their own bloody fault. If that is not an act of anti-Semitism then nothing is.
Aaron Goldstein, a former member of the socialist New Democratic Party, writes poetry and has a chapbook titled Oysters and the Newborn Child: Melancholy and Dead Musicians. His poetry can be viewed on www.poetsforthewar.org.
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