RED KEN IN A BLACK SHIRT:

London Mayor Assails Israeli Leader: Denying bias, he calls Sharon a war criminal. Weeks before, he laid into a Jewish reporter. (John Daniszewski and Janet Stobart, March 5, 2005, LA Times)

Writing in the left-wing Guardian newspaper, [Ken] Livingstone responded to criticism for the earlier remark, citing what he said was his long record of opposition to anti-Semitism. But then he launched a harsh attack on the "ethnic cleansing" policies of the Israeli government.

"Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office," Livingstone wrote. He also lambasted Israel's seizure of Palestinian land for settlements, military incursions into neighboring countries and denial of the right of return for Palestinians, who he said were "expelled by terror." [...]

In London, Israel's ambassador, Zvi Heifetz, said the mayor was trying to divert criticism away from his earlier remarks, which several Jewish groups said were deplorable because they trivialized the Holocaust.

"The mayor feels the need to emphasize that he's not an anti-Semite, but only anti-Israeli," Heifetz told the BBC. "We trust the public to know better and see what stands behind his strategy."

Livingstone resisted calls to apologize for his remarks last month that compared a reporter for the Evening Standard newspaper to a concentration camp guard. Prime Minister Tony Blair was among those who urged him publicly to say he was sorry.

It all began at a party Livingstone threw in honor of former Culture Secretary Chris Smith to mark the 20th anniversary of Smith's coming out as the nation's first openly gay lawmaker.

Asked by Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold how the party went, Livingstone at first refused to reply, said Finegold, who captured the exchange on tape.

At Finegold's repeated question, "Was it a good party? What does it mean for you?" Livingstone finally said, "What did you do before? Were you a German war criminal?"

Finegold replied, "No, I'm Jewish, I wasn't a German war criminal, and I'm actually quite offended by that. So how did tonight go?"

"Ah, right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard. You are just doing it because you are paid to, aren't you?" Livingstone said.

Though the topic of the European Left's anti-Semitism is an important one -- particularly its nexus with Islamicism -- the opening of Mr. Livingstone's essay is not just revealing but hilarious:

Racism is a uniquely reactionary ideology, used to justify the greatest crimes in history - the slave trade, the extermination of all original inhabitants of the Caribbean, the elimination of every native inhabitant of Tasmania, apartheid. The Holocaust was the ultimate, "industrialised" expression of racist barbarity.

Racism serves as the cutting edge of the most reactionary movements. An ideology that starts by declaring one human being inferior to another is the slope whose end is at Auschwitz. That is why I detest racism.

No serious commentator has argued that my comments to an Evening Standard reporter outside City Hall last month were anti-semitic.

Of course, who ever heard of racist socialists...other than Hitler and Stalin and company?

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 5, 2005 7:46 AM