RABBI DANNY RICH WRONGLY ATTACKS LIVINGSTON

Here is the statement of Rabbi Danny Rich, the Senior Rabbi of Liberal Judaism, on Ken Livingston:

28 April 2016

As the Senior Rabbi of Liberal Judaism, and a long-term member of the Labour Party in a personal capacity, I am certainly not someone who Ken Livingstone can write off as one of his “usual critics”.

But today, like Jews and people of all faiths, I was disgusted by his comments as he toured radio and TV stations – including those that Hitler had been a Zionist “before he went mad and ended up killing 6 million Jews”.

If anyone has gone mad, it is Ken Livingstone. His comments get more offensive and unworthy every time he is interviewed.

Claiming Hitler was a Zionist is not only a huge historical perversion, but it directly equates Nazism and Zionism. It suggests they share objectives and values; it is guilt by association. It is hard to think of a more offensive linkage.

Suspending him from the Labour Party is not the end of the matter. Livingstone is a symptom, not the cause.

I am nervous that by focussing on one large personality, we are not dealing with the issues which lead him to make such a statement.

The first step is to admit you have an institutional problem and then to set out strategies to deal with that.

Anti-Semitism in British politics is quite simply unacceptable, from whatever quarter it may come.

[source : Rabbi Danny Rich’s statement on Ken Livingstone and Labour, Liberal Judaism, http://www.liberaljudaism.org/rabbi-danny-richs-statement-on-ken-livingstone-and-labour/, 28th April 2016]

Note : Rich states,

Claiming Hitler was a Zionist is not only a huge historical perversion, but it directly equates Nazism and Zionism. It suggests they share objectives and values; it is guilt by association. It is hard to think of a more offensive linkage.

This is a bit rich of Rich!!

Read The Transfer Agreement, mate.

It was national policy in Nazi Germany to encourage Jewish emigration to Palestine. The Nazis and the Zionists collaborated. They shared objectives.

And when only 10% of German Jews had taken up the offer to migrate to Palestine, Hitler killed a million or so (the Zionists inflated this to 6 million, a number being suggested before WW2), so that whereas before WW2 hardly any Jews wanted to move to Palestine, after WW2 they couldn't wait, and drove 800,000 Palestinians off their lands into the world's two largest refugee camps: The Gaza Strip; The West Bank.