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Threat to democracy
• I'M no uncritical admirer of Mayor Ken Livingstone,
but I agree with Murad Qureshi (Forum and Nic Careem, Letters
March 2) that the Mayor’s suspension by an unelected panel
was an affront to democracy.
We know the Board of Deputies of British Jews has fought
a running battle with Ken Livingstone ever since his GLC days,
because of his stand on Israel and the Palestinians during the
Lebanon war.
It is disingenuous of the board to pretend this latest row only
concerned remarks to a reporter and had nothing to do with the
Israel conflict. Mayor Livingstone has made absolutely clear
in a public statement that he had no intention of offending
Jewish people or belittling the Nazi Holocaust.
But there has been an international campaign against the Mayor,
organised by the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre,
which explicitly accused Ken Livingstone of “antisemitism.”
This campaign made no mention of Ken Livingstone's anti-racist
record. Jewish people from London who wrote to the Wiesenthal
Centre trying to correct the wrong impression it gave were just
ignored. Once again, America thinks it knows best. Brent Trades
Union Council wrote an open letter expressing our concerns.
The campaign has not stopped with Livingstone. Henry Guterman,
a Holocaust survivor with a lifetime of service to the Jewish
community and an OBE to show for it, has been told he is “unfit
to hold office,” simply because he appeared with the Mayor
at the Unite Against Fascism conference and said he did not
think he was antisemitic.
We’ve seen nothing like this since the McCarthy witch-hunts.
It is just as ugly, and more dangerous, because while people
who oppose racism are being smeared, real antisemites are laughing.
Any campaign against them now can be undermined by those who
have been crying wolf. It’s time for those who value reason
and democracy to stop the rot.
Charles Pottins
(member Brent TUC, and Jewish Socialists' Group)
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