Everyone howls at batty Ken – but they wouldn’t dare tackle racist Muslims

May 1, 2016 by Jill

by Peter Hitchens, Mailonline:

I have known and disagreed with Ken Livingstone for nearly 40 years. I especially loathe his slippery excuse-making for the IRA, and I think he has done more damage to this country than almost any other figure on the Left.

But it is ridiculous to call him an ‘apologist for Hitler’, or to suggest that he is an anti-Jewish bigot.

I was just leaving the BBC’s Westminster studios on Thursday when Mr Livingstone stepped into an over-excited knot of political reporters. They looked like what they are – simultaneously a pack of snapping wolves, buzzing with self-righteousness, and a flock of bleating, conformist sheep, all thinking and saying exactly the same thing.

After undergoing a minute or two of synthetic rage and baying, the former Mayor of London politely excused himself and went to the lavatory. The flock waited outside, restored for a moment to calm and reason. Then Ken popped out again and the wild shouting and pushing resumed, as if a switch had been pressed.

At one point this stumbling, squawking carnival was joined by a barking dog. If it had gone on much longer, crowds of tourists would have gathered, mistaking it for an ancient London tradition. This is how politics is reported in this country, almost completely without thought.

I am, as it happens, a keen Zionist, a confirmed supporter of Israel’s continued existence as an avowedly Jewish state. Anti-Semitism – or Judophobia as I call it – gives me the creeps. So does the extraordinarily selective criticism of Israel, which does many bad things, by people who never seem to notice the equally bad crimes of any other country. I ask them: ‘Why is this?’ They can never answer.

And as it happens I had on Wednesday evening taken Mr Livingstone to task (at a London public meeting) for the Left’s feebleness in face of Muslim Judophobia.

This is a sad fact. On visits to the Muslim world, from Egypt to Iran, Iraq and Jordan, via the Israeli-occupied West Bank, I have repeatedly met foul and bigoted opinions about Jews which people in this country would be ashamed to speak out loud.

Read here