London's former mayor Ken Livingstone on Tuesday vigorously denied accusations of being an anti-Semite and defended his claim that Hitler had supported Zionism in the 1930s.
Appearing before the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, Livingstone refused to apologize for his comments made in April and said he stood by them. However, he claimed he had not said that Hitler had been a Zionist. “If I had said that [...], I would apologize for that because it’s rubbish. What I said was [Hitler] wanted all the half million German Jews out. If I’d said it, I would agree it was abhorrent. But I didn’t say it, I was stating simple historical fact."
The leftist politician, who served as mayor of London from 2000 to 2008, claimed the allegations against him were part of a plot by more moderate Labour lawmakers to undermine the party leader, Jeremy Corbyn.
Livingstone was suspended from the party in April after he said during a radio interview: "Let’s remember, when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."
Livingstone insisted he was right to say Hitler had, at one point, supported Zionism as a way of "getting rid" of Jewish people from Germany. He repeatedly told the cross-party committee he had been approached in the street by Jews agreeing with his comments. In a written statement to the committee, he said: "I detest racism and condemn anti-Semitism. Indeed my political career has totally opposed any such views concerning any religious or ethnic group."
Jewish leader: 'Leftward tilt in Labour emboldens anti-Semites'
However, the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and vice-president of the World Jewish Congress, Jonathan Arkush, told the same committee that Livingstone's statements had been "deliberately offensive and purposely provocative."
Labour's shift to the left under Corbyn had "emboldened" anti-Semites on the far left to voice their prejudices, the Jewish leader told the lawmakers. "The election of a leader who is associated with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, with Stop the War, with a very, very hostile position on Israel, very well-known and well-publicized, and someone who has thought it appropriate to meet here in the democratic mother of parliaments with terrorist organizations whose stated mission in life is to kill as many Christians and Jews as possible, has clearly sent the wrong sort of message to some people," said Arkush.
He added: "With the advent of a more leftwards tilt in the leadership of the Labour Party, some people feel that a space has been opened up for them, or they feel emboldened to say things which previously they felt they couldn't say in polite society."
