Changing Minds in London?
Kenneth “Red Ken” Livingstone, the far-left Lord Mayor of London, who has always said we need to make an effort to “understand” the Muslims who blow up buses in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, is apparently not so understanding when Muslims of the same ideological stripe blow up buses in London:
“I want to say one thing, specifically to the world today — this was not a terrorist attack against the mighty and the powerful, it was not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary, working-class Londoners, black and white, Muslim and Christian … young and old … that isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted fate, it is an indiscriminate attempt at mass murder.”
Livingstone, who has publicly stated that he believes Ariel Sharon to be a war criminal, and who has written an article for Al-Jazeera accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing” for allowing Jews to move into Palestinian-majority areas (in America we call this “integration”), apparently does not realize that in Israel, like in England, bus-riders are not “presidents or prime ministers” but rather “ordinary, working-class …, Muslim and Christian … young and old.”
Or maybe he figures since unlike in London, most of the bus-riders in Israel are Jewish, it’s OK to blow them up, even if a few Muslims and Christians are “martyred” in the process. After all, he’s the one who gave a special honor at London City Hall to Sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, who once said,
“The iniquity of the Jews, as a community, is obvious and apparent. Let me explain: The West, I can say about some of them [i.e., Westerners] who are iniquitous, and others who are not iniquitous. And it is possible. But iniquity on the part of the Jews is great iniquity, grave iniquity, iniquity that is incomparable and overt. ”
Livingstone later said to Al-Qaradhawi:
Sheikh you will not be surprised to know that all sections of British media do not unanimously welcome you here today and some are rather critical of you, I have to say you are not alone in that situation. Very often those who raise uncomfortable truths are denounced by those who would rather not consider them.
And he called the British media “Islamophobic” for objecting to all this.
(Ann’s Fuse Box has more detail on all this.)
Now, it’s possible that today’s terrorist attacks in London have caused Ken Livingstone to change his mind. I certainly hope he has “seen the light.” But it’s also possible that Ken Livingstone thinks blowing up public transportation is an awful crime when committed in England, and perfectly understandable when committed in Israel. Time will tell.
