London Mayor Ken Livingstone, whose city was devastated by Islamic suicide bombings earlier in the month, lashed out at Israel Tuesday, comparing the Likud to Hamas and accusing Israel of "crimes against humanity."
At a London press conference, Livingstone, who has a long record of anti-Israeli diatribes, drew a connection between the London blasts and the Middle East. He said Israel had "done horrendous things which border on crimes against humanity in the way they have indiscriminately slaughtered men, women and children in the West Bank and Gaza for decades."
Livingstone expressed understanding for the motivations of Palestinian suicide bombers, saying that since the "Palestinians don't have jet fighters, they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In that unfair balance, that's what people use."
| I seem to recall that Muther Luther King didn't need to encourage splodydopes to get civil rights for all Americans, but I might not be remembering correctly. |
Livingstone, who in March wrote a piece in The Guardian saying that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was "a war criminal who should be in prison, not in office," this time compared Sharon's party to Hamas. "I think the Israeli hardliners around Likud and Hamas [members] are two sides of the same coin; they need each other to drum up support, they point to the excesses of the other to recruit and I don't make any distinction because I believe the taking of human life is wrong. In particular, when you think of the illegal invasion of Lebanon, the illegal invasion of Egypt and Jordan in the Six Day War, all these exercises of going into Palestinian refugee camps and indiscriminately destroying homes simply because a bomber came from that area," Livingstone said. "I don't believe in an eye for an eye. I don't believe in that punishment."
| Make sure you tell Hamas that. |
Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev, in response to Livingstone's comments, said, "It is a pity he made no differentiation between murderous terrorists and between those trying to protect innocent civilians against the terrorists." Except for Regev's remark and a similar statement issued from the Israeli Embassy in London, Israel adopted a pointedly low-profile approach to Livingstone's comments, not wanting to give the mayor more importance than officials in Jerusalem said he deserved. "There is no need to start a debate with him," one official said. "Everyone knows the man is an wacko extremist, with problematic positions and hatred problematic attitudes toward Jews." |