Should Ken Livingstone be kicked out of Labour?

TO ACCEPT Ken Livingstone’s excuse that he was merely quoting fact when saying that Hitler supported Zionism is to accept a disingenuous statement. He says it was ‘before Hitler went mad and killed six million Jews’. He’s trying to suggest Hitler’s support for Israel was an act of sympathy for the Zionist cause, when all Hitler wanted was to get rid of Jews. What Livingstone leaves out is that between 1933 and the extermination, Hitler forced Jews to wear a Star of David badge so the public could commit crimes against them without prosecution. His Gestapo thugs confiscated their businesses and property. Livingstone’s support for the Palestinians is also misleading. He claims all attacks by Israel end with hundreds of Palestinians being killed while Israel suffers just a few casualties. It’s well known that this is because Hamas uses women and children as human shields. Israel reacts only to attacks on its population, so suffers fewer casualties. In Hamas’s constitution is a clause wishing to ‘drive Israel into the sea’. So is Mr Livingstone anti-Semitic? You bet he is.

CRAIG O’VINNY, Wilmington, Sussex. WHY the hysteria about ken Livingstone’s remarks? All those who criticise him should refer to Francis R. Nicosia’s The Third Reich and the palestine Question. He notes ‘inconsistencies in the National Socialist approach to Zionism during the early years’ when ‘the regime … promoted Jewish emigration to palestine’. A key factor in this was the August 1933 Haavara Agreement between German economic authorities and the German Zionist Federation and Anglo-palestine Bank. This allowed the export of Jewish capital to palestine with goods, and assisted Jewish emigration from Germany. On January 25, 1939, the German Foreign Office issued a circular which said: ‘The aim of Germany’s Jewish policy is the emigration of all Jews living on German territory.’ As founding editor of the British Journal of Holocaust Education, i found many would-be contributors wrote shallow emotional material, believing that just because it was on Nazis and Jews, they could get away with anything. it seems little has changed, even after decades of supposed education on the subjects and the efforts of many scholars.

Dr JOHN P. FOX, London SE12.