Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism: Decoding the Relationship
Livingstone went on to normalize suicide bombing against Israeli civilians. He was to condemn the suicide attacks on the London transport system of 7 July 2007, but, far away, he found suicide attacks on the Israeli transport system to raise more complex issues. ‘Palestinians don't have jet fighters,' he said, ‘they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In that unfair balance, that's what people use.'4
Livingstone does more than ‘criticize the policies of the Israeli government'. For decades, he has been part of a movement in the UK which sees Israel as a pariah state with a menacing and malign influence well beyond its borders. In the 1980s Livingstone was associated with the Workers Revolutionary Party, an extreme anti-Zionist group, and was the editor of one of its front newspapers, Labour Herald.5 As Mayor, Livingstone treats the antisemitic Muslim cleric Yusef al-Qaradawi as an honoured guest of the city, in spite of his repeated antisemitic statements 6 (for example, Qaradawi praised Mel Gibson's movie ‘The Passion of the Christ' on the basis that it exposed "the Jews' crime of bringing Jesus to the crucifixion"7).
It is rare that Jewish communal or Israeli spokespeople make the evidently false claim that criticism of Israeli policies is necessarily antisemitic. Neither does anybody serious treat criticism as though it was demonization. The contention that criticism is denounced as antisemitic nearly always functions as a straw-man argument. The difficult arguments that some over-enthusiastic ‘critics' of Israel are reluctant to deal with are that criticism of Israel is often expressed using rhetoric or images which resonate with antisemitism; or that criticism often holds Israel to higher standards than other states, and for no morally or politically relevant reason; or that it often employs conspiracy theory; or that it uses demonizing analogies; or that it casts Jews as oppressors; or that criticism is made in such a way as to pick a fight with the vast majority of Jews; or that the word criticism is really being used to stand for discriminatory practices against Israelis or against Jews, such as ‘boycotts'. These much more serious and realistic charges are too often brushed off by blithely employing the Livingstone Formulation: ‘For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government.'
The Reverend Steven Sizer, a leading supporter in the Church of England of the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, added a Christian twist when he articulated the Livingstone formulation. He wrote a letter to The Independent responding to an argument by the Chief Rabbi that the campaign for BDS was part of an emerging antisemitic culture in the UK 8. The Synod (parliament) of the Church, declared Sizer, would not be ‘intimidated by those who like Chicken Little cry "antisemitism" whenever Israeli human rights abuses in the occupied territories are mentioned'. Sizer conflates the campaign for BDS with the ‘mentioning' of human rights abuses. He goes on to ask ‘Why has the Archbishop faced a torrent of criticism over [a vote to divest from Caterpillar]? Simple: the people in the shadows know that Caterpillar is only the first. "Let justice roll".' He confirms the suspicion of some opponents who argue that the campaign against Caterpillar is a wedge being used to open up the possibility of the complete isolation of Israel. And he strengthens the misgivings of others, who suspect that the use of terms like ‘people in the shadows', with connotations of secret conspiracy, to describe opponents of BDS, is perhaps not coincidental.
Jenny Tonge was fired as a spokesperson for the UK's Liberal Democrat Party in January 2004, after saying that if she had been a Palestinian, she would have considered becoming a suicide bomber 9. In September 2006, after having been elevated to the House of Lords, BaronessTonge said: ‘The pro-Israeli lobby has got its grips on the Western World; its financial grips.'10 Neither expressing support for the random killing of Israelis, nor employing antisemitic conspiracy theory can reasonably be understood merely as criticism. Nevertheless, Tonge self-righteously defended herself using the Livingstone Formulation: ‘I am sick of being accused of anti-Semitism when what I am doing is criticizing Israel and the state of Israel.'11
