Norm Geras hosts Shalom Lappin responding to the flap that has arisen in the wake of Livingstone's suspension, by reminding us of some of the facts of the matter.

[Livingstone's] comment to Oliver Feingold may have been an ill-considered act, but the manner in which he dealt with the reaction to it was not. Livingstone's subsequent conduct was an integral part of a cynical campaign of divisive ethnic politics that he has been pursuing for electoral advantage.

The current defence of his insult as legitimate if offensive political expression indicates a general refusal to take seriously the deeply racist nature of his political strategy. He systematically provokes Jews in order to curry favour with a variety of political and religious constituencies. Interestingly, he incurs no serious political damage for this policy. While one can agree that it is unacceptable for an unelected administrative committee to suspend an elected official for a non-criminal act, this does not conclude the matter. Where is the general public opprobrium that one would expect as a corrective to such behaviour in a genuinely liberal society? Its absence suggests that for a large part of British public opinion this behaviour is entirely acceptable and offers no cause for alarm.

David T at Harry's Place points out in The Boy Who Called 'Zionist' that Livingstone and 'the Zionist plot' meme is old news.

Also of interest at Norm Geras' site, something I meant to post about last week, is Norm himself debating with Canon Paul Oestreicher about sanctions and boycotts against Israel imposed by the Anglican Church on the BBC World Service programme 'People and Politics'.

Norm is too modest to tell us, but he wipes the floor with the Canon, who is caught at one moment providing more than tacit justification for Palestinian suicide bombers against Israel, and when this is pointed to him, he piously proclaims himself a pacifist.

Well worth a laugh.

UPDATE: Heh, I just read in the comments at Harry's Place that Livingstone did exactly the same thing. Provide tacit support and understanding for suicide bombing at one moment, and when confronted, piously proclaim himself a pacifist.

This meme about virtuous pacifism from Canon Oestreicher and Red Ken is interesting in light of the fact that just such an ideology was encouraged by the Communists as a way to fight against free, capitalist societies, to undermine them from within.

For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.

When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to ... understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.

It's a matter of bitter irony that the ideological framework set up to destroy the freedoms of the West by the Communists are now being equally well exploited by the Moslems.