- Not to speak out against this injustice would not only
be wrong. It would ignore the threat it poses to us all
-
- Excerpts:
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- From London Mayor Ken Livingstone:
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- Today, the Israeli government continues seizures of Palestinian
land for settlements, military incursions into surrounding countries and
denial of the right of Palestinians expelled by terror to return. Ariel
Sharon, Israel's prime minister, is a war criminal who should be in prison,
not in office. Israel's own Kahan commission found that Sharon shared responsibility
for the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
-
- Sharon continues to organise terror. More than three
times as many Palestinians as Israelis have been killed in the present
conflict. There are more than 7,000 Palestinians in Israel's jails.
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- To obscure these truths, those around Israel's present
government have resorted to demonisation. Initial targets were Palestinians,
and have now become Muslims. Take the Middle East Media Research Institute,
run by a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, which poses as
a source of objective information but in reality selectively translates
material from Arabic and presents Muslims and Arabs in the worst possible
light.
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- Today the Israeli government is helping to promote a
wholly distorted picture of racism and religious discrimination in Europe,
implying that the most serious upsurge of hatred and discrimination is
against Jews.
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- All racist and anti-semitic attacks must be stamped out.
However, the reality is that the great bulk of racist attacks in Europe
today are on black people, Asians and Muslims - and they are the primary
targets of the extreme right. For 20 years Israeli governments have attempted
to portray anyone who forcefully criticises the policies of Israel as anti-semitic.
The truth is the opposite: the same universal human values that recognise
the Holocaust as the greatest racist crime of the 20th century require
condemnation of the policies of successive Israeli governments - not on
the absurd grounds that they are Nazi or equivalent to the Holocaust, but
because ethnic cleansing, discrimination and terror are immoral.
-
- They are also fuelling anger and violence across the
world. For a mayor of London not to speak out against such injustice would
not only be wrong - but would also ignore the threat it poses to the security
of all Londoners.
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- To read the entire article:
- http://politics.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5140254-107935,00.html
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