Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] GALLOWAY’S LETHAL GAME CHANGING 193
In an article trying to repair the damage from this reported piece of
bigotry, Livingstone has now issued a weaselly denial that he used these
words—but conceded that they could have been interpreted in this way.
Such excruciating maneuvering is less than reassuring in the light of
his previous record of anti-Jewish remarks, including his infamous comparison
of a Jewish journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard or telling a
Jewish property developer to “go back to Iran.”
What is so outrageous, however, is the free pass given by the left to
both Galloway and Livingstone. Both support agendas that anyone of conscience,
let alone of “progressive” views, should totally abhor.
Livingstone has literally embraced Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, the
Islamic religious leader who justifies the suicide bombing of Israeli children,
the execution of homosexuals, female genital mutilation, and the killing
of coalition troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Galloway has fawned over both Saddam Hussein and the Syrian dictator
Bashar al Assad, whose regime is slaughtering untold thousands of Syrians,
but to whom Galloway has paid homage as “the last Arab ruler.”
Both fawn on terrorist regimes such as Gaza’s Hamas or Iran, the latter
declaring regularly its intention to wipe out Israel. Yet in the face of their
support of such inhumanity and tyranny, the left remains silent. Indeed, the
shocking fact is that, unlike Galloway, who remains an exile from the
Labour Party—which threw him out—Livingstone is Labour’s candidate
for mayor of London.
Ed Miliband has been slated for his failure to condemn the militancy
of his union paymasters in Unite. But far worse—he has backed the bigotsupporting
Livingstone as “someone who has fought prejudice his whole
life.” There is also a corresponding danger that Galloway’s victory will
have galvanized radicalized Muslims by showing how to drive a devastating
wedge into British politics.
And if Livingstone wins in London, the temptation will become overwhelming
for other unprincipled politicians on the left similarly to play the
Islamist, anti-West, anti-gay, anti-Jew card. In other words, this is a dangerous
moment for British politics.
When my book Londonistan was published in 2006, my warnings
about the supine response of the British governing class to the Islamization
of Britain were dismissed as scare-mongering. What we are now seeing,
however, is of course far more alarming even than that response by a complacent
and ignorant elite that appears to be possessed of a desire for cultural
suicide. With George Galloway and Ken Livingstone manipulating
Islamic religious extremism in order to gain power for themselves, we now
stare at the appalling vista of a political landscape transformed by religious