One of my father's cousins was murdered in Palestine - shot in the back by a Zionist extremist. Should I be offended if somebody points out that the British didn't behave perfectly when they held the mandate in Palestine?
The term Zionism has changed in meaning over the years, but pre-war it referred to a group of people who wanted a Jewish homeland. It was a political stance and some of them weren't even Jewish. Some of those Zionists weren't that dissimilar from the IRA and Sinn Fein. Their main enemy at the time was Britain. If Corbyn and Livingstone had been politically active in the 1930s, they'd probably have invited them for tea.
It's an era which has been airbrushed out of history, because many countries want to cover up their own complicity.
I agree with you fitzy. Livingstone is no stranger to controversy and what he said was a very one-sided and distorted interpretation of the truth, so people should be used to him, but I don't think it's a reason to throw him out of the LP.
If this had been something brought up in a Radio 4 discussion with somebody like Julia Neuberger or Joan Bakewell, it would no doubt have been discussed civilly, dismissed and forgotten. If Ian Hislop had said it, some people would have just smiled and thought it was ridiculous. If Katie Hopkins or Jeremy Clarkson had said it, some people would no doubt have praised them for speaking their mind.
PS. Hitler didn't support the creation of Israel. He was against it, because he didn't want to give Jews a power base. He just wanted to get rid of the Jews, until the Wannsee Conference (when Hitler, according to Livingstone, went mad) and he didn't care much where they went. Palestine was still a British mandate and Jews were dispersed throughout the area.
