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It's not bunkum, it's McCarthyism
• Mr Gilbert’s letter (Jewish groups are not going
for Ken, March 16) senselessly replies to Charles Pottins’s
candid letter (Threat to democracy, March 9) by claiming that
“the Jewish Board of Deputies have never fought any battle
against Ken Livingstone since 1982.”
This stands in a stark contradiction to Livingstone’s
own words stating: “The Board of Deputies of British Jews
has at all times protested that this issue is just about how
I treated a reporter who happens to be Jew. I have never believed
a word of it.
“Some time before this incident the board asked to meet
me to urge me to tone down my views of the Israeli Government.”
(Morning Star, March 4).
As a Jewish peace activist who has been subjected to all forms
of accusations and blames by the Jewish community for criticising
Israel’s policies, I wholly empathize with, and stand by
Livingstone’s words!
Ruth Tenne
Goldhurst Terrace, NW6
• READER G Gilbert accuses me of “bunkum”
and assures us there was no campaign against Ken Livingstone
(Jewish groups are not going for Ken, March 16).
Perhaps I imagined the phone call in 1994 asking if I would
help someone who had been given “access to Board of Deputies
files” to write a book about the then Brent East MP?
I was unable to assist, and never saw this book, but when Livingstone
first stood for Mayor, newspapers received a dossier on his
alleged Middle East views. If this was nothing to do with the
board, I’m pleased to hear it.
The Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s campaign last year was open
and public, soliciting support on the internet. When a respected
community figure such as Henry Guterman OBE is denounced as
“unfit to hold office” because he shared an anti-fascist
platform with Livingstone, it does not require vivid imagination
to compare this with McCarthyism.
McCarthy called his opponents “un-American,” and Mr
Gilbert dismisses Jewish socialists and trades unionists as
“anti-Israel”.
We care about family and friends in Israel.
A young Israeli whom we were delighted to host when he visited
London last year, Matan Cohen, was hospitalised recently having
been hit in the eye with a rubber bullet.
Matan was protesting peacefully with Palestinians against Israel’s
annexation fence. If being proud of such Israelis makes us “anti-Israel,”
then Mr Gilbert can drum us out of his regiment!
Charles Pottins
Member Brent TUC, and Jewish Socialists Group
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