AFTER CLAIMING HITLER WAS ZIONIST, EX-LONDON MAYOR REFUSES TO BACK DOWN:

Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London who was suspended from the Labor Party on Thursday 28 April 2016, for claiming that Nazi ruler Adolf Hitler was a Zionist, refused to back down "for telling the truth.” Livingstone said that his suspension was the result of a "well-orchestrated campaign” cooked up by the "Israel lobby.” The former London mayor said he gleaned information that served as the basis of his claims from a book written by Lenni Brenner, an American historian and Marxist who claimed there was collusion between the Zionist movement and the Nazi authorities. British anti-racism activists and Labor Party politicians are demanding Livingstone’s expulsion. In a radio interview with the BBC on Thursday, Livingstone said, "Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932 his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism.” He made the remarks in defense of Labor lawmaker Naz Shah, who was suspended a day earlier over a Facebook post in 2014 suggesting Israelis should be moved enmasse to the United States. Asked during the interview whether he regarded her statement as anti-Semitic, Livingstone said: "No, it’s completely over the top but it’s not anti-Semitic.” Livingstone’s remarks come at a sensitive time for Labor, which has recently seen the suspension of several members, including at the senior level, for anti-Semitic hate speech that critics say party leader Jeremy Corbyn is not doing enough to curb. Corbyn, a harsh critic of Israel who in 2009 called Hezbollah and Hamas activists "friends” after inviting representatives from both terrorist groups to visit the British Parliament as his guests, is also accused of encouraging vitriol against Israel and Jews. (J. Post)