Ken Livingstone, whose defence of his abuse of mayoral office steadily becomes more and more bizarre, resorts to the usual knee-jerk smear in a self-serving article in the Guardian:

For far too long the accusation of anti-semitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as I have been.

Au contraire. For far too long, the claim that any critic of Israel is accused of antisemitism has been used to smear anyone who protests at the way in which Jewish peoplehood is being singled out for delegitimisation. To repeat for the nth time: the issue is not criticism of Israel, to which no-one objects. The issue is a process of demonisation, dehumanisation and delegitimisation, based on lies and libels, in which Israel alone of all the countries of the world is singled out through such lies and distortions to be a scapegoat, which is a way of softening up the world for its destruction; and then to cap it all, the vilification of Jews who protest at this monstrosity, for which they are accused in a further distortion of doing something that they are not doing, ie claiming that all critics of Israel are antisemites.

At Engage, David Hirsh provides an effective analysis of the Livingstone affair from the beginning:

What if it had been a black journalist? ‘What did you do before, were you a plantation owner?’ ‘No, and I’m quite offended by that.’ ‘Well you might be black but actually you’re just like a plantation owner...’

What if it had been a Muslim journalist? ‘What did you do before, were you a suicide bomber?’ ‘No, and I’m quite offended by that.’ ‘Well you might be Muslim but actually you’re just like a suicide bomber...’

But no. Ken doesn’t apologise for his low-level racist abuse. After he’s had two weeks to think about it, he explains that his responses to Finegold were 100% appropriate and reasonable...

Livingstone does more than ‘criticise the policies of the Israeli government’. For thirty years now, he has been part of a movement in the UK that seeks to demonize Israel as a pariah state and that seeks to hold ‘the Zionists’ responsible for much that goes wrong in the world. In the 1980s Livingstone was associated with the Workers Revolutionary Party – a party that railed against global Zionist conspiracies and that was partly financed by the Libyan state.

This is why Livingstone is happy to treat the antisemite Qaradawi as an honoured guest. This is why Livingstone is happy to employ low-level racist abuse against a Jewish journalist even when he has been told that the journalist finds this offensive. This is why Livingstone chose to make such a big issue out of this story rather than back down quickly and pragmatically. This is why he reacted with a tirade against Sharon to claims that his conduct was offensive. This is why he opposes suicide bombing of buses in London but excuses the suicide bombing of buses in Tel Aviv.

And this is in no small measure why the British media are taking his part.