Ken Livingstone and Ken Loach - antisemites

Just in case you thought that Ken Livingstone and Ken Loach were awesome socialist fighters for humanity, this is what they both said today:

Ken Livingstone:

Accusations of anti-Semitism came back to haunt the Labour Party after a fringe meeting appeared to compare the government in Israel to Nazi Germany.

Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, who is currently suspended for comments made about Adolf Hitler last year, says the issue is being "distorted." [This is what he said: "Hitler was "supporting Zionism before he went mad and killed six million Jews'"].

He told Julia Hartley-Brewer these people aren't inherently anti-semitic: "The simple fact is these issues are being raised by people like Wes Streeting and I think are completely distorting the scale of it.

"Some people have made offensive comments, it doesn’t mean they’re inherently anti-Semitic and hate Jews. They just go over the top when they criticise Israel.

"The people criticising Israeli government policy aren’t criticising people who are Jewish in Britain.

"They’re criticising a government like Jeremy Corbyn criticises Saudi Arabia for its abuse of many of its peoples."

So then what does make someone an antisemite? Death threats? Physical violence? Or could he justify those too?

And here's the interview with Ken Loach:

COBURN: There was a fringe meeting yesterday that we talked about at the beginning of the show where there was a discussion about the Holocaust, did it happen or didn’t it… would you say that was unacceptable?

LOACH: I think history is for us all to discuss, wouldn’t you?

COBURN: Say that again, sorry, I missed that.

LOACH: History is for all of us to discuss. All history is our common heritage to discuss and analyze. The founding of the state of Israel, for example, based on ethnic cleansing is there for us all to discuss. The role of Israel now is there for us to discuss. So don’t try to subvert that by false stories of anti-Semitism.