LONDON (AFP) – Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom lashed out at London Mayor Ken Livingstone for suggesting that terrorist attacks against the Jewish state were somehow justified.
Shalom told reporters that he had raised the matter with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw during discussions on security issues here this week.
“In Israel we were shocked to hear those statements that were made by the mayor of London, and I do not want to repeat what some Israelis have said about him and about maybe his mental condition,” Shalom said.
“There is no way to understand what the mayor of London has said. To distinguish between the blood of innocent Israeli civilians and the blood of others is unacceptable.”
Straw described Livingstone’s remarks as “unacceptable”.
“As far as Mr. Livingstone is concerned, let me make it absolutely clear that his remarks were as wrong as they were unacceptable,” he said.
“There is no, and there can be no moral equivalent between a lawful political party and its supporters operating in a democracy, Israel, and a terrorist organisation whose so-called political method is the slaughter of innocents.”
Livingstone, an outspoken critic of Israel and the US-led war in Iraq, has condemned suicide bombing but also claims that some such attacks are natural responses to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
“If it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves,” he said last week.