The Zionist lobby in Britain Tuesday renewed its campaign of vilification against London Mayor Ken Livingstone Tuesday after he defended the plight of the Palestinians resorting to suicide bombings.

"He is a lackey of the Muslim agenda in this country," Jon Benjamin, director general of the British Board of Jewish Deputies, said.

The mayor has "always had this extremist hatred of Jews and Israelis," Benjamin was quoted saying by the Ynetnews, the English- language website of the Yedioth Group, Israel's biggest media company.

During his weekly news conference Tuesday, Livingstone referred to plight of the Palestinians, saying they "don't have jets and bombs, they only have their bodies to use as weapons."

The board of deputies director said that his comments were on the verge of incitement. "He differentiates between terror in Britain and Israel.

He's clearly going on the offensive," he said.

The Israeli ambassador in London Zvi Heifetz was also reported to have joined in campaign against the mayor. Saying it was "outrageous" that he was defending those who kill Israelis.

"Differentiating between the victims based on their nationalities is nothing short of shameful," Heifetz said. "Terror is terror - and nothing the mayor can say will change that."

Livingstone was further quoted criticizing the double standards that has "infected" the way people view British Jews joining the Israeli army and Muslims wanting to defend Palestinians.

"If a young Jewish boy in this country goes and joins the Israeli army, and ends up killing many Palestinians in operations and can come back, that is wholly legitimate," he said.

"But for a young Muslim boy in this country, who might think: I want to defend my Palestinian brothers and sisters and gets involved, he is branded as a terrorist," the mayor said.

Livingstone faced a campaign of vilification from the Zionist lobby earlier this year, when he refused to bow down to orchestrated demands to apologise for comparing a Jewish reporter for London's Evening Standard newspaper with a Nazi concentration camp guard.

He also caused controversy in July last year when he defied Jewish criticism for welcoming Egyptian scholar Yusuf al- Qaradawi to London and later insisted he would invite him again in future.

Source:

ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT ALERT

{moscomment}

---