What is anti-Semitism? A quiz for Ken Livingstone

Are you Ken Livingstone? If so, my condolences. It must be awful.

Anyway: it seems that you’re having difficulty understanding why quite a lot of people are a bit cross with you at the moment. After all, you didn’t do anything wrong, did you?

Fortunately, help is at hand. Simply take this quick quiz, and all should become clear.

Scenario one:

Imagine a Labour MP has endorsed a Facebook post suggesting that, as a “solution” to the problem of Islamist terrorism in the West, all Muslims living there must be “relocated” to the Middle East (“plenty of land… surrounded by friendly states… the West will again be peaceful… whole world will be happy…”). How do you respond?

a) By calling for the MP’s immediate suspension. This appalling bigotry has no place in your party.

b) Defend the MP. Sure, the Facebook post was a bit over the top, but calling for millions of Muslims to be forcibly transported to the other side of the world was hardly Islamophobic, was it?

Scenario two:

The Labour MP who endorsed the Facebook post about Western Muslims has finally been suspended. As a senior party figure, you’re invited on radio and television to give your comments. What do you say?

a) That it was right to suspend her, and that in future the Labour leadership must act more swiftly to confront Islamophobia within the party’s ranks. You find their reluctance to suspend her mystifying.

b) Protest that this is a clear attempt by the Islamist terrorist lobby to shut down debate about the actions of Islamist terrorists. After all, Islamist terrorists have committed terrible atrocities. Surely everyone can see that the MP was really only being critical of Islamist terror groups, and that’s not the same thing as Islamophobia, is it?

Scenario three:

A BBC radio presenter asks you whether you seriously think the Facebook post wasn’t Islamophobic. How do you reply?

a) Apologise. Of course you can see that the Facebook post was Islamophobic. It called for the forced deportation of several million Muslims to a land where they would be more “welcome”.

b) Repeat that it wasn’t Islamophobic, insist that you’ve never heard anyone in Labour say anything Islamophobic, and point out, a propos of nothing, that Hitler spoke favourably about Islam, and once said that “The peoples of Islam will always be closer to us than, for example, France.”

There we are. Quiz over. Which answers did you pick?

Really? You chose a), every time?

That’s interesting.