British Green Party Leader Blames Mumbai on Israel

Caroline Lucas Head of the Green Party in Great Britain has a theory, the terror attacks, its all Israel's fault.

I think what we should be doing is looking at some of the root causes of some of the terrorist acts we see - not to condone it but I do think that we have to try to understand it, and I think that the situation in Palestine for example, with the ongoing Israeli occupation with the absolute strangulation of Gaza with this siege on Gaza - essentially this economic blockade - is really feeding so much anger right across the world and it means that there is more of a fertile breeding ground then for extremists to flourish.

I guess the green party likes to pick its leaders from the bottom of the barrel. Of course we are talking about a lady who once said:

“Financial and moral support from the United States means that Israel has been able to act with relative immunity, hiding behind its incendiary claim that all who criticise its policies are anti Semitic. This does a great disservice to the many Jewish people who support the principle of universal human rights, and who oppose the current policies of the Israeli state.” -Source Greens Against the Boycott

Read on to see what else this nutjob said:

Mumbai was Israel's fault - Caroline Lucas, leader of the Green Party (from Engage.com)

On BBC radio's Any Questions, Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green Party was asked the following question (about four minutes in to the programme):

"We've just seen over the past two days on the news about the terrorist attacks in India. This follows the terrorist attacks of 9/11, 7/7, the Madrid bombings, Bali bombings and many others. Can extremist ever be defeated."

Here is her answer:

"Let me first say in response to the situation in Mumbai that it's clearly a terrible act of terror, our thoughts are very much with the families there. It's a criminal act and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. In terms of whether there is a way of defeating extremism, my answer very clearly would be not by military means. I think all the evidence we've seen from Iraq and Afghanistan right across the board that you don't bring peace through the barrel of a gun. I think that when you see many people seeing that the war on terror hasn't made us safer - it's been interpreted by many as a war on Muslims and I think that's enormously damaging. I think what we should be doing is looking at some of the root causes of some of the terrorist acts we see - not to condone it but I do think that we have to try to understand it, and I think that the situation in Palestine for example, with the ongoing Israeli occupation with the absolute strangulation of Gaza with this siege on Gaza - essentially this economic blockade - is really feeding so much anger right across the world and it means that there is more of a fertile breeding ground then for extremists to flourish. So I think that if we are to defeat extremism then we have to go to the root causes of it - we have to look in particular at how marginalised communities are being treated, we have to look in particular about countries like Palestine."

Caroline Lucas says we need to "understand" but she doesn't, herself, show any evidence of understanding. In the past, Lucas has claimed that Israel hides behind a bad faith accusation of antisemitism which it throws at "all who criticise its policies". Now, Lucas is responding to a number of terrorist murders which include the antisemitic murder of Jews, targetted as Jews, with reference to what she calls the "strangulation of Gaza".

This is a serious misrepresentation. Not primarily because "strangulation" is an inadequate description of what is going on in Gaza. But because even if it wasn't, it would not explain why anger at Israeli policy was mystified into a racist anger against Jews.

Usually we hold racists and other bigots responsible for their hateful propaganda and their hateful actions. We understand racism as being a grossly unfair and unreasonable response to things that happen in the real world.

We don't "understand" a woman wearing a short skirt as being one of the causes of her rape.

We don't "understand" black kids' involvement in street crime as being one of the causes of racism against black people.

And we don't "understand" Israeli policy as being one of the causes of racism against Jews.

Caroline Lucas is right to want to try to "understand". But she isn't going to understand racism so long as she believes that racism against Jews is a trick, played by Israel against the world with the intention of covering their evil Jewish crimes.

Usually antiracists have little difficulty in condemning racism as being wholly wrong-headed and morally vile. Usually we don't accept the reasons given by the racists for their hatred as being worthy of much serious consideration or "understanding". Antisemitism should be no different. So why is it different for some antiracists?