Apologies for the late response, been a very long day. Firstly, unless I am mistaken, I don't believe Ken actually said Hitler was a Zionist, rather that he supported Zionism, which of course, is factually accurate to a point. He was working in unison with Zionist German's at the time, to come up with a suitable plan to have Jews relocated to Palestine. This is the exact quote in question that actually got Ken in trouble.
There is nothing in this quote, that is historically inaccurate, false, or even anti-Semitic, and within the context of Palestine (the thing that originally spurred Naz's angry comments), it is of course relevant. And this brings me to the other point you brought up. The group that thinks anti-zionism is automatically (key word automatically) anti-semitic, are quite simply, wrong, and should not be allowed to set such a misguided precedent of skewing or blending the two together, especially at the expense of facts and truths, which all too often happens when it's regarding the conflict with Palestine for example. Doing so is extremely dangerous and shields Zionism from blame, criticism and context. It cannot, and should not be seen as automatically racist to criticise ideological movements such as Zionism, extremist Wahibism or whatever else. It's this sort of thing that has aided in allowing Zionism to prosper, and for so much damage, death, heartache and land theft to befall the Palestinian's, not just in the past either, but on-going to this very day. The distinction between Zionism and Judaism, or Jews and Semites, must be drawn and made. Hell, certain sects of Orthodox jews are among the most critical of Zionism, but of course people are less inclined to automatically jump to calling them anti-semitic.
Firstly, I'm not sure what the distinction between "a zionist" and "supporting zionism" is. Isn't "supporting Zionism" literally the definition of "a zionist"?
"He was working in unison with Zionist German's at the time, to come up with a suitable plan to have Jews relocated to Palestine."
He was not "working with Zionist Germans", he had a jackboot to their throat. It was not a "suitable solution", it was one in which the German state would first confiscate all their possessions and then only give them back the value if they reappeared in Palestine and bought German goods (which was important to Germany, because much of Europe's Jewish population was boycotting Nazi Germany because they'd read Mein Kampf and knew that Hitler had referred to them as the personification of the devil and all evil).
If "Zionism" has any widely agreed upon definition, it's the support for a Jewish state. Do you
really believe Hitler ever supported a Jewish state? It was a convenient way for the Nazi's to remove some of the Jews from Germany, simple as that. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that Hitler wished to actively avoid the creation of a Jewish state, and only this single example to balance the scales - an example which happens to coincide with his desire to eradicate Europe of Jews.
His quote ending with "before he went mad and killed 6-million jews" is also such a cack-handed interpretation of history that it's hard to imagine he's being serious. Hitler didn't "go mad". He may have
been mad or otherwise horribly disturbed but he wrote Mein Kampf a full 10 and 8 years before the signing of Haavara. The Nazi Party Newspaper, "Der Stürmer", was routinely printing anti-semitic stuff about blood-libel, how the Jews were to blame for Germany's defeat in WW1, and
printed an article before the signing of the Haavara agreement calling for the extermination of the Jews.. This was (one of) the official Nazi Party newspapers! Hitler categorically did not "go mad" and turn his back on his wiley old Zionist ways. He was never a Zionist.
This is why people who shrug and say "well, they're just facts" as Livingstone and - I'm afraid to say - you are doing, sometimes find themselves accused of Anti-semitism. To try to argue this angle is so, so,
so far from the mark that saying "facts are facts, guvner, the numbers don't lie!" requires either gross, gross ignorance (which I know Ken doesn't have and I'm sure you don't either) or a wilful misrepresentation of this single "fact". When you say "nothing about this is historically inaccurate", I really have no idea where you learned your history.
This is also why I originally brought up the black-crime analogy. If someone said "Well, it's a fact that black people commit more crimes. It's just a fact." You'd rightly harangue them for being an idiot and missing the point so entirely. In fact, it's hard for them to miss the point that much unless they're actively trying to paint black people badly by their incredibly careful deployment of facts. So when the same thing is done to try to argue that even Hitler - who's an almost comically anti-Semitic figure; Like, there's no grey area there - supported Zionism, and Hitler's
always wrong ergo.... It's hard to see what they
reallllllly mean, because the historic ground they're on is so shaky that it can't support the weight of a gnat let alone the dome-like cranium of that Triassic wank stain. If you add in the fact he said he said that you're only anti-semitic if you hate
all Jews, and it's really, really hard to see how anyone can think he's not anti-semitic or, if you want to be really generous, that he's at least swallowed the pill of "Jews run everything" that his cronies have been selling for so long.
Edit: Re: Your final paragraph, I don't know who you're arguing with. To my knowledge, no one here thinks that criticism of Israel is automatically anti-semitic. We're all in agreement. You can call of those particular dogs.
