A Jewish member of Britain’s parliament accused Israel of exploiting Holocaust guilt to justify its actions in the Gaza Strip.
“The current Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians,” Sir Gerald Kaufman, a veteran MP of the governing Labour Party and a long-time critic of Israel, said Thursday in parliament.
Referring to his personal background, as the son of Jewish refugees from Poland, he said: “My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town. A German soldier shot her dead in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.”
Kaufman compared the Hamas militants in Gaza to Jewish resistance fighters during the Second World War, saying: “The spokeswoman for the Israeli army, Major Leibovich, was asked about the Israeli killing of, at that time, 800 Palestinians. The total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that ‘500 of them were militants’. That was the reply of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.”
Israel launched major operations in Gaza on Dec. 27 after Hamas ended a fragile cease-fire with a massive intensification of rocket attacks into southern Israel.
http://jta.org/news/article/2009/01/16/1002308/mp-kaufman-likens-israelis-to-nazis
Watch a video of Sir Gerald’s speech here.
This website believes that Sir Gerald’s statement together with the work of the likes of Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir, will likely save the Jewish people from another Holocaust.
However, as commendable as his statement was, even more revealing were responses to it published by the Jewish Telegraph Agency.
Among others were:
“The German soldier shot the wrong person.” – Stephen Folkson
“HE STILL DOES NOT GET IT. DOES HE? ISRAEL IS ONLY LOOKING FOR PEACE HIS PROTEGES – THE ARABS – ARE ONLY LOOKING TO ANNIHILATE OF JEWS, MR. KAUFMAN INCLUDED.” – Mike Haftel
“Sorry, too many Jews trying to be a better catholics… Israel earned every right to erase as many Gazans as it takes to silent thier rockets once and for all.” – Arkady