The Herald [UK]: Veteran Labour MP Sir Gerald Kaufman today compared the actions of Israeli troops in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland. During a Commons debate on the fighting in Gaza, he urged the Government to impose an arms embargo on Israel.
Sir Gerald, who was brought up as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, told MPs: '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 Palestinians grandmothers in Gaza. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.'
He said the claim that large numbers of the Palestinian victims were militants 'was the reply of the Nazi' and added: 'I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.'
The Manchester Gorton MP acknowledged that Hamas was a 'deeply nasty organisation' but it was democratically elected and 'is the only game in town.' Refusing to hold talks with Hamas was a 'culpable error from which dreadful consequences have followed.' ...
'It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli government that its conduct and policies are unacceptable and to impose a total arms ban on Israel. It is time for peace -- but real peace, not the solution by conquest which is Israel's real goal but which is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals, they are fools.'
