UK Jewish MP SIR Gerald Kaufman : Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza
"Israel was born out of Jewish Terrorism" Tzipi Livnis Father was a Terrorist" Astonishing claims in the House of Parliament. SIR Gerald Kaufman, the veteran Labour MP, yesterday 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, 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. The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits 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 many 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."
He accused the Israeli government of seeking "conquest" and added: "
They are not simply war criminals, they are fools."
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Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman (born in Leeds, 21 June 1930) is a British Labour Member of Parliament who was a government minister during the 1970s. [1]
[edit] Early life
Born in Leeds, the son of Louis and Jane Kaufman, and educated at Leeds Grammar School (1950-1953)[1], Kaufman graduated with an MA in philosophy, politics and economics at the University of Oxford (Queen's College). He was assistant general secretary of the Fabian Society from 1954 to 1955 and a political journalist on the Daily Mirror (1955-1964) and the New Statesman (1964-1965). he became Parliamentary Press Liaison Officer for the Labour Party, between 1965-1970, and was eventually a member of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's informal "kitchen cabinet".[1]
In the 1955 general election Kaufman had unsuccessfully contested the safe Conservative seat of Bromley, and in the 1959 general election, Gillingham.
He became a writer, also contributed to the satirical television comedy programme on BBC Television, That Was The Week That Was in 1962 and 1963, as an off-screen script writer along with many other names, [1][2] where he was most remembered for the "Silent men of Westminster" sketch.
In 1999, he became Chairman of the Booker Prize Judges. [1]
[edit] Member of Parliament
Kaufman was elected MP for Manchester Ardwick at the 1970 general election and has represented the Manchester Gorton constituency since the 1983 election.[3] He was a junior minister throughout Labour's time in power from 1974 to 1979, first in the Department for the Environment (1974-1975) under Anthony Crosland, then in the Department of Industry under Eric Varley (Minister of State, 1975-1979). He was made a member of the Privy Council in 1978.
[edit] Shadow Cabinet
In opposition, he was the Shadow Environment Secretary, (1980-1983), Shadow Home Secretary (1983-1987) and Shadow Foreign Secretary (1987-1992) for the Shadow Cabinet.[1]
He famously dubbed the Labour Party's left-wing 1983 election manifesto "the longest suicide note in history".[4] In 1992 he went to the back benches and became Chair of what was then the National Heritage Select Committee.
[edit] Influential back-bencher
He chaired the Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport [formerly the Select Committee on National Heritage], between 1992-2005, and was a member of the Parliamentary Committee of the Parliamentary Labour Party(PLP), between 1980-1992, of the Labour Party National Executive Committee, between 1991-1992, and of the Royal Commission on House of Lords Reform, in 1999. [1]
Kaufman has never voted against the Labour Government. He voted with the government on the 2003 invasion of Iraq saying in Parliament "Even though all our hearts are heavy, I have no doubt that it is right to vote with the Government tonight".[5]
He was awarded a knighthood for services to Parliament in the Queen's Birthday Honours in 2004.[6]
Expenses controversy
Main article: Disclosure of expenses of British Members of Parliament
The Daily Telegraph argued Kaufman's expense claims were including £1,461 for a "second-hand rug replacing 24-year-old carpet" and £389 for "customs duty on rug", that he imported from a the Showplace Antique + Design Centre[7] on West 25th Street in Manhattan, New York for a $2,750 receipt, a rejected claim of £8,865 for a for a Bang & Olufsen Beovision 40 in LCD television since the "item falls within the not allowable category of luxurious furnishings" so he was paid £750. Gordon Rayner further argued he claimed £1,262 for a gas bill covering the period March 2006 to May 2008 which was £1,055 in credit. In one document, an official in the fees office noted that invoices Sir Gerald had submitted took him to "within 6p" of his annual limit. Kaufman also claimed for a £225 Viceroy Barley pen. Most of his expenses were spent on repairs of his second flat in Regents Park, London which he depicts as a "decrepit" and "old flat" with "out of date" facilities that had "not carried out any repairs/maintenance for 32 years".[8]
According to a report in The Independent, Kaufman has since blamed a 'self-diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder' for making 'bizarre and extravagant' expenses claims [9]
Opinions
Kaufman is an outspoken opponent of hunting with hounds. In 2004 he was assaulted by a group of pro-fox hunting campaigners and claimed that he was subjected to anti-Semitic taunts. These he said he found ironic as he had recently been accused of being a self-hating Jew by member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.[10]
Criticism of Israel
Kaufman, who is himself Jewish, is a member of the Jewish Labour Movement, formerly Poale Zion[11][12], a pro-Zionist group affiliated with the Labour party in Britain. He has become one of the leading Jewish critics of Israel. Kaufman has called for economic sanctions and an arms ban against Israel, citing the success of such measures against apartheid South Africa.[13] He has called Israel a "pariah"[14] and its senior politicians "war criminals."[15][16] In 2002 he created a BBC television documentary,[17] The End of the Affair, in which he recounted his youthful infatuation with Israel and his eventual disillusionment.[18]
In April 2002 during Israel's controversial military operation codenamed Defensive Wall, Kaufman gave a speech to the House of Commons, saying in part:
It is time to remind Sharon that the star of David belongs to all Jews, not to his repulsive Government. His actions are staining the star of David with blood. The Jewish people, whose gifts to civilised discourse include Einstein and Epstein, Mendelssohn and Mahler, Sergei Eisenstein and Billy Wilder, are now symbolised throughout the world by the blustering bully Ariel Sharon, a war criminal implicated in the murder of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila camps and now involved in killing Palestinians once again.[19]
In 12 July 2004, Kaufman wrote a proposal, including economical sanctions against Israel, The case for sanctions against Israel, What worked with apartheid can bring peace to the Middle East, in Guardian. [20]
About his own family experience 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."[21]
Kaufman also made a comparison between Hamas members in Gaza to the Jewish resistance during World War II, 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."[21] He said, "Hamas is a deeply nasty organisation, but it was democratically elected, and it is the only game in town. The boycotting of Hamas, including by our Government, has been a culpable error, from which dreadful consequences have followed."[23] And he said: "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."[25]
His publications include:
How to Live Under Labour (1964) as coauthor
The Left: A symposium (1966) as editor
To Build the Promised Land (1973)
How to be a Minister (1980) as editor
Renewal: Labour's Britain in the 1980s (1983)
My Life in the Silver Screen (1985)
Inside the Promised Land (1986)
Meet Me in St Louis (1994).
By Adam Keller
Gush Shalom -- January 8, 2009 -- Courage to Refuse has resumed its activity after several years and asked everybody to join them in picketing the Ministry of Defence. Courage to Refuse was founded in 2002, by reservists such as paratrooper officer David Zonshein, sickened and disgusted by the things they had seen (and took part in) during the army's efforts to put down the second Intifada. At that time they had a considerable impact, and their call upon reservists to refuse serving the occupation worried the military authorities. But like other groups they were effectively derailed by Sharon's Gaza trick, which placed on the Israeli public a unilateral and woefully incomplete "Disengagement".
The beginning of the "Cast Lead" war in Gaza -– and specifically, the calling up of an increasing number of reservists, being massed at the Gaza Strip borders in preparation to be thrown in -- aroused Courage to Refuse back into action. Some of the activists themselves got call-up orders, and they got urgent calls from many others who were called up and were far from eager to comply. At least three reservists are known to have informed their officers of their outright refusal to go into Gaza, and many others have resorted to various means of "grey refusal" to avoid it.
For their part, the Courage to Refuse organisers drew up a new manifesto on which they are busily collecting the signatures of reservists, both those who were involved before and those were not (see below).A call was issued for a demonstration outside the Ministry of Defence on January 8: "Once again we feel the need to call upon reservists and conscripts to refuse taking part in the brutal killing perpetrated by the Israeli Defence Force in Gaza. The terrible bombing of the UNRWA school in Jabalya Refugee Camp, in which Israeli forces killed more than forty Palestinian civilians in a single moment, increased our determination to act -– coming after hundreds of civilians killed earlier, including many women and children. A killing perpetrated under the pretext of security, under the Blue and White Flag, and in the name of every citizen of Israel. A killing which must not be allowed to continue!"
Members of other groups, such as ourselves of Gush Shalom, were welcomed to join in, but with a caution: "Without in any way detracting from the importance of earlier demonstrations against the war, in order to make an effective appeal to reservists we should use a bit different language than of the slogans used in these. To restrain our anger, however justified, and moderate our narrative. Not to call the Minister of Defence `A murderer' nor term the IDF `a terrorist organisation' (even when at times speaking in this way seems right) but focus on the pure moral call upon soldiers to preserve the 'purity' of their arms and refuse to take part in this madness."
We "radicals" who joined the January 8 action respected the organisers' wishes. The slogans prepared by Courage to Refuse included "Revenge is not security", "Refuse to take part in the in the campaign of bloodshed", "No to the killing of civilians –- in Gaza and Sderot", "Barak creates terror in Gaza", "Refuse to fight in Gaza" (this Hebrew slogan can also be translated as "Refuse to fight against Gaza"), "Refuse to destroy Gaza and Sderot", "The destruction of Gaza produces terror", "Courage to talk -- not to kill". Some of placards had the national Star of David inscribed beside the slogan –- which is far from the rule in other anti-war protests. Even so, the call upon soldiders to refuse orders made it very radical confrontation with the present warlike atmosphere prevailing in the Israeli media and political system.
What next? So far, the military authorities refrained from imprisoning any of the refusing reservists, knowing from the earlier confrontations that any imprisoned refuser would become a focus of solidarity actions from which the movement could grow and snowball. However, the Courage to Refuse organisers now contemplate a sharper action -– i.e., going southwards to the Gaza Strip border, where the army concentrated the already mobilised thousands of reservists who might any day be sent into Gaza, with the government bent on escalating the war in defiance of the Security Council cease-fire resolution. The military authorities might find it impossible to ignore and tacitly tolerate the presence of agitators busily "subverting the troops".
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