Saturday, January 17

Sir Gerald Kaufman in the British House of Commmons: They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.

Here a slightly abridged version of the statement that Sir Gerald Kaufman made in the House of Commons on January 15:

I was brought up as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist. On a shelf in our kitchen, there was a tin box for the Jewish National Fund, into which we put coins to help the pioneers building a Jewish presence in Palestine.

I first went to Israel in 1961 and I have been there since more times than I can count. I had family in Israel and have friends in Israel. One of them fought in the wars of 1956, 1967 and 1973 and was wounded in two of them. The tie clip that I am wearing is made from a campaign decoration awarded to him, which he presented to me.

I have known most of the Prime Ministers of Israel, starting with the founding Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. Golda Meir was my friend, as was Yigal Allon, Deputy Prime Minister, who, as a general, won the Negev for Israel in the 1948 war of independence.

My parents came to Britain as refugees from Poland. Most of their families were subsequently murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town of Staszow. 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 current Israeli Government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt among gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians….

On Sky News a few days ago, 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 that the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants….

However many Palestinians the Israelis murder in Gaza, they cannot solve this existential problem by military means. Whenever and however the fighting ends, there will still be 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and 2.5 million more on the West Bank. They are treated like dirt by the Israelis, with hundreds of road blocks and with the ghastly denizens of the illegal Jewish settlements harassing them as well. The time will come, not so long from now, when they will outnumber the Jewish population in Israel.

It is time for our Government to make clear to the Israeli Government that their 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 the Israelis’ real goal but which it is impossible for them to achieve. They are not simply war criminals; they are fools.

Here’s the url:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmhansrd/cm090115/debtext/90115-0013.htm#090115102001355

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

(I know that Sir Gerald has already got a honorable mention from Meryl, however…)

Sir Gerald (or in other words, Hon Gerald Kaufman, MP)has already appeared on our radar. What can I say - it has been great fun and real pleasure to view his extraordinary exploits. It is not that easy to find a nincompoop of that order of magnitude and in such an exalted position.

But his latest dazzling fit of intellectual activity (gladly picked up by CNN) easily towers over his previous mental shenanigans.
“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.


Oh well, this strawman is not a new one, as you can easily ascertain, reading many an anti-Israeli diatribe by miscellaneous thinkers. It would be pointless to ask Sir Gerald to prove this statement, since it’s not about proof or veracity. I don’t know - the “present Israeli government” exploited several things - like relatively low gas prices (essential to fuel all that military machinery), the Christmas vacation, the wall-to-wall support of the citizenry demanding an end to the budding rocket science in Gaza, etc. But Holocaust? Oh well. I have already told several times that I personally use that “Holocaust guilt” of the gentiles only abroad and only to jump an especially long queue. Of course, Sir Gerald wouldn’t listen.

But then Sir Gerald has decided to round up his accusation by another twist:
My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town…. AGerman soldier shot her dead in her bed, he said. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.


So who us using Holocaust now, Sir Gerald? This logical ellipse easily wins the 2009 prise for nincompoopery, and we aren’t even in February yet! But there is nothing to do: all present and future contenders are left way behind, eating the dust.

So here it is: the 2009 Sir Gerald Nincompoop Of The Year award - won by Sir Gerald himself:

yudit said...

ah ,the cowardly anonymous is at it again, this time copy pasting without even mentioning his (or her?) source.
Meryl? Who's that? Next time you copy paste, mention your source, you twit.
Also, you don't really make a point, any point.

Anonymous said...

He probably means Meryl Yourish:
http://www.yourish.com/
She has written about Gerald Kaufman several times on her site.

Why doesn't Meryl Yourish live in Israel if she's such a Zionist?