Stuart Littlewood
I’d like to share, especially with American readers, a great
moment in the British Parliament on 5 February when the MP for Gorton,
Manchester, Sir Gerald Kaufman rose to speak in a debate on the
humanitarian situation in Gaza. Here is what he said word for word so that you get the full flavor:
“I once led a delegation of 60
parliamentarians from 13 European Parliaments to Gaza. I could no longer
do that today because Gaza is practically inaccessible. The Israelis
try to lay the responsibility on the Egyptians, but although the
Egyptians’ closing of the tunnels has caused great hardship, it is the
Israelis who have imposed the blockade and are the occupying power.
The culpability of the Israelis was demonstrated in the report to the
UN by Richard Goldstone following Operation Cast Lead. After his report,
he was harassed by Jewish organizations. At the end of a meeting I had
with him in New York, his wife said to me, “It is good to meet another
self-hating Jew.”
Again and again, Israel seeks to
justify the vile injustices that it imposes on the people of Gaza and
the west bank on the grounds of the holocaust. Last week, we
commemorated the holocaust; 1.7 million Palestinians in Gaza are being
penalized with that as the justification. That is unacceptable.
The statistics are appalling. There is fresh water for a few hours every five days.
Fishing boats are not allowed to go out—in any case, what is the point,
because the waters are so filthy that no fish they catch can be eaten? The Israelis are victimizing the children above all. Half the population of this country is under the voting age. What is being done to those children—the lack of nutrition—is damaging not only their bodies and brains; it will go on for generation after generation.
It is totally unacceptable that
the Israelis should behave in such a way, but they do not care. Go to
Tel Aviv, as I did not long ago, and watch them sitting complacently
outside their pavement cafés. They do not give a damn about their fellow
human beings perhaps half an hour away. The right hon. Member
for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) quoted the Prime Minister as saying that
Gaza is a prison camp. It is all very well for him to say that, as he
did, in Turkey—he was visiting a Muslim country—but what is he doing
about it? Nothing, nothing, nothing!
The time when we could condemn
and think that that was enough has long passed. The Israelis do not care
about condemnation. They are self-righteous and complacent. We must now
take action against them. We must impose sanctions. If the spineless
Obama will not do it, we must do it—even unilaterally. We must press the
European community for it to be done. These people cannot be
persuaded. We cannot appeal to their better nature when they do not have
one. It is all very well saying, “Wicked, wicked Hamas.” Hamas is
dreadful. I have met people from Hamas, but nothing it has done justifies punishing children, women and the sick as the Israelis are doing now. They must be stopped.
As has been pointed out, there is a time
limit for what we are talking about. The idea that things can go on,
while we wait for a two-state solution, is gone. Sooner or later, the
Palestinians will say, “We are dying anyhow, so let us die for
something.” Let us stop that: I do not want a war. I do not want violent
action, but the action that the international community takes must be imposed, otherwise hell will break loose. ”
Sir Gerald is one of the very few heroic figures in British politics.
His family suffered horribly during the Holocaust. After the Israelis’
Operation Cast Lead against Gaza in 2008/9 in which they slaughtered
1400, mostly civilians including hundreds of children, he told the House
of Commons: “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.”
He doesn’t mince words; he knows the Israeli regime for what
it really is. “They’re not simply war criminals, they’re fools”. He
calls Israel itself a “pariah state”.
In April 2002, during Israel’s controversial military operation
codenamed Defensive Shield, Kaufman said in the Commons: “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.”
He also compared Hamas in Gaza to the Jewish resistance
during World War II. “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.”
As for Hamas, he describes them as “a deeply nasty organization, 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.” He pointed out that the Irgun
[infamously responsible for the bombing in 1946 of the King David Hotel,
HQ of the British Mandate government, murdering 91, and the Deir Yassin
massacre in 1948] were terrorists, and that “Israel was born out of
Jewish terrorism”.
There’s an interesting footnote on the Wiki page which says: “In 2010, the Supreme Court of Israel rejected a petition by the newspaper Haaretz
for the declassification of documents, reports and photographs
concerning the Deir Yassin massacre. The court cited the possible damage
to Israel’s foreign relations…”
The US Congress is stuffed to the gunwales with Jews and Zionist
stooges and hirelings. How is it that they are so taken in, or cowed, by
the lie machine that few, if any, have the balls or integrity to see
the Israeli regime, like Kaufman, for what it is. If they did – and
acted accordingly – there would be far less grief around the world.
Sadly, there are big profits to be made from strife and grief.
