LONDON
Jewish British MP Sir Gerald Kaufman has said that he believed Israel was a war criminal.
"I believe that, Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, if it would carried out by any other country would result in condemnation by the UN, USA and EU. But Israel, gets away with things, no other country gets away with. And one of the reasons for that is the guilt in Europe and North America for the slaughter in the holocaust. That guilt tilts governments towards Israel even when Israel is behaving like war criminal," Kaufman told AA correspondent in British capital of London.
"But although the holocaust must always be remembered by humanity, the sufferings of the Jews can not be used as some kind of justification for what the Israelis do to the Palestinians. When the last invasion took place in 2009 and 2010, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel is fighting a war for all Jews. But it wasn't fighting a war for this Jew and I know lots of other Jews that he wasn't fighting a war for. I find it degrading that the sufferings of the Jews in the holocaust should be used as a kind of justification for persecution of the Palestinians," he said.
Kaufman said, "I've made a speech few years ago in the House of Commons, in which I said that Israel has placed a stain on the star of David."
Israel got the military power and they've got a lot of support from the West, but they could not win, he said. "Sooner or later they are going to have to acknowledge the realities of the strategic and political situation in the Middle East," he said.
British MP said, "In the diaspora Jews have always been regarded as extra clever. That's only some Jews. But when you consider Einstein, Epstein, and when you consider the various geniuses in medicine, philosophy, music, when you consider all of that, and compare it with the Jews who rule Israel, they are idiots, they are total idiots. Netanyahu may be arrogant, which he is. But he is not a clever man, he is a fool. They are all fools. Avigdor Lieberman, is an awful Foreign Minister. These are people who are living in a world where, the landscape has changed, without them understanding it."
Kaufman said, "Hamas won an election which international observers say fairly conducted. It is an act of utter stupidity for the West to refuse to have dealings with Hamas."
"They can start start talking, but will they will is a different thing," he said, claiming that he thought the two state solution was dead.
"The only thing that could revive it will be pressure from USA. If USA says to Israel, either you talk or we will withdraw our support for you, then Israel would have to talk," he said.
Sir Gerald Bernard Kaufman, who was born in 1930, is a British Labour Party politician, who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1970, first for Manchester Ardwick, and then subsequently for Manchester Gorton. He was a government minister during the 1970s, and a member of the Shadow Cabinet in the 1980s.
