The British parliamentarian Sir Gerald Kaufman has compared Israeli troops in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee from Poland. The Labour politician told Parliament that the Israeli government was "ruthlessly and cynically" exploiting the guilt over the Holocaust as justification for the assault on Gaza. Kaufman, who is Jewish, 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."
Kaufman, who was raised as an orthodox Jew and Zionist, insisted that Hamas was a "deeply nasty organization" but said Israel could not just refuse to talk to it. The Israeli Embassy spokesman in London, Lior Ben Dor, rejected Kaufman's claim: "Many of the soldiers who are now defending the State of Israel in Gaza also had grandmothers who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. The soldiers are fighting so when they are grandparents they will not be subjected to cruel enemies like Gerald Kaufman's grandmother was."