According to the Belfast Telegraph Kaufman, 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."
Kaufman 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." Kaufman called for a total arms ban on Israel. "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," he said.
He also branded the Israeli PM, the foreign minister and defense minister as war criminals. "Is it not an incontrovertible fact that Olmert, Livni and Barak are mass murderers and war criminals?" In a BBC interview Kaufman said about the rising Palestinian death toll at the time: "Four Jews against 1,000 Palestinians -- that is Nazism."
Kaufman, 64, called Israel's actions "not only barbaric but also stupid" because, he said, terrorism could not be defeated by force of arms. "It failed in Lebanon and it will fail here," he said.
We will play his 5-minute speech in full on tonight's program. You can watch it here, now.
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