Veteran Politician Accuses Sharon of "Barbarism"

MP accuses Sharon of 'barbarism'

All sides condemn West Bank incursions

Nicholas Watt, political correspondent
Wednesday April 17, 2002
The Guardian

The veteran Labour MP and prominent Jewish parliamentarian, Gerald Kaufman, yesterday launched a ferocious attack on the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, denouncing him as a "war criminal" who was staining the Star of David.

Speaking in a Commons debate on the Middle East crisis, in which MPs from across the house condemned Israel's incursions into the West Bank, Mr Kaufman likened Mr Sharon's tactics to the actions of Zionist terrorists in Palestine in the 1940s.

In an emotional speech, in which he described himself as a lifelong friend of Israel, the former shadow foreign secretary said: "Sharon has ordered his troops to use methods of barbarism against the Palestinians ... It is time to remind Sharon that the Star of David belongs to all Jews and not to his repulsive government. His actions are staining the Star of David with blood. The Jewish people, whose gifts to civilised discourse include Einstein and Epstein, are now symbolised throughout the world by the blustering bully Ariel Sharon, a war criminal implicated in the murder of Palestinians in the Sabra-Shatila camp and now involved in killing Palestinians once again."

To nods of approval from MPs, Mr Kaufman condemned Palestinian suicide bombers. But he added that it was important to ask why Palestinians resort to such tactics. "We need to ask how we would feel if we had been occupied for 35 years by a foreign power which denied us the most elementary human rights and decent living conditions."

Mr Kaufman then likened the suicide bombers to the Zionist Irgun and Stern gangs, which launched a series of terrorist attacks in Palestine in the run-up to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

"We need to ask what the Jews did in comparable circumstances," he said. "In 1946 the Irgun controlled by Menacham Begin blew up the King David hotel in Jerusalem, slaughtering 91 innocent people. In 1948 the Palestinians denounced what they described as a massacre in the village of Deir Yassin ... The difference between the Deir Yassin massacre and what happened in Jenin is that Deir Yassin was the work of terrorist groups denounced by mainstream Jewish groups. The horrors in Jenin were carried out by the official Israeli army."

A Blair loyalist, Mr Kaufman warned that Mr Sharon's conduct had made it impossible for Britain and the United States to take action against Iraq. "To do so would unite the whole Muslim world against the US, the coalition against terrorism would disintegrate, western economies could suffer a shock comparable to the oil shock of 1973."

Mr Kaufman's attack on the Israeli government were echoed across the chamber. The former Tory cabinet minister, John Gummer, said that a fundamental distinction should be drawn between the actions of the Israelis and that of the Arabs.

"Israel is a state, with the trappings of a state which claims the legitimacy of a state and the more that it rightly claims that legitimacy, the more it has to be judged by the standards of a state and the standards of democracy," he said.

Amid such a serious Middle East crisis it was irresponsible of Washington to take such a tough stance against Iraq, Mr Gummer warned. He criticised the "kind of approach that says that we judge what is in our self-interest and our self-defence and thereby can do anything we like, irrespective either of international law or the UN or indeed frankly of the evidence before us".

Ann Clwyd, the Labour backbencher who has just returned from a visit to the Jenin refugee camp with the UN, said the EU should consider economic sanctions against Israel. Apologising for her croaky voice, caused by dust from Israeli tanks, she said it was not enough for European countries to "simply bleat condemnation".

Ms Clwyd added: "They need to withdraw European ambassadors from Israel. They need to impose an arms embargo as Germany has already done, and they should consider what economic sanctions can be put in place."

Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrats' foreign affairs spokesman, condemned both sides. He also rounded on anti-Semitic groups in Britain which have distributed "hateful" leaflets. "They are an affront to decency, they disfigure democratic society and they disgrace our democracy," he said.