LONDON, Jan 15: A British Jewish lawmaker compared the Israeli offensive in Gaza on Thursday to the Nazis who forced his family to flee from Poland.

Gerald Kaufman, a member of the Jewish Labour movement linked to Premier Gordon Brown’s ruling party, also called for an arms embargo on Israel.

“My grandmother was ill in bed when the Nazis came to her home town and a German soldier shot her dead in her bed,” Kaufman said during a parliamentary debate on the Gaza war.

“My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza.

“The present Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.”

Israel’s claim that many of the Palestinian victims were militants “was the reply of the Nazi,” he said, adding: “I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants.” Kaufman, said Hamas was a “deeply nasty” organisation, but said it was democratically elected.

“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.—AFP