British MP, Sir Gerald Kaufman, who was raised as an orthodox Jew and a Zionist, today compared the Israeli actions in Gaza to the Nazis who forced his family to flee Poland:

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 exploit the continuing guilt from gentiles over the slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust as justification for their murder of Palestinians.

Sir Gerald likened the Israeli claim that large numbers of Gaza victims are militants to the claims of the Nazis : "I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been dismissed as militants."

He is calling for an arms embargo 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."

Sir Gerald hasn't always been a critic of Israel. In his youth he was infatuated with Zionism. In a BBC documentary titled The End of the Affair, he describes how his early idealism gave way to eventual disillusionment. He has called Israel a "pariah" and its senior politicians "war criminals".

In April 2002, in response to Israel's military operation codenamed Defensive Shield, Sir Gerald had this to say:

It is time to remind Sharon that the star of David belongs to all Jews, 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, Mendelssohn and Mahler, Sergei Eisenstein and Billy Wilder, are now symbolised throughout the world by the blustering bully Ariel Sharon, a war criminal implicated in the murder of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila camps and now involved in killing Palestinians once again.

Of the present Israeli leadership and their actions in Gaza, he said: "They are not simply war criminals, they are fools."

Link here for Sir Gerald's comments on YouTube.