WIESENTHAL CENTER CONDEMNS BRITISH MP FOR ACCUSING ISRAEL OF EXPLOITING HOLOCAUST GUILT

January 15, 2009

WIESENTHAL CENTER CONDEMNS BRITISH MP FOR ACCUSING ISRAEL OF EXPLOITING HOLOCAUST GUILT

The Simon Wiesenthal Center condemned British Parliamentarian Gerald Kaufman, for telling his fellow lawmakers in the House of Commons that Israel is exploiting the guilt that non-Jews feel about the Holocaust in order to justify defensive operations in Gaza.

"Mr. Kaufman manages in one disgraceful screed to insult all victims of the Nazi Holocaust and the people of Israel, who are guilty of finally protecting themselves from a terrorist group whose self-proclaimed goal is to fulfill Hitler's vision of a 'Judenrein' Holy Land," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center.

Cooper remarked that later this month in the United Kingdom, members of the European Union and the United Nations, will gather to mark the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. "We are urging those leaders who have no respect for living Jews not to disgrace the memory of 6 million dead ones by their presence at these ceremonies," he said.

"Perhaps the only sin Israel is guilty of was turning the other cheek for over a half a year as Hamas openly pursued its murderous policy of rocketing Israel's Southern civilian communities from within civilian locations in Gaza--without so much as a word of protest from people like MP Kaufman," Rabbi Cooper concluded.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, and the Council of Europe.

For more information, please contact the Center's Public Relations Department, 310-553-9036.