Monday, October 23, 2006
Save us from casual Nazi analogies. Some Europeans just relish any opportunity.
British MP compares Israel to Nazis
LONDON (EJP)--- A Conservative MP came under fire in the British parliament after comparing Israeli air strikes during this summer's war with Hezbollah to tactics used by the Nazis during WWII.
Andrew Turner, who represents the Isle of White, a small island just off the south coast of England, was speaking during a debate on the Middle East in the House of Commons last week.
Having first questioned whether Israel's bombing of south Lebanon was legal, he made the comparison to the German strikes over England and other areas in the 1940s.
"Those were the tactics of the Nazis in 1939 and 1940, attacking fleeing civilians from the air," Turner said...
...Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman, the representative for Liverpool Riverside, responded by asking if Turner was making “a serious point...rather than criticism of Israel's policy?â€
But the Conservative replied: “If she was a little more careful in the way in which she listened to other members instead of parading her prejudices she would have heard what I said which was that Israel attacked fleeing civilians and that is all I said."...
[h/t: Adam Holland]
Can't recall if the Isle of Wight one of the Channel Islands that was under Axis control during WWII, but either way, the "honorable member" for I of W kids himself if he thinks the only people "fleeing" IDF bombings in southern Lebanon were bona fide civilians any more than all 1,000+ casualties on the Lebanese side of the border were civilians.
But can you trust a newspaper that misspells the Isle of Wight to get the story straight?
Seriously, there is anti-Semitism just under the surface in far too many Brits.