Press Association
Thursday June 19, 2003

Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was today compared to the Nazis' creation of the Warsaw ghetto by MPs who recently returned from the region.
The controversial comparison, drawn by Oona King and Jenny Tonge, will anger the pro-Israel lobby and the visiting Israeli finance minister, Benyamin Netanyahu, who met Tony Blair at Downing Street this morning.

Labour MP Ms King, who is Jewish, said Gaza was "the same in nature" as the infamous Polish ghetto.

"No government should be behaving like that - least of all a Jewish government," the Bethnal Green and Bow MP said.

Ms King and Liberal Democrat MP Dr Tonge were holding a Westminster press conference today following their fact-finding trip.

The pair were caught up in the aftermath of the Israeli gunship assassination attack on a leading Palestinian extremist. A building they were in just minutes earlier was hit in retaliation.

The MPs were also confronted by an Israeli soldier armed with a grenade as they tried to leave the strip.

Speaking ahead of the press conference, Ms King said the visit, organised by Christian Aid, had opened her eyes.

The MP, a member of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, said: "I recognise the terror many Israelis live with as a matter of their daily lives.

"I was more surprised perhaps by the everyday terror that Palestinians live, the detail and nature of which I had not understood.

"We must support the moderate voices as opposed to strengthening extremists."

Referring to Warsaw, scene of the historic uprising by its Jewish inhabitants, Ms King said: "It is the same in nature but not extent."

She stressed the "very, very big difference" between Gaza and the infamous ghetto established by the Nazis in Poland's capital.

"Palestinians are not being rounded up and put in gas chambers," she said.

But the MP said: "What makes it similar is what happened to the Jewish people in that time which was the seizing of land, being forced from property, torture and bureaucracy - control used in a demeaning way over the smallest task.

"On top of that building a wall around them - and that is precisely what the Israeli government is doing. In doing so it is building a political ghetto. I don't think it can escape that conclusion."

Ms King also said: "As a Jewish person, I hoped I would never live to see the day I was ashamed of the actions of the Jewish state."

The situation had worsened considerably since she last visited with pressure group Labour Friends of Israel in 1998, she added.

Ms Tonge agreed: "You are almost getting a situation like the Warsaw ghetto - people can't get in or out. They can't work, they can't sell anything. There is this gradual squeeze."

However, the Richmond Park MP also offered a comparison of her own.

"I feel it was an apartheid system and it is certainly getting worse - the area where the Palestinians live is getting smaller."

Ms Tonge wants to see economic sanctions against Israel unless the situation improves and says EU or UN troops should be sent in to keep the peace.

"Israel says everything it does is for security but they are not addressing the cause of terrorism, only terrorism itself," she added.

At their meeting this morning, Mr Blair and Mr Netanyahu discussed the Middle East peace process.

Mr Blair's official spokesman said: "The Prime Minister reiterated his commitment to see the road map implemented and his willingness to do everything that he and the British government can to help."

Later, a spokeswoman for the Israeli Embassy said: "It is a terrible shame that a British MP could make this comparison. We were shocked by the ignorance of comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto.

"Such views only encourage extremists elements to become involved in terror against Israel as we recently faced in the suicide bomb in Tel Aviv."