Sir Gerald Kaufman gave a scathing description of the actions of the State of Israel, comparing its “oppression” of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with apartheid South Africa and the current Iranian regime.

Speaking at a Watford Friends of Salfeet meeting last night, the MP for Manchester Gorton described Iran as a “loathsome regime” but unlike Israel “at least it keeps its totalitarian theocracy to within its own borders”.

Speaking to 100 people at a public meeting, which was also convened by local MP and government minister Claire Ward, Mr Kaufman also said that Israeli troops should follow the lead of the British armed forces, who had refrained “from targeting Catholics in Belfast” despite bombings by the IRA in England:

“We didn’t go and murder 1,000 people after the IRA bombed Manchester,” he said.

He also said that the close proximity of “affluent” Israeli settlers to “impoverished Palestinians” was more “heart-rendering” that the townships in South Africa “which were some distance away from the affluent areas.”

Read more in next week’s JC.