I was greatly saddened to hear of the
death of the right honourable Sir Gerald
Coffman MP Member of Parliament for
Manchester Ardwick and Manchester Gorton
for an amazing 47 years building his
parliamentary majority up to over 25,000
because of his fidelity his attention to
detail and his capacity for hard work
which until the end was as great as any
political figure with whom I have ever
been associated John Kauffman was a
friend of mine for more than 30 years
and indeed we had mutual friends and
acquaintances going back in his case to
the 1960s particularly Harold Wilson the
former Labour Prime Minister whom
journal Coffman served in Downing Street
as a press officer between 1966 and 1970
I became a friend of Harold Wilson and
Joe Hoffman was a storehouse of more
stories about the Bevin Gaitskell
conflict about Sir Harold Wilson himself
than anyone alive
alas until yesterday Joe Coffman and I
had very many shared interests included
amongst them was clothes so Gerald was a
real dandy no-one could dress like him
no one would actually dress like him but
Joe Coffman always carried it off with
real panache he was as Jeremy Corbyn
said in his fine tribute last evening a
real dandy he was also a source of jokes
some of them a little off-color and
funny stories anecdotes like no other I
have ever known I traveled very widely
around the world with Joe Kaufman
spending long concentrated periods of
many days just him and me in some cases
I remember in Geneva three days
Joel Kaufmann my sides were sore with
laughter his treasure trove of funny
stories and gossip but we had many more
serious common interests too
we shared an interest in Pakistan and in
Kashmir that we spent long times
together on the road particularly when
he was the shadow foreign secretary and
I used to introduce him as his warm-up
act as the greatest foreign secretary
Britain had not yet had unfortunately he
never got the chance to be the foreign
secretary of Britain and if he had
things would have been very much
different because Joe wasn't just a
highly principled highly intelligent man
he was also an extremely courageous one
he made no bones about it that the
people of Kashmir for example had been
the victim of a vast great historic
crime caused by British imperialism
perpetuated by the Indian armies brutal
occupation of the valley of Kashmir we
share the love of Pakistan and Pakistani
food
we both regarded the Lahore kitchen
which is the kind of Indian cooking that
is now famous throughout the land even
if it's never called Pakistani it's
called Indian mostly although most of
the restaurants are owned by Bengalis
paradox that Gerald used to point out to
me every single time we sat down for a
piping hot curry but I suppose the most
significant of our common interests was
the issue of Palestine Sir John Kaufmann
a man of the Jewish faith was a Zionist
he grew up collecting money for the
Zionist State but decades ago and decade
by decade he grew more strongly
convinced that the State of Israel was
nothing more than a your
peon colonial settler state in his words
worse than the European colonial settler
state of apartheid South Africa he
explained when I last interviewed him on
our RT Sputnik show which I hope that we
can show you one or two of the excerpts
from in this broadcast that Israel was
worse than apartheid South Africa
because of the proximity of the victims
and their victimizers in South Africa he
explained it was just about possible for
the most part for the oppressor to
maintain a very significant separation
between them and their victims no such
separation being possible in occupied
Palestine and as the decades grew on and
as Israel's crimes grew more and more
grisly grotesque Joe Kaufman's courage
in confronting them even when earning
him the intense hatred of the supporters
of Israel grew more and more bold more
and more forthright Joe Kaufman
campaigned not just for a boycott of
Israel which he did and followed in his
personal life
absolutely he called for the strongest
possible economic sanctions from the
international community from the
European Union from Britain America and
the United Nations itself so as as he
put it to end the first world economic
standards of living
enjoyed by that settler state of Israel
other people's expense an entirely false
standard of life based upon the largesse
of the United States and the open
trading relations and investment by
other Western countries and when Israel
invaded repeatedly Gaza mass
thousands thousands of Palestinian women
men and perhaps above all children this
served to break general Kaufman's heart
I being younger than him was able to
take to the roads with repeated convoys
to break the siege on Gaza Joe Coffman
with his mighty heart and with his
piercing invective punctured absolutely
the big life that Israel was acting in
some way on behalf of Judaism on behalf
of the Jewish people
Joe Kaufman was the greatest of things a
Jew who could see clearly that the State
of Israel was an abomination was a
blasphemy against Judaism and against
the historic role of progressive Jewish
people in the development of
civilization and of progressive thought
and action across the world I don't want
to give the impression that life with
Gerald Kaufman was always intense and
always deeply serious as I've been
thinking about him all of this day our
first day without Joe Kaufman in the
world I've been laughing I've been
laughing at his amazing treasure trove
his fund of stories and of labor history
my last observation is this Kaufman was
the smartest of things a real political
operator I was sitting next to him in
the House of Commons as I frequently did
when the house was convened on the sad
melancholy day which still makes me feel
sad even now after all these years the
day that the late and great John Smith
the Labour leader passed away we were
both sitting with tears in our eyes as
we listened to the tributes being paid
to John Smith that mighty oak that fell
in 1993 I turned to Gerald and I said
what we going to do now he said there's
only one thing to do my dear boy and
it's already happening he meant that
Tony Blair was getting ready to stab in
the back his closest friend Gordon Brown
and run for the leadership against
everybody's instincts and everybody's
predictions there was ice at already six
years in the House of Commons utterly
naively imagining that no such betrayal
could happen I said to Gerald Tony Blair
can't run no against Gordon Brown and he
said to me life is full of these little
betrayals in politics Tony Blair went on
to betray everyone including Joe Coffman
in the role that he played in
international affairs I like to think if
Coffman had been in the Foreign Office
or even if he'd been which he probably
marginally might have preferred the
Secretary of State for Culture Media and
Sport because nobody knew more about
culture and media than Joe Coffman he
was virtually hollywood's man in london
he once began a speech at the
parliamentary Labour Party with the
immortal words as Betty Davis said to me
and the entire audience began laughing
no labour Member of Parliament in all
history could have begun a speech with
the words as Betty Davis said to me
copper never turned against Tony Blair
and the way that I did but he came to
realize
that the invasion and occupation of Iraq
had been the greatest blunder
maybe crime and blunder that any British
government had ever committed and I
include in that the crime and the
blunder of the handing of the land of
Palestine to the settlers so that they
might then call it Israel and the long
Calvary of the people of Jammu and
Kashmir
I'm very sad actually talking to you
although I'm happy proud to have been
able to call the late and great and
right honourable Sir Gerald Hoffman MP
my friend for more than half of my life
Gerald I salute you welcome back to
Sputnik the right honourable Sir Gerald
Kaufman PC MP has been in Parliament
nearly 50 years but before that was a
brilliant journalist and an assistant in
Downing Street to the Labour Prime
Minister Harold Wilson
if flavour hadn't been out of power so
long he would have been foreign
secretary and what a difference to the
world that would have made Gerald
Kaufman's relatives were murdered in the
Holocaust and he grew up an ardent
supporter of the State of Israel now he
is the clearest most authoritative voice
against the crimes committed by that
state and for justice for their victims
last week in Parliament he said it was
time for international sanctions against
Israel and spoke of the sea of misery in
the Gaza Strip it's a privilege to have
him with us on the sputnik today Sir
Gerald your speeches always travel far
they have such authority and such
clarity but none more than the speech
you made on Gaza last week you're no
stranger to Gaza you've seen firsthand
that sea of misery tell our viewers
about it I led a delegation of 60
parliamentarians from 13 European
Parliament's to Gaza not long ago it was
a year after the attack by the Israelis
which failed as all Israeli attacks now
do though with huge loss of life called
Operation Cast Lead a year afterwards
the smoke from the white phosphorus
bombardment by Israel was still fuming
away people say rightly that the Syrians
use chemical weapons
nobody condemns the Israelis for using
chemical weapons well I do the massive
military destruction is of course
compounded by the economic misery the
blockade means that no meaningful
economic activity can take place there
the tunnels through which some means of
life were passing have been destroyed on
the Egyptian side and I think you are
describing in Parliament the condition
of life of those Palestinians who have
survived these military attacks tell us
scarcely any food is allowed to be
brought in so everybody but particularly
the young people and the children are
undernourished which have affects them
so much that it will go on to future
generations they have hardly any fresh
water just for a few hours every 5 days
so they're diseased in that way they
have no fuel of their own which means
apart from anything else that a great
deal of the transport now is by horse or
donkey there's hardly any electric
electrical power indeed on a recent
summer because there wasn't enough
electricity for air-conditioning in
nearby Tel Aviv
cut off the electricity in the Gaza
Strip and Qatar had to intervene and see
what it could do which wasn't enough no
building materials are brought in so
that the schools that the Israelis
destroyed in some cases with children in
them cannot be rebuilt medical
facilities are at their minimum if any
other country on Earth was doing what
the Israelis have been doing to 1.7
million Palestinians in Gaza there will
be United Nations resolutions there will
be calls for an intervention there will
be sanctions but the Israelis literally
get away with murder I'll come back to
sanctions in a minute
no you're Jewish your family suffered
some perished in the Holocaust the
greatest of all crimes which took place
in the 20th century perhaps the greatest
of all crimes ever and you grew up a
supporter of the State of Israel what
changed your mind
as you say George I grew up a support of
the State of Israel I I was brought up
as a Zionist I went to Israel again and
again and again on holiday I had family
there I had friends there but as I
traveled around because it's a small
area I would see not just Israelis in
Israel living in huge comfort subsidized
by the Americans I would see settlers in
the illegal settlements living in huge
comfort and minutes away I will go to a
Palestinian Township or village and see
sewage flowing through the streets and
if you have any sense of justice at all
and as a Jewish child I was brought up
with a sense of justice the disparity
he's unacceptable and he's got worse
it's got worse and worse and worse the
whole time and the Israelis live in
comfort I've gone through Tel Aviv and
see them sitting at their pavement cafes
complacently enjoying themselves while
hardly any distance away the guard
people in the Gaza Strip are living in
total misery but don't let's forget the
people on the West Bank they're living
in misery as well now of course it is
routine for Israeli propagandists to
pray in aid the suffering of the Jewish
people in the Holocaust you reject that
as a cover don't you I reject it with
utter contempt and anger most of my
parents families because my parents came
here as refugees
most of my parents families were
murdered in the Holocaust when the
Germans came to the town from which my
mother came in Poland stash off they
lined up all the Jews to march to the
railway station to be put in cattle
wagons but for those who were not well
enough to march they killed them on the
spot and they killed my grandmother who
was ill in bed by shooting her in her
bed my grandmother did not die to
provide cover for Israelis murdering
Palestinian grandmothers well it's hard
to put it any more powerfully than than
that let's turn to what can be done
about it
there is of course a civil movement of
boycott and fight for divestment and
even individual sanction but you went
further in your speech in Parliament
last week you say it's time for
international official governmental
sanctions against Israel how would that
work the Israelis have a very high
first world standard of living that
standard living depends partly on huge
financial subsidies by the United States
under the spineless Barack Obama and
every politician pretty well in the
United States yields to the Jewish
pressure groups and that's why they dint
do anything about it even if they wanted
to do something about it the European
Union is inactive the British government
is inactive the Prime Minister David
Cameron described the Gaza Strip as a
prison camp but it so happened that he
said that when he was visiting a Muslim
country Turkey and wanted to ingratiate
himself with his hosts hardly anything
is done which is why lots of people
including me take part in boycotts but
the boycotts while important are
insufficiently effective what we need
and what I press for and we'll go on
pressing for is governments the United
Nations the European Union the United
States our own country to impose
economic sanctions so that the Israelis
can feel what international opinion meal
means there's no point in condemning
them there's certainly no point in
appealing to their better nature because
they don't have a better nation you've
got to make them suffer because that's
the only way they will feel anything an
economic sanctions would erode this huge
first world standard of living which
they enjoy on borrowed money what you
described earlier was an apartheid
system I'm one of the few people on the
Left who was ever in apartheid South
Africa was their underground for the
African National Congress and the
situation you described of
the settlers living in great comfort was
the indigenous owners of the land live
in utter misery a part was broken
between the hammer of the struggle of
the African people and the anvil of
international solidarity including
sanctions and boycott do you think that
such a move is going to have an effect
and if so when I - when I was shadow
foreign secretary visited South Africa
under apartheid as the guest of the
South African Council of Churches and I
was followed everywhere by South African
secret police that there is a huge
difference between the apartheid that
the Israelis are inflicting on the
Palestinians and the loathsome an odious
aparte that existed in South Africa
there were distances considerable
differences between Johannesburg Cape
Town Durban and the South African the
African townships in Palestine is
minutes minutes between the settlements
or between Israel behind the 67 borders
and the hell that they've created in
Gaza and on the West Bank
so it's worse it's worse even than the
foul actions of the South African
apartheid government you've got to make
these people feel it I'm not optimistic
but I'm realistic nobody ever expected
the Soviet Union to collapse in the way
that it did but it happened nobody ever
expected apartheid in South Africa to
collapse in the way that he did but it
happened the Israelis are stupid to
imagine that just because they've got
the fourth largest arms forces in the
world they can
go on like this I learned Greek at
school and there was there's a phrase
and the historian you through Citadis
which says hunter-reay and that means
everything flows the Israelis are barmy
complacent and self-defeating to imagine
that they can go on forever as they're
going now so Jonah Kaufman a privilege
to talk to you