{"id":23711,"date":"2013-01-27T01:08:44","date_gmt":"2013-01-27T00:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uk.news.yahoo.com\/mp-apologises-palestine-000844379.html"},"modified":"2013-01-27T01:08:44","modified_gmt":"2013-01-27T00:08:44","slug":"mp-apologises-for-palestine-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/mp-apologises-for-palestine-comment\/","title":{"rendered":"MP apologises for Palestine comment"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Liberal Democrat MP facing disciplinary action after accusing “the Jews” of atrocities against Palestinians has issued a public apology for causing “unintended offence”.<\/p>\n

The comments by David Ward – posted on his website ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day – were condemned by party chiefs and sparked a furious backlash.<\/p>\n

He initially strongly defended the article and hit out at criticisms by the party, which has summoned him to the Whip’s Office for a meeting on Monday morning.<\/p>\n

But in a new post he said he “never for a moment intended to criticise or offend the Jewish people as a whole, either as a race or as a people of faith, and apologise sincerely for the unintended offence which my words caused”.<\/p>\n

“I recognise of course the deep sensitivities of these issues at all times, and particularly on occasions of commemoration such as this weekend,” he added.<\/p>\n

Mr Ward said that in raising the treatment of the Palestinians he had simply been “trying to make clear that everybody needs to learn the lessons of the Holocaust”.<\/p>\n

“I will continue to make criticisms of actions in Palestine in the strongest possible terms for as long as Israel continues to oppress the Palestinian people,” he added.<\/p>\n

The Bradford East MP composed his original posting after signing a Holocaust memorial book in the city, describing Auschwitz as “the Nazi concentration and extermination camp which is the site of the largest mass murder in history”.<\/p>\n

But in the addition which caused the uproar, he added: “Having visited Auschwitz twice – once with my family and once with local schools – I am saddened that the Jews, who suffered unbelievable levels of persecution during the Holocaust, could within a few years of liberation from the death camps be inflicting atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel and continue to do so on a daily basis in the West Bank and Gaza.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A Liberal Democrat MP facing disciplinary action after accusing “the Jews” of atrocities against Palestinians has issued a public apology for causing “unintended offence”.
\nThe comments by David Ward – posted on his website ahead of Holocaust Memorial …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}