Israeli Official Offers Empathy but Hits a Nerve
By JAMES BENNET

JERUSALEM, Monday, May 24 - Israel's justice minister, a Holocaust survivor, started a political uproar on Sunday when he attacked an Israeli plan to demolish Palestinian homes in Gaza and said that a suffering Palestinian woman reminded him of his grandmother.

The minister, Yosef Lapid, said he was not comparing the Israeli Army to the Nazis in his comments, made during a cabinet meeting.

But, he told Israel radio after the meeting, "I did think, when I saw a picture on the TV of an old woman on all fours in the ruins of her home looking under some floor tiles for her medicines - I did think, 'What would I say if it were my grandmother?' "

Mr. Lapid, who was born in a Hungarian-speaking part of Yugoslavia, lost relatives in the Holocaust, including his father and a grandmother.

His remarks fed an Israeli debate about a continuing Israeli military campaign, now in its sixth day, in the Palestinian neighborhoods of the southern Gaza Strip. At least 40 Palestinians have been killed during the raid, and Palestinians say Israeli armored bulldozers and tanks have destroyed more than 30 homes.

Another cabinet minister, Danny Naveh, who also lost relatives in the Holocaust, rejected any comparison to the Holocaust, even implied.

"Any analogy, even hinted at and - I am convinced from my acquaintance with Mr. Lapid - unintentional, creates greater anger and has no place in any form," he said.