HESSEL, Stéphane. Jewish French Resistance hero & humanitarian compares German Occupation of France in WW2 with Apartheid Israel Occupation of Palestine

Stéphane Frédéric Hessel (20 October 1917 – 26 February 2013) was a Jewish German who became a French citizen. He was diplomat, ambassador, writer, concentration camp survivor, French Resistance fighter and an agent of the Bureau Central de Renseignements et d'Action (Central Bureau of Intelligence and Operations, commonly referred as the BCRA, the World War II-era forerunner of the SDECE, the French intelligence service)(. Born German, he became a naturalised French citizen in 1939. He participated in the editing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. His short book Time for Outrage! sold 4.5 million copies worldwide (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phane_Hessel ).

In 2011 Hessel wrote an article in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine, in which he compares the Nazi occupation of France during WWII with the occupation of Palestinian Territories by Israeli army: "The German occupation [of France] was, when compared for example with the present occupation of Palestine by the Israelis, a relatively harmless occupation, apart from exceptions like the arrests, detentions and executions, also of the theft of art treasures.” [1].

[1]. Stéphane Frédéric Hessel quoted in “”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St%C3%A9phane_Hessel .