NICK Clegg has slapped down Bradford East MP David Ward as “crass” after he said Palestinians were victims of “genocide”.

Mr Ward triggered fresh criticism when – on Holocaust Memorial Day – he likened the Israeli “persecution” in Palestine to the Nazi’s mass murder of Jewish people.

The Liberal Democrat MP said: “On Holocaust Memorial Day, it's imperative that we share the memory of the millions who have been murdered in the Holocaust, and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Palestine, Bosnia and Darfur, in order to challenge hatred and persecution wherever it resides today.”

Mr Ward said that, at the “deeply moving” Memorial Day, people were encouraged to remember other groups that had suffered as well as the victims of the Holocaust.

And he argued that treatment of the Palestinians fell within the criteria laid down in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Mr Ward said: “That’s particularly true at the time of the Nakba [in 1948] when 700,000 people were driven out of their homes and are still refugees.

“I believe it is not inconsistent to include them within a list of victims of genocide, alongside all the others.”

But, asked about the Bradford East MP’s comment, the Lib Dem leader said: “He doesn't speak for the party and I think this - on that day of all days - was a crass, insensitive thing to say.

“To compare, however distressing it is to see, what is happening in Gaza to the Palestinian people to what has happened in Darfur or Cambodia or the Holocaust is completely inappropriate.

"Is it something people take offence at? Yes. Do I think it is wrong? Yes. But he doesn't speak for the party and he never has.”

Asked again whether the situation of the Palestinians was a “genocide”, Mr Clegg said: “I don't think it is recognised that that is what is happening in Palestine.”

The latest clash came just two weeks after the Lib Dem leader called Mr Ward “stupid” after he tweeted ‘Je Suis Palestinian’ on the day of the rally to commemorate the recent Paris atrocities.

It followed a long-running dispute with the party leadership over earlier comments he made about “the Jews” who were “inflicting atrocities on Palestinians”.

But Mr Ward sought to emphasise that his strong support for the Palestinian cause takes up only “a very small amount of my time”.

He said: “What takes up 95 per cent of my time is dealing with issues like housing, schools and business events.”

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