Artists paste photographs on the controversial Israeli barrier in Abu Dis, Jerusalem, on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Jerusalem, March 7: A group of German bishops sparked controversy yesterday when they compared Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians with the Nazis’ maltreatment of Jews in the Warsaw ghetto.

The comments were made by the 27-strong German Bishops’ Conference after its tour of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

Several of the bishops were upset by the Jerusalem Wall, the 30-foot high concrete barrier illegally built by Israel to separate Palestinian suburbs from the rest of the city.

While crossing one of the checkpoints into East Jerusalem, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, archbishop of Cologne, said he had been particularly incensed. “This is something that is done to animals, not people,” he said referring to the wall and heavily fortified checkpoints.

The archbishop was brought up in communist-controlled East Germany.

“For me it is a nightmare. I didn’t think I would see such a wall again in my life,” he said.

The bishops visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, before heading to Ramallah, the de facto capital of the occupied West Bank. This morning we saw pictures of the Warsaw ghetto at Yad Vashem and this evening we are going to the Ramallah ghetto,” Bishop Gregor Maria Franz Hanke said.

“It’s enough to drive one mad. Israel has the right to exist, but this right cannot be realised in such a brutal manner.”