The yiddish word chutzpah is often defined as when a man who has murdered both his parents pleads for clemency on the grounds that he is an orphan. But there’s now a better definition. On Monday, Ed Miliband posted this on social media: “Antisemitism has no place in our society. This morning, I hosted a crucial discussion with the J7 Global Task Force to discuss how we can work together across countries to stamp out the scourge of antisemitism.”
A minister who treats the Jewish state as a pariah gives Jew haters what they want
Give the man his due. Miliband is certainly not troubled by an excess of self-doubt, let alone shame. In the 85 days in which he has been Foreign Secretary, Miliband has done more to worsen the situation for British Jews than any other minister of any party in living memory. There is no other minister or ex-minister who is worse placed to opine on the scourge of antisemitism than the man who has done the bidding of Jew haters across the country by imposing sanctions on Israel. (And that’s without even considering his appalling legacy as Labour leader, which can be spelled out in two words: Jeremy Corbyn. It was Miliband’s change to Labour’s leadership election rules which handed the post to Corbyn.)
Until Labour came to power, Israel was one of our most reliable and loyal allies and strategic partners. First, Keir Starmer set about destroying that, culminating in his recognition of a Palestinian state in 2025, rewarding Hamas for the October 7, 2023 massacre. Then, Ed Miliband arrived this July, and since then Labour’s drive to appease the sectarian Muslim threat to its vote has been turbocharged with the introduction of sanctions. (Burnham seems uninterested in foreign affairs beyond rejoining the EU, and so Miliband has far more licence to pursue his own agenda than either of his two predecessors.)
But it’s not just the sanctions. When he speaks about Israel, Miliband mimics all the memes of the raging Jew haters. One wonders if his speechwriter was trained by Hamas, since Miliband uses most of their propaganda points. In his Labour conference speech last month, for example, he attacked “ethnic cleansing” and “war crimes in Gaza”. He also derided the threat Israel faces, saying it “cannot justify the suffering the Netanyahu government has inflicted in Gaza and the West Bank.”
Miliband imposed sanctions yesterday on two Iranians, but as his grotesque obsequiousness to the Iranian foreign minister – handshake et al – at last month’s UN General Assembly showed, he appears to consider the real danger to be the Israeli government. Hence the sanctions and the rhetoric which buttress Labour’s overall policy of doing as much diplomatic and economic damage to Israel as possible without military action.
Miliband makes great play of being a “proud British Jew”, as he put it in his Commons statement singling out the world’s only Jewish state for a kicking. He is certainly aware of the rise of antisemitism, as his convening of the J7 Global Task Force (comprising Jewish communal organisations from seven diaspora nations) shows. But such a move is not merely chutzpadik; it is hypocrisy of galactic proportions.
We live in a time when open antisemitism is increasingly normal, when Jews hide signs identifying themselves such as kippot or Star of David necklaces and when Jews are kicked out of social and professional gatherings for being Jewish.
The evidence is clear that when political figures use certain phrases to attack Israel, it has consequences for the level of antisemitism. Last year, the Community Security Trust recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in Britain. In 53 per cent, the offender referred to Israel, Gaza or October 7. “Zionist” was often a stand-in for “Jew”. The perpetrators don’t read Hansard. But they do know that Britain regards Israel as an outlaw state. They see any Jew as fair game as its representative.
Miliband behaves as if he wants to be seen as the ‘good Jew’, the Jew who doesn’t empathise with Israel and who does what the Israel-haters wants. It might work for a while for him. But the Jew haters, led by the sectarian Muslims whose votes Miliband wants to get back for Labour, have already banked the sanctions as a win and are demanding more. They will keep doing so. As the Green party leader Zack Polanski is finding out, as a Jewish politician you can only ride the Jew hate horse for so long before they turn on you when you are no longer useful.
A minister who treats the Jewish state as a pariah gives Jew haters what they want. Even better if that minister is himself Jewish. Miliband’s regurgitation of Hamas propaganda and his imposition of sanctions shows everyone that Israel is regarded as the villain of the Middle East. It is sickening that the minister most responsible for worsening antisemitism should claim to have any interest in combatting it.
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