By Steve Kramer in Kfar Saba, Israel
Ed Miliband is Britain’s Foreign Secretary, a leader in the Labour Party. His brother, David Miliband, was the Foreign Secretary more than a decade ago. Miliband’s parents, both Holocaust-survivors, fled Nazi Europe for Britain during WW2. They retained their long-held affinity towards Marxist ideology and evidently imparted much of it to their two sons. Ed describes himself as a “proud British Jew” although he is an atheist with an ambiguous relationship to Israel.
Ed Miliband has just introduced legislation banning imports from the “settlements,” which are Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank). What he and other Labour Party members do not recognize is that what they call the “West Bank” is a term that was coined in 1950 by the Hashemite rulers of Jordan. Archaeological remains and Biblical documents prove that the Israelites go back at least to King David’s era (circa 1,000 BCE) in the area known as Judah (then later, Judea) as well as in areas of the Golan Heights and southern Lebanon.
But while we were celebrating Rosh Hashanah recently, I was reminded of what the prophet Jeremiah said: “Again you will plant vineyards on the hills of Samaria;” 626-586 BCE. That was well over 2,000 years ago!
So, credulous Britain and most European countries believe that much of the Land of Israel is the homeland of the “Palestinians,” an Arab people who have no proven roots in the area until recent history. Nevertheless, the Europeans in particular (with the exception of Germany and a few smaller countries) are champions of the Palestinians to the detriment of the indigenous Jewish Israelis, now numbering more than 8 million living in Israel.
Israeli Arabs work in all of the areas which fall under Miliband’s edict and many also live there. Not only that – thousands of Palestinian Arabs work in those locations, very happy to have a decent job with salaries much higher than those in the Palestinian Authority. If countries like Britain boycott products from there, it’s the Palestinian workers who will feel the brunt of it.
Why do these imports disturb Mr. Miliband? Has he proscribed imports from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus? (Oh, you never heard about Turkey’s 1974 invasion of Cyprus, occupying half of the island?) Is he about to stop imports from China, which conquered Tibet? Or Libya, Belarus, Cambodia, or Algeria? Each of those countries are dictatorships whose citizens are victims of malevolent governments.
Miliband may proclaim himself to be a “proud Jew” but his acts belie that description. A major consequence of the Miliband initiative is that 11 other countries, almost all European, have joined the British initiative: France, Canada, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden, bringing the total number of nations to 12. (Ironically, many of these nations sell arms to Israel, or buy arms from Israel.) Read more here.
Miliband’s actions have consequences. Israel no longer will just sit back and “take it.” Israel decided to close the British Consulate in east Jerusalem and exclude Britain from diplomatic and security activity connected to the Palestinian Arabs, thus impairing London’s ability to play a significant global role. (Britain’s glory years as a major colonizer were gone long ago anyway.) Among the retaliatory steps Israel announced were ordering the closure of the British Consulate in Jerusalem within 30 days, removing British personnel from US-led coordination efforts in Gaza, ending British training of Palestinian security forces, and barring 12 British politicians and activists from entering Israel. These retaliatory steps will not be lost on the 11 countries mentioned above who support Miliband’s decree.
The fact is that Europe has a diminishing influence on world politics. The only European nation of real consequence is Germany, which is an ally of Israel with very strong military and trade ties. Nevertheless, Europe is still a very populous continent, with about 744 million people, more than twice the population of the US. And it is Israel’s largest trading partner for exports. The UK is the 11th largest import partner with Israel and its 8th largest export destination.
About 2% of Israel’s imports are from the UK. Obviously, Miliband’s initiative is more of a slap at Israel than a significant action. It’s all about Miliband, the “proud Jew,” trying to gain prominence and shore up the sagging Labor government. If he were really proud of his heritage, he should stop trying to build himself up by boycotting Israeli exports. As Britain falls more and more under Muslim influence, politicians like Miliband will display increasing animus against Israel. In my opinion, they are just putting themselves on “the wrong side of history”.
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Steve Kramer is an American-Israeli freelance writer.