Added: Stephen Pollard in the Spectator.
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.”
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.)…
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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