Many Holocaust survivors and descendants have been vocally opposing the UK’s complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza since 2023. And they hope new foreign secretary Ed Miliband — himself the son of Holocaust survivors — will stop this. But as some explained to the Canary, they doubt he will.

Ed Miliband’s ‘self-serving’ careerism

Miliband doesn’t mark a meaningful change from Keir Starmer’s genocide-complicit regime. He has received money from similar sources and has a generally anti-Palestinian track record. As an uncritical supporter of Israel, he has opposed boycotts and had a “strong relationship” with Labour Friends of Israel.

As Holocaust child survivor Dr Agnes Kory told us:

Ed Miliband’s statement about his Holocaust survivor parents (after his recent appointment as Foreign Secretary) does not sit well with me. On the contrary. As we have seen over the years, Ed Miliband’s main focus is getting and keeping the top job.

She called Miliband’s reference to his parents’ stories “self-serving”, saying it:

was likely aimed at those British Jews who have been brainwashed by the Chief Rabbi, the Board of Deputies and others to be scared for their life whenever anybody is critical of Israel’s actions… If I feel charitable, I consider that Ed Miliband wanted to reassure the frightened British Jews. If I think logically, I conclude that Ed wanted the Jewish vote and no antagonism from pro-Israeli campaigners.

And she insisted that:

With his eye on his career, Miliband is unlikely to do anything meaningful to stop the genocide of Palestinians and Britain’s complicity. He knows what happened to Ken Livingstone and [Jeremy] Corbyn, what is happening to Zack Polanski and so on.

As the Lipman-Miliband Trust explains, Miliband’s father Ralph once criticised how the Labour Party’s:

dogmatic attachment to the dominant parliamentary representative system compromised its commitment to socialism and class struggle.

His mother Marion, meanwhile, was a pro-Palestinian activist.

With his parents’ views in mind, Kory said:

I can’t help thinking that Ralph and Marion Miliband would have liked son Ed to give up his political ambitions and to use his legal skills as an advocate for the persecuted Palestinians.

Miliband offers “caring words but no effective action”

Prof Haim Bresheeth-Žabner is the son of two Auschwitz survivors. And he told the Canary that:

There is nothing whatsoever to wait for from Mr. Miliband or from this government.

Despite the rise in anti-Zionist sentiment among younger Jewish people in particular in the West, he said, Ed Miliband is not a figure who is ready to break the Zionist mould in British politics. As he asserted:

Ed Miliband is a typical British politician, despite his parents being Holocaust survivors.

Mark Etkind is also the son of a Holocaust survivor. And in an attempt to explain Miliband’s apparent indifference to the suffering of Palestinians, he highlighted Ralph Miliband’s critique of Labour, insisting that:

if you choose to run the capitalist state, you’re stuck in a situation where your room for manoeuvre is very limited, especially if there is no pressure from a powerful labour movement. In practice, in today’s very difficult economic situation, all you end up doing is to maintain both austerity and the UK’s alliance with US imperialism (along with ongoing support for the Gaza genocide).

And considering that the younger Miliband has long been fully inside that state machinery, Etkind pointed out that:

Ed Miliband’s record so far suggests that he’ll use apparently caring words about the Gaza horrors but that he will take no effective action – such as ending diplomatic relations with Israel or stopping all arms sales.

This is especially the case, Etkind added, because:

our rulers are very worried – that’s why they’re introducing unprecedented repression of the right to protest and free speech across the West.

The Labour government Miliband represents, of course, has been right at the forefront of this repression.

“Never again” must also apply to Gaza

Etkind said his own father had found himself in the same HASAG concentration camp complex in Częstochowa, Poland, as Ed Miliband’s grandfather. In that city, Etkind’s father also saw Soviet prisoners (over three million of whom the Nazis killed during the Holocaust) and wrote in his autobiography, as Etkind quoted, that:

We were not alone – we were not the only Untermenschen

The point here is that fascism rarely has just one target. Its hatred is broad. And anyone who doesn’t fit into its narrow definition of whose lives matter is at risk.

Today, the genocidal criminals running Israel don’t just target Palestinians. They also target anyone who shows solidarity or tries to stop their crimes. And they don’t like experts overwhelmingly referring to their crimes as genocide. (Miliband has embarrassingly continued Labour’s avoidance of the term so far.)

As Holocaust survivors and their descendants have long insisted, however, the phrase ‘never again‘ means nothing unless it applies to everyone. The question is, does Miliband truly want to honour the memory of his parents and other Holocaust survivors by helping to stop genocide today? Or does he care more about his career?

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

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