Miliband brothers plan to contest UK Labor Party leadership

Siblings are sons of Jewish immigrants.

By JONNY PAUL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
david miliband 311 (photo credit: AP)
david miliband 311
(photo credit: AP)
LONDON – The Miliband brothers are set to contest the Labor leadership following British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s announcement on Monday that he will step down as leader by September.
Foreign Minister David Miliband and his younger brother, Climate Secretary Ed, will both run for party leader, the first contest in 16 years, along with Schools Minister Ed Balls, Home Secretary Alan Johnson and Deputy Leader Harriet Harman.
The Milibands’ mother is Polish-born Marion Kozak, who is a signatory of the Jews for Justice for Palestinians organization, and their late father was the Belgian-born Marxist intellectual Ralph Miliband.
The Milibands lost 80 family members during the Holocaust, many in Auschwitz.
“I am a child of Jewish immigrants and that is a very important part of my identity,” David said in a 2006 Jewish Chronicle article.
In a CNN interview in 2009, he said he grew up in a secular setting and described himself as an atheist with a “huge respect” for people of faith.
Educated at Oxford University and MIT, David, 44, first came into prominence when he was made former prime minister Tony Blair’s head of policy in 1994. After rising rapidly through the ranks, he was made foreign minister in 2007.
During the Second Lebanon War, he reportedly told then-prime minister Tony Blair that he needed to speak out against the war.
During Operation Cast Lead he called for Israeli airstrikes to stop because they “fuel radicalism,” but also condemned the Hamas attacks on Israel.
Following the Gaza conflict, David announced in parliament that Britain would be reviewing existing arms export licenses. As a result of the review, in which the government looked at 182 licenses, the Foreign Office declared that Israel had contravened their criteria in a small number of cases during the conflict. Only five were canceled, said to be equipment and parts for the Sa’ar gunship.
Last December, David was rebuked by Israel after announcing that Britain should resume contacts with Hizbullah in an attempt to persuade the terrorist group to renounce its campaign of violence against Israel.
In an interview with Beirut newspaper the Daily Star, he said he believed “carefully considered contact with Hizbullah’s politicians, including its MPs, will best advance our objective of the group rejecting violence to play a constructive role in Lebanese politics.”
David played a prominent role in the Dubai passport affair earlier this year. In a statement in Parliament he announced the decision to expel an Israeli diplomat following the scandal and issued a public warning against travel to Israel, citing identity theft concerns.
In March, he told the Timesthat Israel “obviously doesn’t agree” with his repeated calls for asettlement freeze but stated his belief that settlements were not theroot cause of terrorism.
“It’s foolish to think that if youresolved the Palestinian issue, al-Qaeda would disappear,” he said.“Equally, the corrosive effect of the absence of a Palestinian state isvery real.”
He has also worked towards changing the universaljurisdiction law, used by activists to arrest Israeli dignitaries on“war crime” charges when they visit the UK.
Following thedecision by Kadima leader Tzipi Livni to cancel a visit to the UK lastDecember after she was threatened by such action, David Milibandexpressed his “shock” at the arrest warrant, saying it was “completelyunacceptable,” and vowed to work immediately to ensure that a similarincident would not recur.
“The procedure by which arrestwarrants can be sought and issued without any prior knowledge or adviceby a prosecutor is an unusual feature of the system in England andWales. The government is looking urgently at ways in which the UKsystem might be changed in order to avoid this sort of situationarising again,” he said at the time.
Educated at Oxford and LSE,Ed Miliband, 40, was appointed a special advisor to Prime MinisterGordon Brown after Labor’s election victory in 1997. Rising steadilythrough the ranks, he was made secretary of state in the newly createdDepartment of Energy and Climate Change in 2008.
The youngerMiliband is described as a better public speaker and more fluent intelevision appearances than his older brother, and is also politicallyto his left.
During a visit to Poland last year, David visitedWarsaw’s Jewish cemetery, where members of his family are buried, andthanked the country for saving his mother’s life during the Holocaust.
“My mother was born here, her life was saved by those who risked theirs by sheltering her from Nazi oppression,” he said.
David is the favorite to replace Brown as party leader, with the process taking a number of months.
Candidatesneed a nomination of 12.5 percent – 33 MPs – of the parliamentary partyto mount a bid for party leader. Then Labor MPs, MEPs and affiliatedorganizations and activists, including trade unions, cast a vote.


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