Fully understanding that the best way to gain political points with the British hard left is to vilify Israel, the UK’s former foreign secretary, David Miliband, published an essay at CiF today, “Gaza represents the ultimate failure in politics“.
Miliband’s visit was sponsored by the non-governmental organization Save the Children (an NGO not immune to anti-Israel bias according to NGO Monitor) and, as with The Telegraph’s report on Gaza by Mary Riddell titled, “The wretched scandal of Gaza”, which was also based on a tour sponsored by Save the Children, Miliband predictably attributes blame for Gaza’s situation solely on Israel.
After listing alleged economic deprivations in Gaza, per Save the Children, Miliband characterizes life in the territory as “traumatic and limited”.
Yet, as even the New York Times acknowledged in a recent report, Gaza is nowhere even approaching one of the world’s poorest places. They wrote:
“There is near universal literacy and relatively low infant mortality, and health conditions remain better than across much of the developing world.”
The story further quotes Mahmoud Daher, a World Health Organization official in Gaza, as saying, “We have 100 percent vaccination; no polio, measles, diphtheria or AIDS. We’ve never had a cholera outbreak.”
Home ownership in Gaza is at 80% according to a report in Ma’an, citing the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.
Additionally, according to the same report, the overwhelming majority of households in Gaza have satellite dishes, and nearly half have computers.
Unemployment in Gaza is at 25%, not too much higher than unemployment in Spain, 21%,
Further, even the International Red Cross has acknowledged that there isn’t anything approaching a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Despite Israeli restrictions on materials which could be used to manufacture rockets and other weaponry, everyday nearly 6,000 tons of food, fuel, materials and other supplies are transferred by Israel into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom Crossing. And, thousands of Gazans are treated for free in Israeli hospitals.
Regardless of the fact son the ground, Miliband clearly was intent on advancing a narrative of Palestinian victimhood and Israeli villainy, and writes:
“The situation in Gaza represents the ultimate failure of politics. Nearly three years ago, after the Gaza war, the international community was preoccupied with opening up Gaza. Three years on, there is a stalemate – to match the wider stalemate in the wider search for a Palestinian state that can live alongside Israel.
The first responsibility is with Israel.”
As there’s no moral points to be scored in the UK by holding Palestinians responsible for their own continuing political failures, Miliband, in an over 900 word essay, only mentions Hamas, who rules Gaza, three times, and never in a way critical of the Islamist terrorist regime. Egypt, which also borders Gaza, is mentioned in passing only twice.
Does it occur to Miliband that, whatever economic deprivations exist in Gaza, Hamas is responsible for importing deadly weaponry into the territory, and firing thousands of rockets into Israeli towns, necessitating Israeli defensive measures and restrictions?
Does it occur to Miliband to hold Palestinian Gazans responsible for electing an Islamist group whose very founding charter calls the murder of Jews, and cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as “proof” that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world?
Nothing in Miliband’s essay acknowledges these facts, nor suggests that he assigns moral agency to Gaza’s leaders and citizens.
Jim Sleeper, in his book, “Liberal Racism“, defines the term thusly:
“The condescension involved in setting the bar so low that one denies intended beneficiaries…the hard-won satisfactions of real growth and accomplishment; in short, one fails to…hold them to basic standards of human decency and achievement.”
The former foreign minister’s CiF essay may have assisted his political career, but by setting the bar so low, and not demanding of the Palestinians in Gaza the hard-won satisfactions of real moral and political growth and accomplishments, nor to basic standards of human decency, he, as with so many Guardian left critics of Israel, fails to uphold genuine liberal values.
Milibands bigotry of low expectations hurts Israel for sure, but is much more injurious to the Palestinians.
Related articles
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- What Harriet Sherwood won’t report: Hamas bans Palestinian merit scholars from leaving Gaza (cifwatch.com)
- Harriet Sherwood report accuses Israel of contaminating Gaza’s beaches (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian editorial on Palmer Report dismisses findings at odds with their desire to vilify Israel (cifwatch.com)
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18 comments
Comments feed for this article
October 12, 2011 at 10:50 am
pretzelberg
Miliband came across as embarrassingly naive.
October 12, 2011 at 2:30 pm
Hoi Polloi
Why are you still here? Haven’t you got a pogrom to attend? Perhaps a local Hamas meeting?
Anti-Semitic worm.
October 12, 2011 at 11:32 am
ItsikDeWembley
“Does it occur to Miliband that, whatever economic deprivations exist in Gaza, Hamas is responsible for importing deadly weaponry into the territory, and firing thousands of rockets into Israeli towns, necessitating Israeli defensive measures and restrictions? ”
Yes, yes and yes.
He mustn’t say that though for fear of playing the Jewish card…
Being Jewish and supporting Israel, it seems, shows that you are biased according to some circles’ logic.
October 12, 2011 at 12:11 pm
פרגוס קאלן
Gaza is open now since Egypt became a democracy.
October 12, 2011 at 2:13 pm
Another Joshua
Bravo!!!
October 12, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Another Joshua
It is precisely this mindset that is so difficult to rewire.Like Pavlovian dogs, the mention of “Palestinian” evokes images of pitiful deprivation and starvation, and that Israel must do something about this to stop it.
Faced with overwhelming evidence that establishes the exaggerations and outright lies on many occasions of the Arab narrative, there’s a hesitancy to confront the truth and reality.Milliband has little to say for himself at the moment, so he needs a power base within the labour movement. What better way to regain his ground and draw consensus, other than to start stirring the I/P issue in a way that will give him the street cred. And of course, what better place to write it, but in the columns of the sacred Guardian to reach out and advertise his street credentials
October 12, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Snigger
He’s just another political tart, whoring himself for votes, trying to seem knowledgeable. It’d be embarrassing if it weren’t sickening.
October 12, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Lisa
One always hopes that centre-left politicians would have enough sense not to fall for that ultra-left wing anti-Israel propaganda. Sadly, many (across Europe) don’t.
October 12, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Yvetta Bagel
His mother’s son. perhaps?
October 12, 2011 at 2:39 pm
Penny
“…..he, as with so many Guardian left critics of Israel, fails to uphold genuine liberal values.”
I’d say he goes further than that, Adam.
The only way to address the Israel/Palestine conflict – indeed, any conflict – is to be honest about it.
If Miliband – and Western governments in general – keep reading from a script which appears to many to be a fusion of The Emperor’s New Clothes and Alice in Wonderland, not only will they fail to live up to the values they claim as their own, but will also prolong the conflict to the detriment of all those caught up in it – and that includes the Palestinians for whom they profess such heartfelt sympathy and support.
Journalists should be held accountable when they deliberately obscure facts or misreport incidents. Politicians more so. Their actions and words contribute just as much to the stoking of this particular fire as any other parties we might name.
October 12, 2011 at 5:22 pm
Millfield
Is there a correlation between self confessed atheist Jews, such as the Milland brothers, and their hatred of Israel?
Between the Tory party headed up by the likes of “Gaza is a prison camp” Cameron and ” Condemn Jews building in East Jerusalem” Hague and the Labour party’s atheist Jewish leader – What choice now does a British Jew have at election time?
October 13, 2011 at 10:40 am
ItsikDeWembley
Surly not the Greens…
October 13, 2011 at 12:04 am
benorr
We used to have a special word to describe people like this David Milliband but I won’t repeat it here………..
Revulsion and disgust come to mind……
October 13, 2011 at 12:12 am
benorr
Jews like this David Milliband have yet to learn how to stand up straight and walk tall,they live in the Gola and behave like Galutim……..
A few years of living in Israel would have given them back their backbone…………………………………..
October 13, 2011 at 4:42 am
Derek Pasquill
David Miliband is both bonkers and evil like the excrebable Ridell.
October 13, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Abtalyon
It seems to me that Miliband’s article merely confirms that where Israel and the Palestinians are concerned, all three major UK parties are tainted with traditional Foreign Office attitudes and are unable to see the Middle East as it really is. All this goes a long way to explain why the UK, notwithstanding its business ties to the Arab world and its huge trade with Israel, continues to play such an inconsequential role in bringing about any progress in peace moves.
October 15, 2011 at 11:45 am
SilverTrees
Could the traditional Foreign Office attitudes be perpetuated by the number of Muslims sympathetic to Islamism who are employed in the Foreign Office? We all know of one former employee – Mockbul Ali – whose biases came to light only when he got the measure of his bosses’ stupidity or wilful blindness and wrote the infamous report which said that Yusuf Qaradawi was a moderate.
Thankfully the papers were leaked to the press before the Islamist scum could be let into the UK and Mockbul Ali’s Foreign Office career quickly terminated.
But how many more are there?
November 8, 2011 at 7:53 am
Israel is warned to let sanctions work against Iran – but where are the sanctions? | Anne's Opinions
[...] Mary Riddell ought to be ashamed of herself, and the Telegraph are a disgrace for publishing her antisemitic screeds. Riddell has form, having written recently on the “wretched scandal of Gaza”, nicely ripped apart in Cifwatch. [...]