BICOM

Labour leader Ed Miliband began a three day visit to Israel and the West Bank yesterday with a talk to students in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a visit to Israel’s Holocaust museum Yad Vashem. The trip is one of Miliband’s first major foreign trips since being elected opposition leader in September 2010.

During his discussion with the students, Miliband recalled his first trip to Israel at the age of seven in order to visit his grandmother, who had moved to Israel following the death of her husband in a Nazi concentration camp. Referring to his family history, the Labour leader told the students that it made him “aware of the challenges Israel faces, the dangers of antisemitism and of people who question its right to exist.” He also spoke very strongly against an academic boycott of Israel, saying, “I don’t think boycotts are the solution to the complex problems Israeli and Palestinian people grapple with.”

While criticising Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Miliband emphasised the importance of Israel’s security and referred to Israel as “the homeland for the Jewish people”.  He added, “This is not a theoretical idea for me, it is my family experience. That is how I think about it.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand that Israel to be recognised as a Jewish state in a final status agreement with the Palestinians continues to be rejected by the Palestinian leadership.

During his the rest of his visit, Miliband is scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and with opposition and Labour party leader Isaac Herzog, as well as with Palestinian leaders.