Ed Miliband. Photo: Wiki Commons.

The following statement from the British Jewish actress Maureen Lipman was read out tonight at a pro-Israel demonstration outside the conference center where Ed Miliband, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, delivered a speech to the pro-boycott organization “Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.” Ms. Lipman, a leading actress whose credits include the Holocaust film “The Pianist,” has sharply criticized Miliband for his stance on Israel, as previously reported by The Algemeiner.

Tonight Mr Miliband, the leader of the Labour party, my party, will address the audience at a fund-raising Gala for Palestinian solidarity.

Some weeks ago he authorized a three-line whip to endorse a back bench bill to recognize the State of Palestine. There will be wild applause from the unions, who put him in power and cries of ‘Result!’ from the left of his party and the cultural and media zealots – all of whom despise the democratic State of Israel.

Tonight a good deal of money will be raised for the Palestinian cause, which, experience tells us will go towards Hamas’s tunneling back into the heart of Israel, buying more armaments and keeping up the payments on Madam Arafat’s suites in a Paris Hotel.

It is doubtful that it will reach the people whom tonight’s fund-raisers care so much about.

Why are so much of Gaza and the West Bank in such pitiable conditions? Some years ago, my brother, a travel and tourism maven, remarked to Yasser Arafat that one afternoon of Saudi oil money would remove the problem of Palestinian refugee camps.

“But Mr. Lipman,” mused the wily old fox – who incidentally was born in Algeria — “Why would I want to remove the problem? Then I would have no issue to fight.”

If the Palestinians were forced out of their country, what were the borders of that country? Who was its president? What was its language, its currency?

When 850,000 Jews were kicked out of Egypt in 1956, and all their property, businesses and lands confiscated, did any demonstrations to repatriate them take place? Did the UN pass any resolution condemning them? Or did the Jewish people once again accept their loss and move on?

Very recently, Egypt razed 700 Palestinian houses to the ground and closed the borders to restrain Hamas. Where are the anti-Egyptian demonstrations? Can you point me in the direction of the comedians and movie stars who are irate because of that?

If a Palestinian state were recognized, would Jews be allowed to live and work there as Arabs are in Israel? Which, then, would be the Apartheid State? I have Israel on my passport, so I can’t even enter most Middle Eastern countries.

As I wrote in my Standpoint article, many people on the left and right would welcome a Palestinian State, me included.

However….

1) It is UN policy not to negotiate with terrorists. Hamas are still terrorists.

2) A state was offered to and refused by the Arab States in 1937, 1948, 2000 and 2008.

3) The Palestinians have yet to recognize Israel’s right to exist and still extol its destruction in their constitution.

4) It is impractical to recognize a state until its borders are decided – in other words, when negotiations on settlements are completed.

5) If you recognize a state you can then arm it.

Mr. Miliband, in pandering to the left of his party without thinking through these points has shown weakness and lack of forethought – at best – and stupid opportunism at worst. He is vote-seeking and the Jewish vote is one and a half percent only. Our funding is far less important than that of the unions – and the unions have already voted for the new state.

Mr Miliband will be joining the Jon Snow, Alexei Sayle, Miriam Margolyes, Annie Lennox, Penelope Cruz, Xavier Bardem, Roger Waters, Kauffman, Warsi, Tonge brigade – all of who bleed for the Palestinians and refuse to recognize the impossible position that Israel has been placed in for the last six decades… four thousand rockets raining in on a country, countless lives lost, a nation’s psyche altered forever.

Shame on you Ed.

He is a second-generation immigrant Jew, whose father escaped Nazi death camps, and inadvertently or not, he is pandering to the antisemitism masking as anti-Zionism, which is once again sweeping across Europe.

I doubt that Mr. Miliband will get his bacon sandwich at tonight’s ‘do’.

But I hope in time and with reflection, he gets his just desserts.

Maureen Diane Lipman, CBE (born 10 May 1946) is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.