Press TV: Miliband losing pro-Israel donations over Palestine position

http://www.presstv.ir/

The Labour is facing a new challenge, as pro-Israel supporters are increasingly stopping donations to the party.

The Labour’s financial backers say they do not want party leader Ed Miliband in Downing Street. They have described Miliband’s position on Gaza and Palestine as ‘toxic’.

The tension began a few months ago, when Miliband slammed Israel's latest ground incursion into the Gaza Strip which led to the deaths of hundreds of civilians, many for them women and children. Miliband had described the Israeli offensive as ‘wrong and unjustifiable’. He also warned Tel Aviv that it was ‘losing friends in the international community day by day’.

Later, Miliband further enraged Israelis by supporting a vote on the recognition of Palestine in the House of Parliament. The MPs voted by a huge margin of 274-12 in favor of the motion on October 13.

The Labour has been receiving hundreds of thousands of pounds a year in donations from the pro-Israeli lobbies community.

“It is very clear that Ed Miliband and all other Labour party leaders have been heavily supported by the Jewish lobby, Jewish donors in the UK for around 2 decades,” said author and political activist Gilad Atzmon in an interview with Press TV.

Atzmon believes that Miliband’s pro-Palestinian attitude is ‘hardly possible to be taken seriously’.
Some Labour officials argue that the Jewish anger poses a huge challenge complicating the party’s fundraising efforts, making the leaders pass the begging bowl.

“The role of the Jewish donors is very clear: once you receive money from a Jewish donor as it happens in Britain, you have to provide, you become an Israeli hostage, you engage in pro-Zionist wars, the war in Iraq was one example,” Atzmon concluded in his interview with Press TV.

NZR/NZR