Friday 8 October 2010

Show us some values, Ed

A letter in The Guardian calls for the new leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband, to live up to his promise to base foreign policy on "values, not just alliances", by declining to become a patron of the Jewish National Fund, which raises money for the purchase of land for Jewish settlement in Israel and the Occupied Territories. The letter accuses the JNF of complicity in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from villages on the West Bank.

There are over 40 signatories to the letter, including Leon Rosselson, the singer-songwriter. Leon is a relative of mine, and his name caught my eye as I skimmed the page in this morning's paper. He has long written and sung of the injustices of the occupation, most movingly in The Song of the Olive Tree. Someone has recently put up this clip of Janet Russell singing it, and I would like everyone who reads the letter to listen - including Ed Miliband.

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