David Miliband

David Miliband (born 1965) was the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs until May 2010 and Labour Party MP for South Shields.

Miliband is the child of Holocaust survivors—and at least 80 members of his Jewish extended family perished. He is the son of Marxist ideologue Ralph Miliband (1924-1994), and is a staunch atheist.[1] An intellectual, he graduated from Oxford and MIT.

Miliband emphasized in late 2009 that Britain will continue its presence in Afghanistan and that the United States and Britain share common goals there. He agrees with the McChrystal report that the situation is serious, and that NATO needs a combined security/economic/political approach. He agrees that on the need to put the Afghans in the lead of security and of political reconciliation, noting it is essential that the Afghan government governs in a clean and not corrupt way because that is vital to retain the confidence of the Afghans as well as the inter-national community.

He wants the crisis regarding Iran and its nuclear program to be resolved with diplomacy. As for Palestine, Miliband promotes a 23-state solution (22 states of the Arab League, including Palestine, and Israel) in which a Palestinian state is developed according to 1967 borders plus or minus land swaps, with a fair settlement of refugees. In his view Jerusalem is the capital of both countries. In return, Israel gets the recognition that it craves and it deserves from the Arab world.[2]

Miliband is strongly supportive of the European Union as a global economic and military power, eventually incorporating Russia, the Middle East and North Africa.[3]

Miliband's younger brother Ed Miliband also served in Gordon Brown's cabinet, as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, making them the brothers to serve together in the British cabinet since World War II. After the defeat of the Labour government in the 2010 General Election, Gordon Brown resigned as leader of the Labour Party, and both David and Ed Miliband stood in the subsequent leadership election. Ed Miliband was the narrow winner; David Miliband subsequently announced his intention of withdrawing from front line politics for a spell.

## Further reading[edit]

* Michael Goldfarb, "David Miliband" Moment (Nov/Dec 2009) profile

## References[edit]

1. ↑ Telegraph profile of David Miliband
2. ↑ Lally Weymouth, "Iran Has a Very Clear Choice." Newsweek Oct 5, 2009
3. ↑ EU 'should expand beyond Europe' \- BBC News, November 15, 2007