Andy Burnham's Dangerous Rhetoric. Playing politics with Gaza - Politeia
Prime-Minister-in Waiting-Andy-Burnham is aiming to please his MPs and potential electors by adopting a more pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rhetoric. In a Britain where anti-semitism is becoming normalised, particularly in the universities his gesture puts party above country.
Prime-Minister-in Waiting-Andy-Burnham is aiming to please his MPs and potential electors by adopting a more pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rhetoric. In a Britain where anti-semitism is becoming normalised, particularly in the universities, explainsJohn Marenbon,his gesture puts party above country. On Thursday, Andy Burnham moved another step towards becoming Prime Minister, when he was nominated by enough MPs to ensure his victory if there were a contest. That day he spoke about a subject he had dodged when campaigning for Makerfield. At that time, when asked whether there had been genocide in Gaza, he claimed he could not ‘judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester. ’ On Thursday, however, he declared that ‘Labour’s initial response to the treatment of Gaza caused huge hurt. We got it wrong and I am sorry for that. ’ He added that ‘the UK was too slow to call for a ceasefire and we must now do more to strengthen our approach’ and there was ‘increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed. ’The wording shows where the prime-minister-in-waiting’s concerns lie. Labour’s response to Gaza ‘caused great hurt’. To whom? Burnham is not thinking of the Palestinians, but of Labour MPs and councillors, and the thousands of left-wing voters who deserted Labour for the Greens or for bespoke Islamic parties, because Starmer was not hostile enough to Israel. Burnham’s comments aim to unite and increase support for the Labour Party. But at what cost?Burnham might be excused for thinking that the cost will be minimal. His statement projects him as hostile to Israel, in the way Labour sentiment requires. But it dwells on the past, without signalling any change in present policy or committing him to do anything. He apologizes for Labour’s stance at the outset, implicitly signalling his own virtue, because already in October 2023, along with Sadiq Khan and Anas Sarwar (the Labour leader in Scotland), he broke with Starmer by calling for an immediate ceasefire. Burnham praises Labour’s more recent pro-Palestinian moves, such as the formal recognition of the Palestinian state. Yet, having sent the signal, he avoided accusing Israel of genocide – his allusion to war-crimes was framed in the cautious terms of ‘evidence’ and ‘appearance’. Whether he is out of depth on foreign policy, or recognizes that the UK has no significant way of influencing what actually happens in the Middle East, is not clear. But on this, most divisive area of domestic policy, Burnham has miscalculated. Hints and suggestions, the appearance of a position rather than its reality, are what matter. They fuel Britain’s new antisemitism. Jewish organizations are right to be alarmed. They warn that ‘antisemitism has become more normalised, more extreme and more violent’ and urge political leaders ‘to show the utmost care in their rhetoric in relation to the conflict. ’ Not only are they right, but they should be more uncompromising. Whatever disagreements with the policies of this or any other Israeli administration a British government might have, whatever concern for suffering in Gaza, support for the state of Israel and its right to exist should remain fundamental and must be maintained by the incoming government. And the proscription of Hamas as a terrorist organisation, which aims to establish an Islamic state under Sharia law and the destruction of Israel, must stay in place. Jews the world over have a relationship with Israel unparallelled by that between any other group of people and any other country. They were a persecuted people for nearly two millennia, regularly expelled from one country to another. Hitler went further to engage in genuine genocide – aiming not to displace a whole people, but to eradicate it entirely. The state of Israel remains, for every Jew, the ultimate guarantee against persecution and homelessness. Though there is nothing antisemitic about disagreeing with Israeli policy, to question Israel’s very existenceisantisemitic. That is what the instigators of the conflict in Gaza do. Hamas’s founding charter completely rejects the existence of Israel and calls for ajihadto return it to Islamic rule. This attitude has been taken over by the Palestinians’ supporters in Britain. When crowds march through London chanting ‘from the river to the sea’, they are supporting the same goal – a Palestinian state entirely replacing Israel. It is not, however, in the streets, among the Palestine flag waving demonstrators, that the new British antisemitism is most clearly manifest, but in the lecture theatres and common rooms of universities. Many academics in the humanities and social sciences, for whom a political crusade against forms of oppression such as colonialism is a priority, see the very existence of Israel as colonialist. This view of history has made antisemitism particularly widespread among students. It plays both to the widespread horror at the death and injury of children and others in Gaza , but also to the fraternal feelings of British Muslims, well-represented in the undergraduate body, to their Palestinian brothers and sisters. Burnham – despite his carefully qualified comments, despite his explicit disavowals – is in danger, if not of endorsing this new British antisemitism, then of allowing it to flourish in his Labour Party. That, Sir Keir Starmer, for all his failings, would not tolerate. As a politician who seeks to please, Burnham may find that pleasing the Islamic tendency in his party and electorate comes with a high price. It is not just British Jews who will pay it, but also this country as a whole: the once stable, tolerant polity in which, until recently, they have flourished.