Israel lobby groups demand Burnham roll back Gaza comments

Israel lobby groups wasted no time in demanding Andy Burnham pull back from even his watery comments on Israel’s crimes in Gaza.

Burnham refused last week to call the genocide a genocide. Instead, he said Labour “didn’t get right” its response. That would be Keir Starmer endorsing Israel’s crimes against humanity by cutting off fuel and water to the besieged open-air concentration camp. And ordering the RAF to provide active support for the slaughter of Palestinians — and almost certainly UK aid workers.

And Burnham dared to suggest — after almost three years of slaughter, starvation, targeting of children, hospitals, schools, journalists, rescue and aid workers — that “war crimes appear to have been committed”. Not ‘were’, just appear.

But even that milksop nod toward the vague idea of condemnation was too much for the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ (BOD) and the self-appointed ‘Jewish Leadership Council’ (JLC). The BOD says it exists to promote Israel. The JLC is an umbrella group of pro-Israel pressure groups. Together, they have publicly insisted Burnham’s comments went too far and demanded Burnham has been too “one-sided” in his comments on the “situation” in Gaza.

The Board of Deputies and @JLC_uk have conveyed concerns to Andy Burnham’s team following his statement yesterday.

We welcome his commitment to tackling antisemitism, but it cannot be confronted without addressing all its drivers, including extreme hatred of Israel that builds… pic.twitter.com/lYwjq9xdrB

— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) July 10, 2026

Israel lobby groups, straying into antisemitism

The statement strays into antisemitic territory. It treats peaceful “far-left” opponents of genocide as equivalent to far-right hate groups and equates Israel with Jewish people. And, unsurprisingly, it echoes occupation propaganda, blaming Israel’s actions on Palestinian resistance and refusal to simply roll over for Israel.

It accuses Hamas — classified as terrorists by the UK government — of “war-fighting entirely from within the civilian population”, as if there’s anywhere else to fight in a besieged open-air concentration camp. And it ignores the fact that Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians go back decades before Hamas even existed. Not to mention — which of course it doesn’t — the long-known fact that hundreds of Israelis were killed by their own military under the ‘Hannibal directive’:

We have been in touch with Andy Burnham’s team to convey directly our significant concerns in relation to his remarks yesterday.

We welcome his zero tolerance approach to antisemitism, affirm his assertion that there is no contradiction between fighting antisemitism and disagreeing with actions of the Israeli government, and share concern for the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

However, antisemitism cannot be confronted without addressing all its drivers. In today’s Britain, this includes Islamist, far left and far right extremists who go beyond criticism of the Israeli government to a place of hatred directed at Jews and Israelis. These voices build on distorted or one-sided portrayals of the situation in Gaza and its causes, and ceaseless attempts to single out the world’s only Jewish state.

The crimes of Hamas did not begin or end with the horrific attack of 7 October. The awful situation in the Gaza Strip and the suffering of innocent Palestinians cannot be understood without reference to the role of Hamas not only in launching the conflict but in perpetuating the war through the holding of hostages, war-fighting entirely from within the civilian population, and ongoing refusal to cede power and disarm, in line with the 20 point peace plan. Nor can the situation be understood without reference to the role of Hamas’s regional backers and allies, including Iran and Hezbollah.

It then goes on to dangle the implication that the left had anything to do with an attack on a synagogue in Manchester. It leaves out that the attacker was from a pro-Israel family and that the two people shot at the synagogue were hit by Greater Manchester Police firearms officers:

As Mayor of Greater Manchester during the Heaton Park attack, Andy Burnham knows first hand the links between hatred of Israel, antisemitic extremism and deadly violence against British Jews. We look forward to the opportunity to discuss these concerns directly with Andy Burnham and his team in the near future.

In a country in which antisemitism has become more normalised, more extreme and more violent, we call on our leaders to show the utmost care in their rhetoric in relation to the conflict.The Board of Deputies of British Jews & The Jewish Leadership Council

Burnham has so far shown no sign at all of intending a serious break with Starmer’s slavish political and military support for Israel. He is surrounding himself with the same pro-Israel horrors who handled Starmer and Blair, and has signalled he will take Starmer’s ‘censor for Israel’ even further.

His comments on Gaza smell like an attempt to cosplay concern just enough to fool the anti-genocide movement — which is led by British Jews — while dishing up ‘more of the Starmeroid same’. But even that feeble gesture is too much for the UK Israel lobby.

Featured image via the Canary