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Friday, 10 July 2026
'We must now do more': Andy Burnham apologises for Labour's response to Gaza
Burnham said UK should look at further sanctions on Israeli settlers, criticising Labour's approach to genocide in the enclave
Labour MP and challenger for leader of the Labour Party Andy Burnham, laughs as he delivers a speech in Manchester, northern England, on 29 June 2026 (Toby Shepheard/AFP)
Published date: 9 July 2026 19:29 BST | Last update:13 hours 40 mins ago
Andy Burnham has apologised for the Labour government’s response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, saying his party “didn’t get it right” and that it must now do more, signalling a potential change in the UK’s approach to Israel as he prepares to enter Downing Street.
“I know many people feel that at the start of Israel’s military action in Gaza, my party didn’t get it right, and I am sorry about that. The response has too often not been good enough. We need to do better,” Burnham said.
Burnham said the “unbearable suffering” in Gaza was a “scar on our collective conscience”. He also criticised Israel's ever-expanding occupation of territory in Gaza, adding, “We’ve got to do more to put pressure on the Israeli government.”
Burnham applauded Keir Starmer’s government for recognising Palestine, imposing sanctions on far-right Israeli ministers, and imposing a ban on “British bombs and or bullets” going to Israel.
“We have taken some important steps,” he said. “But let’s be honest, the UK was too slow to call for a ceasefire. And we must now do more to strengthen our approach.”
“Israel continues to violate the ceasefire agreement. We are seeing a surge in settler violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” he said. “Netanyahu’s government is clearly attempting to make a two-state solution impossible.”
Burnham vowed to look at further sanctions on Israeli settlers and banning trade with Israeli settlements.
Burnham’s statement will be closely watched, as he is expected to become the UK’s prime minister next month.
On war crimes
A former mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham returned to Parliament last month in a by-election in Makerfield. MPs are scheduled to assemble this month to nominate their next leader.
How Andy Burnham can win back the Muslim voters Labour has lost
Burnham was careful in his statement to condemn the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. He also condemned antisemitic attacks in the UK.
While his criticism of Israel marks a departure from Starmer’s language, it is unlikely to satisfy many pro-Palestinian voices in the UK and those upset with the UK’s close ties to Israel.
Burnham, for example, refused to weigh in on whether Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza. The United Nations and dozens of rights groups and human rights experts have recognised Israel's war on the enclave as genocide, where over 73,000 Palestinians have been killed.
“There is increasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed,” Burnham said, but added it was for “international courts, and not politicians, to decide".
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli minister of defence, in November 2024, for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Middle East Eye revealed in June 2025 that David Cameron, the former British foreign secretary, in April 2024 privately threatened Karim Khan, the British chief prosecutor at the ICC, to defund and withdraw from the ICC if it issued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.
Segal & others don’t want the reality of the genocide being reported because Israel’s brutality is now resulting in a significant decline in international public opinion, with many countries holding negative views of Israel.
There’s rightly much talk about Jillian Segal’s criticisms of the ABC & SBS & their coverage of the ‘conflict’ in the Middle East.
Segal told the inquiry that
“… the Jewish community had told her the nature and volume of the coverage of the Israel-Gaza war had contributed to "an impression of great negativity about Israel" (Phoebe Pin, ABC).
About the same time as Segal was complaining about the ‘one sided’ coverage, I was reading John Lyons’ memoir, Balcony Over Jerusalem (2017/2024).
In Chapter 12, “Coffee with the Israel Army 9 December 2011” Lyons recounts a story of being requested to meet with Captain Arye Shalicar of the IDF.
During the conversation, Shalicar said he wasn’t challenging the accuracy of an article Lyons had had published a week or so earlier in the Weekend Australian Magazine but rather that:
“…it’s been published outside of Israel…in Australia”.
Shalicar went on to explain that had the article about the way the IDF treated Palestinian children been published by an Israeli outlet, they would have read it in the context of their ongoing commitment to Israel.
But, Shalicar went on,
“’A story like this may damage the view that Australians have of Israel and they don’t have the commitment to Israel to go along with that.’
Lyons then says that this is not an unusual perspective in Israel:
“… they don’t mind if something is printed in Israel, but when it is published more widely they react badly” (185).
The concern with publishing outside of Israel seems to be about Israel “formalising the occupation into official annexation and achieving Greater Israel” (191).
To do this, “the Israeli public have had to convince themselves that ‘the world hates us anyway’ and would criticise anything Israel did. That is, the world is becoming increasingly anti-Semitic” (191).
John Lyons goes on:
“As long as the media is seen as biased, anti-Israel or anti-Semitic, then Israel is not at fault” (for the occupation).
Hence why Segal is at pains to say the ABC & SBC are biased in their reporting.
Lyons wasn’t being singled out; he knew from speaking with colleagues that “the Israeli Government, Army and lobby groups did not want the reality of the occupation reported” because Israel is losing “the battle for international public opinion.”
And I guess Segal & others don’t want the reality of the genocide being reported because Israel’s brutality is now resulting in a significant decline in international public opinion, with many countries holding negative views of Israel.
9 July 2026 12:43 BST | Last update:20 hours 28 mins ago
The Israeli leader is a fugitive from justice who has presided over a genocide for nearly three years. What are we waiting for?
Last week, a group ofBritishMPs despatched an open letter to Foreign Secretary Yvette Coopercallingfor sanctions on IsraeliPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The case is clear cut. For nearly three years, Netanyahu has presided over what most experts, including the United Nations, describe as a genocide in Gaza.
Netanyahu has also given licence to Israeli settler gangs to rampage across the occupied West Bank, in a terrifying campaign of ethnic cleansing.
The primary focus of the MPs’ letter, however, concerns none of the above. They concentrate on the horrifying treatment of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
The letter cites a February UN report, which found that “torture has become integral to the domination of and punishment inflicted on [Palestinian] men, women and children, both through custodial abuse and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation and the destruction of all means of life”.
Needless to say, the letter has been all but ignored in mainstream British media. That does not mean it is not pregnant with consequences.
Burnham's biggest incentive
We can expect dramatic changes in British policy towards Israel and Palestine with Andy Burnham, the presumed next prime minister, in 10 Downing Street.
There are many reasons why policy will change, and charge fast - but above all else, Burnham’s biggest incentive is naked self-preservation.
Remember this: Prime Minister Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street haunted by the possibility that his reputation will be destroyed forever if and when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) adjudicates that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
It turns the rule of law into a buffet, where we can pick and choose what rules to apply, according to our relationship with the delinquent state
It would be foolish and presumptuous to second-guess the decision of the court, but chances are that the ICJ will come down against Israel.
As I demonstrated in a previous article for Middle East Eye, the defence against genocide charges put up by Israel’s lawyers at the ICJ in January 2024 has already disintegrated.
If the court decision does go badly for Israel, it will also be a disaster for Israel’s close ally Britain - and in particular, for Starmer.
Crucially, the facilitation of genocide is an offence not just under international law, but also under British domestic law. Section 52 of the International Criminal Court Act 2001 prohibits conduct ancillary to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Under the Starmer premiership, Britain has sold arms to Israel, and supplied diplomatic protection and aerial surveillance. This military and diplomatic alliance explains why the Starmer government never once accused Israel of war crimes.
If the ICJ rules against Israel, lawyers will find it easy to construct a prima facie case that Starmer aided and abetted a genocide.
Burnham, in sharp contrast, enters office with clean hands. He has been innocently running Manchester and carries no responsibility for any of the foreign policy decisions of the outgoing Starmer administration.
He has political and personal reasons for wanting to keep it that way.
Starmer split the Labour Party, driving millions of traditional Labour voters into the arms of the Greens. Burnham must win some of them back if he is to have a chance of winning the next general election.
Changing Britain’s policy towards Israel will bring condemnation from Israel, its friends and allies, and the United States.
Crucially, however, there are no implications for the national budget. Most of the decisions Burnham faces in office involve agonising fiscal choices: spending more on defence, for example, means less money for welfare.
The Treasury won’t blink if he shifts the dial on Israel.
If he is wise, Burnham will order an urgent review of British security and military cooperation with Israel, in light of the fact that so many legal experts today maintain that Israel is committing genocide.
Burnham will also be well-advised to consider sanctioning Netanyahu. It is actually puzzling that this has not happened earlier.
As last week’s letter to the foreign secretary points out, “the government has yet to sanction members of the Israeli government for the systematic torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees, including children”.
The letter goes on to note that Netanyahu, as the prime minister of Israel, is ultimately responsible for these grave crimes.
Mockery of justice
Thus far, however, the only Israeli ministers sanctioned by Britain are Netanyahu’s subordinates, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Is it not strange that the inferiors are sanctioned, but not the superior? Would it have made sense to sanction Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ministers, but not Putin himself, after the invasion of Ukraine?
Why Israel's defence in ICJ genocide case has disintegrated
It is this inconsistency which makes the Starmer government’s approach to sanctions hard to understand.
Remember that Netanyahu has had an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant out for his arrest since November 2024. Britain is a party to the Rome Statute and formally recognises the ICC’s jurisdiction.
All 125 states that are parties to the Rome Statute are required by law to arrest and transfer to the ICC any suspect who sets foot in their countries, and to cooperate fully with the court.
Yet after almost two years of Netanyahu being an international fugitive from justice, Britain has refused to punish him with sanctions - even though our government had no trouble sanctioning Putin and his foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, within days of the invasion of Ukraine.
This is a mockery of justice. It turns the rule of law into a buffet, where we can pick and choose what rules to apply, according to our relationship with the delinquent state.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Peter Oborne's new book, Complicit: Britain's Role in the Destruction of Gaza, was recently published by Or Books. Oborne won best commentary/blogging in both 2022 and 2017, and was also named freelancer of the year in 2016 at the Drum Online Media Awards for articles he wrote for Middle East Eye. He was also named as British Press Awards Columnist of the Year in 2013. He resigned as chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph in 2015. His latest book is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong about Islam, published in May by Simon & Schuster. His previous books include The Triumph of the Political Class, The Rise of Political Lying, Why the West is Wrong about Nuclear Iran and The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism.
Published date: 9 July 2026 12:20 BST | Last update:21 hours 59 mins ago
Yair Netanyahu, the son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has changed his name to Yonatan Hon, Haaretz reported on Wednesday.
The Israeli newspaper said tax-withholding approvals issued in December 2024 carried his previous name, Yair Netanyahu.
This year, the same identifying details appeared under the new name, including a fictional address listed as "Balfour 0".
Yair Netanyahu has used a similar surname before. On social media, he previously identified himself as "Yair Hoon". Hoon was the original surname of his mother Sara’s father, Shmuel, before the family changed it to Ben Artzi.
The reported name change comes as the Netanyahu family name faces growing political and legal complications, internationally and in the United States.
Benjamin Netanyahu has become an increasingly toxic figure in US politics, while the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against him over war crimes and crimes against humanity following the genoicde in Gaza.
Yair has faced scrutiny over his business links in the US and past controversies tied to the family’s relationship with wealthy figures.
In 2018, Israeli television broadcast a recording in which Yair appeared to boast outside a strip club that his father had helped advance a multibillion-dollar gas deal benefiting a tycoon.
Yair has since had links to various businesses in the US, including on the far-right.
This is not the first time members of the Netanyahu family have changed their surname.
Yair's brother, Avner, changed his name about five years ago to Avi Segal, Haaretz reported. Under that name, he bought an apartment in Oxford, England, for £502,000 ($672,000) in cash, according to Israeli newspapers, in a bid to avoid scrutiny and attention.
Segal was the original surname of Tzila, Benjamin Netanyahu’s mother and the grandmother of Yair and Avner, before she married Benzion Netanyahu, the family patriarch.
Nephew of PA vice president arrested over Gaza smuggling with Israeli soldiers
Benjamin Netanyahu also used a different name while living in the United States in the 1980s – Ben Nitai – saying later that he had considered settling in America.
The practice stretches back further. Netanyahu’s father, Benzion Mileikowsky, changed his name to Benzion Netanyahu after moving from Poland to help in the colonisations of historic Palestine by the Zionist movement during the British colonial mandate in the 1920s.
That reflected a wider Zionist practice of taking on Hebrew names instead of European ones, as the settlers sought to recast themselves as indigenous to the land they were colonising.
Several Israeli leaders followed the same trend. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, was born David Gruen in Poland. Moshe Sharett was born Moshe Shertok in Russia. Levi Eshkol was born Levi Yitzhak Shkolnik in Russia. Golda Meir was born Golda Mabovitch in Ukraine.
Yitzhak Shamir was born Yitzhak Yezernitsky in Russia, Shimon Peres was born Szymon Perski in Poland, Ehud Barak was born Ehud Brog in Mandatory Palestine, and Ariel Sharon was born Arik Scheinermann in Mandatory Palestine.
8 July 2026 13:25 BST | Last update:1 day 17 hours ago
Israel and its allies in the western media have no business trying to stoke divisions at this time of national mourning
A mourner holds a flower and a portrait of Iran’s slain supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of his funeral ceremonies in Tehran on 4 July 2026 (Atta Kenare/AFP)
As a real-time Persian passion play unfolds across Iraq and Iran for the funeral ceremonies of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one question remains paramount: what gives a European settler colony the audacity, the vulgarity, the vicious gall to fly over a sovereign nation’s territory and murder its supreme leader?
Khamenei was a head of a state, and the spiritual leader of millions of Shia Muslims. But amid their vicious occupation of Palestine, the Israelis appear willing to target any head of state; any figure they deem hostile to their settler colony. What’s stopping them from going after future leaders of France, Germany, the UK or even the US?
Where is the outrage? The New York Times covered the murder of Khamenei as if reporting the weather. In fact, when there is inclement weather in the US - too hot or too cold - the country’s media uses larger and scarier fonts than those used to report on Khamenei’s assassination.
There was no outrage, no opposing-side equivalent to Bret Stephens or Thomas Friedman, going on a tirade about the murderous Israelis. Why?
Khamenei was the patriarch of a people, a figure whose biography was written long before he died by Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his masterpiece The Autumn of the Patriarch (1975), or later by the great Iranian novelist Mahmoud Dowlatabadi in The Colonel.
He was the supreme leader of a system of governance modelled on an ancient monarchy that predates Islam and Shiism. It is for the people whom he ruled to decide what to think of him.
Death of a patriarch
However history may ultimately judge Khamenei, he was the leader that a political culture, a nation, a country, a homeland - for better or for worse - had placed at the head of a state that emerged from a massive social revolution.
To this day, there are millions of people who loved and cherished him like a saint. No doubt, there are millions of others who considered him a tyrant. This issue was, and remains, for Iranians themselves to decide and determine.
It has nothing to do with the rulers of Israel - a murderous gang of psychopathic Zionists still engaged in a genocide in occupied Palestine, alongside barefaced land theft in Lebanon and Syria.
All political leaders have their supporters and their detractors. Neither Trump, nor any head of state anywhere in the world, is unanimously loved or hated. Does that authorise Israeli war criminals to assassinate them?
Will this disgusting, racist thuggery ever end when it comes to reporting on the public grief of other nations?
Khamenei was definitive to an ancient political culture. He should have died the dignified death of a patriarch on the fertile soil of his homeland, whether he was loved or hated by his own people.
Yet after Israel crossed the border to kill Khamenei and his family members, including his 14-month-old granddaughter, the New York Times displayed more concern about a controversial World Cup match between Belgium and the US.
As Khamenei’s funeral preparations were underway in Iran and Iraq, another Zionist stooge, commentator Laura Loomer, called for Israel to attack the mourners, who turned out in their millions.
Those who continue to blindly back Israel have lost the plot. Their hubris prevents them from seeing how the whole world, and Americans in particular, detest them.
Americans were burning Israeli flags during Fourth of July celebrations this year, demanding their country’s independence from the European settler colony. Even some corrupt American politicians appear to have finally gotten the message, and have started running away from Aipac money to save any shred of decency that might still be left in them.
Creative counting
This brings us to the utterly inane reporting of the New York Times from Tehran, which appears to have had only one purpose: to downplay the crowd and divide Iranians between those who “exalted” Khamenei and those who “despised” him - entirely oblivious to the impacts of the the Israeli-instigated military onslaught, and what it has done to Iranians’ perceptions of their own government.
The newspaper began its creative counting by assuring readers that only “tens of thousands” of mourners had gathered. Apparently realising this was ridiculous, with the world fully aware of the millions gathering, they quickly updated it to hundreds of thousands. They are shameless charlatans.
Khamenei was not despised. He was severely criticised, as all heads of state are. But this was before the most despised settler colony on this planet, Israel, instigated a war on the Iranian people, slaughtering scores of innocent children, destroying national infrastructure, and triggering Trump to threaten to annihilate Iranian civilisation. These events changed everything.
Then came this piece of jewellery: "The public mourning ceremonies have been highly choreographed and tightly controlled by the government.” Of course they have been; all state funerals are, whether for former US presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, or the Pope. Was the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II entirely spontaneous, or was that, too, “tightly controlled” by police and security services?
Will this disgusting, racist thuggery ever end when it comes to reporting on the public grief of other nations?
The New York Times, along with other western media outlets that have produced similar atrocious coverage, appears set on denigrating and diminishing those who are coming out to mourn Khamenei. The subtext is clear: the slain supreme leader was a tyrant who deserved to be killed, and the Israelis did the world - and especially the Iranian people - a favour by murdering him.
Mythic moment
What the New York Times and its ilk failed to see unfolding in front of their eyes at the funeral ceremonies for Khamenei was the mythic moment of a nation and a culture dissolving their shared destiny into a collective consciousness.
This is a classic case of the Persian passion play, known as Ta’ziyeh, whose origins go back to the rituals of mourning for Siavash in the Shahnameh. It was performed on a massive transnational stage, not just in Iran and Iraq, but for millions of Shia watching around the globe. The importance of the event has been lost on those who limit their knowledge to the wretched propaganda pages of the New York Times.
More than 25 years ago, my late colleague, the eminent Polish scholar Peter Chelkowski, and I published a book titledStaging a Revolution, documenting the unfolding of the Shia drama during the Iranian revolution in the late 1970s. What the world has witnessed this month during Khamenei’s funeral is on a vast scale of similar proportions.
How the New York Times paved the way for apocalyptic war
Consider the magnitude of the event: a six-day funeral procession that was set to move through Tehran and Qom in Iran, before travelling to Najaf and Karbala in Iraq, and then returning to Iran for burial in Mashhad, with millions of mourners paying their respects.
The New York Times leads American and European media in dividing Iranians into “religious” (regime supporters) and “secular” (opponents), in an apparent attempt to justify Israel’s murderous attack. But this binary does not work, and has never worked, in Iran.
Evidence of this can be found in a filmed conversation with a learned Shia religious leader, who reminisces about an encounter with the late scholar Muhammad Husayn Tabatabai, one of the most learned Shia philosophers of the 20th century and the author of the monumental Quranic commentary al-Mizan.
Here we learn how Tabatabai, while listening to a poem by Iraj Mirza about Imam Husayn and his martyrdom in Karbala, was sobbing inconsolably, and then confessed to his friends - to their utter astonishment - that he would happily give his entire Quranic commentary to Mirza in exchange for just this one poem.
His friends were baffled, as Mirza is notorious for his obscene satirical poetry. Tabatabai gently responded: “Yes, I know; I have his collected works right here in my library, but still.”
The rich, powerful, living and unfolding Iranian and Islamic cultures - from poetry to philosophy, from ancient Iran to the vast tapestry of Islamic intellectual history - are terra incognita for much of the western media, who do not read these works, let alone attempt to explain them to their audiences.
Paying respects
Was Khamenei a hero or a villain, a benevolent saint or a brutish tyrant? First and foremost, this is for Iranians inside their own homeland to decide. It is for Iranian historians, social scientists and critical thinkers to ponder and debate in the years ahead.
The nauseating Israeli officials, and their bought-and-paid-for representatives within the western media sphere who are attempting to turn our daily newsfeeds into sewers of hate, are in no position to do so.
Whatever he was, Khamenei has now rushed to meet his creator to be rewarded for whatever good he did, and punished for any evils he might have committed
Years ago, during a trip to Cairo, I paid my respects at the last resting place of the late shah of Iran. I am no monarchist, and he terrorised my childhood and youth when he ruled my homeland. But I owed his remains in Cairo’s majestic al-Rifai Mosque my dutiful respect.
I prayed for his soul, in my own way, by reciting a famous poem by the 11th-century poet Nasir Khusraw, which we had all learned in high school:
Jesus once saw a murdered man on the road, He was bewildered and asked: Who did you kill so you were killed so in ignominy? Wait till we see who will kill he who killed you! Don’t bother people by banging on their doors with your fingers, So no one would bang at your door with a fist!
Today, I think of Khamenei’s passing in a similar way, only this time with a short yet crucial passage from the Holy Quran.
Whatever he was, Khamenei has now rushed to meet his creator to be rewarded for whatever good he did, and punished for any evils he might have committed, as noted in Az-Zalzalah 99:7-8:
So whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, And whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he teaches Comparative Literature, World Cinema, and Postcolonial Theory. His latest books include: After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization (2025); Iran in Revolt: Revolutionary Aspirations in a Post-Democratic World (2025); The Persian Prince: The Rise and Resurrection of an Imperial Archetype (2023); The Future of Two Illusions: Islam after the West (2022); Reversing the Colonial Gaze: Persian Travelers Abroad (2020). His books and essays have been translated into many languages.
