The British Labour Party’s Andrew Burnham, who is about to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom without a contest, has offered his thoughts on the Gaza conflict, and they don’t make for welcome reading. In a transparent attempt to win back Labour voters who have defected to the more left-wing Green Party, Burnham apologized for his party’s response to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. But it was no simple apology. It was laced with anti-Israel invective that would warm the hearts of any Hamas official.

Naturally, Burnham’s statement began with a ritual condemnation of the Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel on Oct. 7. 2023, as well as the antisemitism that followed it. But such platitudes mean little when they merely preface a lengthy diatribe condemning Israel, especially one that alludes to the very tropes and lies that contribute to Britain’s antisemitism problem.

Burnham said Labour was “too slow to call for a ceasefire.” But this is nonsense. In fact, both the Labour opposition and the Conservative government called for a “sustainable ceasefire” on Dec. 19, 2023, a mere two-and-a-half months after the Hamas pogrom. That call included a demand for the release of Israeli hostages, though it said nothing about the need to disarm Hamas and remove the terror entity from Gaza, which are preconditions for any viable security arrangement.

Moreover, a ceasefire at that point would have created momentum for an end to the war, leaving genocidal Islamists in charge of Gaza, as they still are in almost half of the coastal enclave. Does Burnham really think that would have been a recipe for Israeli security?

Burnham said he was “absolutely appalled” by the “destruction of Gaza,” which he called a “scar on our collective conscience,” and that there must be “accountability for the depth of the suffering the people of Gaza have experienced.”

He may be “appalled” by the destruction of Gaza, but a brutal and unrelenting urban war was unlikely to have any other consequence. Here, he has simply fallen in line with simplistic, outcome-driven analyses that point to Israeli culpability alone. He could have done with listening to Henry Jackson Society researcher Maj. Andrew Fox, a highly experienced combat soldier who has been to Gaza several times over the last two years.

Fox has written about how Hamas “rigged every element of the civilian infrastructure of Gaza, reverse engineering the rules of war, to create a dense, 360-degree urban battlefield unprecedented in military history.” That meant using hospitals, schools and mosques as part of its military architecture, connecting residential properties to its tunnel system and converting protected areas into a battle zone.

So, why does Burnham think Israel is responsible for the destruction of Gaza when it was clearly Hamas? One of Hamas’s greatest post-Oct. 7 tricks was to persuade the world that its responsibility for Gaza ended after that fateful day. Burnham has fallen for it.

Undoubtedly, Palestinian suffering since Oct. 7 has been real, tragic and harrowing. It is also true that there must be accountability for any Israeli misdeeds with full and transparent investigations into allegations of misconduct or criminality.

By ignoring the role that Hamas tactics played in Palestinian suffering—particularly, by refusing to surrender or give up hostages, which only prolonged the war; by building terrorist infrastructure in residential environments; and by preventing civilians from leaving combat zones—Burnham effectively whitewashed the terror group.

He gave a free pass to a monstrous group of tyrants who banished all Palestinian citizens from using their extensive tunnel system during the war, thus condemning thousands to an early death. Worse, Burnham failed to speak about the ongoing suffering of Palestinians caused by their Islamist overlords.

Burnham never asks himself the blindingly obvious question: How else was Israel supposed to accomplish its justified military objectives, namely uprooting Hamas, destroying Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure and freeing the hostages? Naturally, he will have no answer because, like so many in his party, he thinks that any Israeli military response was unjustified.

The soon-to-be prime minister said he wants a more balanced approach to the Middle East. He made it clear, however, that this involves punishing Israel alone with “further sanctions,” banning trade with “illegal settlements” and doubtless implementing more restrictions on arms deals. But we all know that none of this will change a thing in the Middle East and will be as pointless and gestural as the recognition of a non-existent Palestinian state.

A sensible policy must engage with Israeli security concerns, because it was Israel’s security that was so profoundly violated on Oct. 7. It must demand the implementation of the Trump peace plan, which requires the disarmament of Hamas, the removal of its supporters from Gaza, the deradicalization of Palestinian society and major reforms to the Palestinian Authority.

Such changes will trigger the removal of Israeli forces from the enclave, allow for much-needed reconstruction and provide a path towards a long-term political settlement in the region. While Hamas has conceded that it will transfer control of Gaza to a technocratic committee, it has remained silent on surrendering its weapons. That is a recipe for future war, and Burnham ought to acknowledge this.

Therein lies the problem. Burnham and the Labour Party insist on infantilizing the Palestinians and treating them as pawns in a morality play.

Instead, they should treat them as people with agency and moral choice. They are a people who have embraced political maximalism and rejected compromise. They have chosen war and terrorism, rather than peace-building and moderation. They have rejected the very two-state solution that the West demands of Israel. The Palestinians must be told that Western governments will abandon their cause unless they embrace real political change.

That requires a nuanced and multifaceted approach that breaks with the tendency to depict Israel as the embodiment of evil. It requires statesmanship rather than pandering to the whims of a domestic audience.

If Burnham carries on like this, alienating the Jewish state and emboldening Hamas, he will only further demonstrate the pitiful insignificance of the United Kingdom on the world stage. Worse, by offering a narrative that dehumanizes Israelis, he will only add to the climate of hatred against British Jews, making a mockery of his professed concerns about antisemitism.