In the runup to his coronation Andy Burnham made a semi-apology for Labour's stance on Gaza. "We have to do better".

Burnham's first act as Prime Minister in respect of Gaza has been to participate in the political lynching of the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Kham, who was brave enough to arraign Netanyahu and the then Israeli Defence Minister for war crimes in Gaza.

To dismiss Khan the States Members had to constitute themselves into a kangaroo court which set aside the finding of three independent judges in March that the evidence of sexual harassment brought against Khan was inadequate to justify a charge of misconduct. The UK was reportedly one of the 85 States (out of 125) which voted in a secret ballot to dismiss Khan. 

Champagne corks  were popping in Tel Aviv where Israeli officials openly boasted that they were behind this decision. Trump's Secretary Rubio had earlier vowed to dismantle the ICC "brick by brick" and had put ICC officials under sanctions  

Does Burnham regard siding with those favouring impunity for Israel's crimes in Gaza as "doing better"? Is mortally wounding an already stricken ICC and setting back the cause of international justice over two decades (the ICC was formed in 2002) "doing better"? Above all is betraying the Palestinians of Gaza still falling in their hundreds under Israeli bombs nine months into a one-sided ceasefire "doing better"?

This was Burnham's first test as a statesman and he showed his true colours, following the same cowardly hypocritical line on Israel as his predecessor, dragging along his pathetic new Foreign Secretary, Ed Miliband, in his wake on the path of infamy. 

We call on the Prime Minister to justify (if he thinks he can) his action in making Britain party to a shameful political lynching and betrayal of Gaza.

Peter Ford, Deputy Leader

Image: Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons