Martin Jay
Trump's war in Iran has confirmed wholesale that Israel owns him and the U.S. taxpayer.
Is Britain's new prime minister about to stand up to the hugely powerful Israeli lobby ? A recent glimpse of his views about Israel and its genocide carried out in Gaza might have been a clue for things to come. The interview itself was carried out not with a journalist but with a sports celebrity whom most Brits associate with a brand of potato chips - which is indicative of how Andy Burnham is going to deal with media: in other words, ignore it altogether.
Burnham has at least done the impossible and steered the debate and the narrative away from Keir Starmer's all-out pro-Israel stance, and has at least started calling the war in Gaza what it really is - which is not a war at all but a genocide. His appointment as PM may well reduce the mad simmer of blind, dogmatic support for Israel and play into the hands of minority groups in the UK who feel politically lost over Downing Street's Middle East policies, which have seen U.S. bombers leave the country's military bases to bomb children in Gaza. Burnham's interview with Gary Lineker - his first interview - before formally taking office gives a clue to where he wants to take the Labour party before the country goes to the polls in three years' time.
Yet how long will it take before Israel's cash and influence get to him ? The real test of this new strategy is not the narrative but the endurance of it, especially given that there are so many Labour MPs around him who are on Israel's payroll - which recently, we presume, extended to even Reform officials who recently returned from an all-expenses-paid trip to Gaza, magically converted to Zionists spouting IDF talking points.
Money is everywhere now in UK politics, as the country has succumbed to the American system. The scandals piling up against Nigel Farage have shocked a nation, although in reality most people in the UK are still very naïve about cash in politics. Indeed, Farage's scandal is merely prompting a new debate as to even how much money is involved in luring conservative politicians to jump ship to Reform, with Liz Truss taking some media oxygen as many speculate that she's about to make the leap - when the numbers make sense.
But Britain is only doing what the U.S. is doing, on all levels, even when it comes to Israel. Recently, three primaries were lost to Democratic candidates in the U.S. who had strong anti-Israel views, shocking many in the U.S. who believed until now that Israel's cash always wins at the end of the day within the political system. In fact, over 100 Democrats recently voted in Congress to end Israel's $3.3 billion USD military aid which U.S. taxpayers hand over each year, while most Americans can't afford basic healthcare. Yet it's hard to see if this is a political initiative as such by the Dems or whether this is people power at the ballot. Many Americans are very troubled by the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, and it took the recent Iran war for many of them to even educate themselves as to the extent of the relationship and how far Israel went to manipulate Trump. The post-February 28th campaign that Trump got tricked into going ahead with at least served one purpose, in that it threw a spotlight on this subject like never before. But this came at such a high price, which is what many Americans are waking up to - especially given that Israel as a country is doomed by its history and cursed by its present leaders, and that it can only drag the U.S. down with it.
"Israel is a highly traumatized country. It exists in a sociopsychological bubble built around victimhood, relying on a government system dominated by the military," argue Dr Andreas Krieg recently. "In such a militarized society, there is no room for political strategy. It is a system built for perpetual war Military leaders are terrible rulers and terrible at strategic decision-making outside the battlefield. This is why Israel has never strategically won a war - because it is still fighting 80 years on."
And so any backlash from voters or renegade politicians on both sides of the Atlantic might be the beginning of a new way of thinking about Israel and the region, as Western leaders are realising that the closer they get to Israel, the more they suffer if not ultimately perish. The EU's plans to block settlers' land grabs in the West Bank is encouraging, but too little, too late to be taken seriously. The Norwegian national football team's donation of its collective salaries to a Palestinian charity got more media coverage, although FIFA seems to be an organisation breaking all records on corruption, so perhaps it sent mixed messages. Trump's war in Iran has confirmed wholesale that Israel owns him and the U.S. taxpayer, as Netanyahu's ruse paid off big time. What can stop the madness?