Labour has suspended Andy McDonald on Monday over the MP’s speech at a pro-Palestinian rally, saying his comments were “deeply offensive.”
In his speech on Saturday, the MP for Middlesbrough cited a Gaza resident, claiming the ongoing Israel-Hamas war is not about Hamas’ attack of Israel on Oct. 7, but “ethnically cleansing Palestinian people.”
The remark was labelled “unhinged” by Jewish Conservative MP Andrew Percy, and Tory MP Sir Simon Clarke said it’s time for Sir Keir Starmer to choose whether such views are “are acceptable in his party” as Labour MPs mounted a rebellion over the party leader’s stance on the war.
Labour said Mr. McDonald has been suspended pending an investigation.
“The comments made by Andy McDonald at the weekend were deeply offensive, particularly at a time of rising antisemitism which has left Jewish people fearful for their safety,” a spokesman for the party said.
“The chief whip has suspended the Labour whip from Andy McDonald, pending an investigation.”
‘Between the River and the Sea’
The MP also accused media outlets, which seized upon his use of “between the river and the sea,” of misrepresenting his words, saying they have “furthered baseless and extremely harmful accusations” against him.“In my speech on Saturday, I said the following: ‘Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty.’ The words should not be construed in any other way than they were intended, namely as a heartfelt plea for an end to the killings in Israel, Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, and for all peoples in the region to live in freedom without the threat of violence,” he wrote.
“Between the river and the sea” refers to the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, which was called Mandatory Palestine before the U.N. agreed on its partition to create an Arab state and a Jewish state in 1948.
The controversy around the words stemmed from a popular chant in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
McDonald: War Not About Hamas Attack
The Israel-Hamas war began after the Hamas terrorist group, which controls Gaza, launched missile and ground attacks against Israel on Oct.7, killing over 1,400, most of whom were civilians. Victims attacked on the ground, including children, were found to have been raped, decapitated, and burnt.In response, the Israeli government ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza, launched extensive airstrikes, and began ground assaults with a stated aim to wipe out Hamas.
The Israeli military has urged civilians in the Gaza city to evacuate, but it also claimed that Hamas has been actively stopping people from leaving.
Hamas-backed Gaza Health Ministry has claimed the death toll in Gaza passed 8,000, most of whom were women and children. In past conflicts, some Palestinian deaths in Gaza were attributed to Hamas rockets that fell short.
According to U.S. and the UK’s assessments, a recent bombing of an Arab hospital in Gaza, which led to the cancellation of a four-way summit which would have been attended by U.S. President Joe Biden, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, and Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, was likely the result of a missile attack from Gaza toward Israel.
In his speech on Saturday, Mr. McDonald accused Israel of “committing war crimes against Palestinians on an unprecedented scale” and called on “political leaders everywhere” to demand an “immediate comprehensively-binding ceasefire.”
The Labour MP claimed that it’s “simply not the case” that Israel’s actions are about retaliation against Hamas.
“I would like to read to you the powerful words of Abdallah Hasaneen, a resident of Rafa, the southern end of the Gaza Strip,” he said. “Abdallah said what’s happening here is not about Hamas at all. It’s about ethnically cleansing Palestinian people. It’s about 2.3 million Palestinian people. That’s why the first thing Israel did was to cut off the water and cut off the electricity and cut off the food.”
Palestine is not an ethnical group and a-fifth of Israel’s population are Arabs, but the displacement of Palestinian Arabs because of Jewish settlement has been described as “ethnically cleansing” by some scholars.
Tory MP: ‘Unhinged Ethnic Cleansing Rant’
Following Mr. McDonald’s speech on Saturday, Mr. Percy told the Express his remarks “denies Jews and those who died at the hands of savage terrorism the right to be victims and shows a complete ignorance of these events.”The Jewish MP hit out at what he called “unhinged ranting about ethnic cleansing” and Mr. McDonald’s use of the words “between the river and the sea, asserting that the phrase ”refers to a broader chant which is widely regarded as racist and meaning the destruction and removal of the state of Israel and all Jews.”
He went on to say the pro-Palestinian rallies held over the past three Saturdays were “not about peace,” but “marches for hate as evidenced by those shouting for jihad, for Muslim armies to take on Jews, shouts for an intifada and the numerous antisemitic signs on display.”
In a rally held on Oct. 21 by the revolutionary Islamist party Hizb ut-Tahrir, demonstrators chanted “jihad,” calling on “Muslim armies” to “liberate” Palestine.
Chants for an “intifada,” and Arab word for “uprising,” was heard on Saturday during a rally attended by an estimated 100,000 people.
Commenting on the marches on Monday, Ms. Braverman also labelled them “hate marches.”
