Doublespeak is when a political leader says one thing while meaning and doing the other. This is the text of UK’s Prime Minister Burnham’s speech at the UNGA. Apparently, the UK will “not stand by as the horrific suffering [of the Palestinians continues to grow”. He can’t of course bring himself to say “as Israel continues to inflict horrific suffering on the Palestinians”. The suffering is just something which happens to them. He talked up the UK’s plan to block imports of goods produced in West Bank settlements. This is their ticket to claim they have a moral foreign policy. In reality, it continues the existing policy in relation to Israel, which is to sanction, (in the sense of allow), everything, while creating just enough distance to have a “legally defensible position” in relation to their own exposure to any risk of war crimes charges.
The harassment and ethnic cleansing which takes place in the West Bank is organised policy of the apartheid state, as it has been since the day the Oslo Accords were signed. The Israelis have long used announcements of new, illegal, settlements to scupper any hope of a two state solution. Settlers have always enjoyed immunity from prosecution as they beat Palestinians, steal their livestock, destroy their crops, burn their houses, and, for that matter, shoot them. The IDF has not suddenly taken their side; the IDF has never been some kind of neutral force, keeping the peace. The IDF shoots Palestinian children dead, often for throwing rocks at armoured vehicles, in the West Bank at the rate of one a week. The Israeli apartheid system keeps hundreds of children in arbitrary detention, for months on end. Definite crimes against humanity.
Sanctioning settlements and a few settlers for what is the organized policy of the Israeli state, (and one they hardly hide; government Ministers openly boast about how their policies mean the two state solution will never happen), is like sanctioning some excessively active Nazi party irregulars while continuing to do business with Hitler and Goebbels.
This is a report by Israeli NGO Bt’selem into what they call the genocide in Gaza, and the risk it could now be used in the West Bank. [1] This is a report into what they call Israel’s “elimination project” in the West Bank. [2]
Russia’s “repulsive” interference in UK elections
In his speech Burnham describes alleged Russian interference in UK politics as “repulsive”. He seems to claim, albeit indirectly, that Russian “agencies” spread “misinformation” following the Southport murders. This relates to an event in July 2024 when the socially dysfunctional son of a Rwandan asylum seeker, himself widely reported in the media to have had affiliations to an armed group, killed several children at a dance class. The UK authorities did everything they could to bury the immigration connection for as long as they could, with the official media endlessly repeating that the suspect was “British born”. I don’t read RT, but I am familiar with their editorial policy and I have no doubt they would have been emphasising the immigration angle.
The idea that anyone would try to use such things to their advantage is just repulsive – but it is what they do.
The thing is, we, or at least our allies, do exactly the same. During the COVID pandemic CIA/State Department Radio Free Europe was trying to leverage that to sow discord in Russia. [3] I can’t think of any specific examples but MI6 certainly runs media operations. In denouncing as “repulsive” what our side also does Burnham just makes an idiot of himself. He betrays, what we all know – modern UK politicians are simply out of their depth. They have no understanding of what is going on. They seem to think they are making policy and “setting out their position” in “keynote speeches”, while, in reality all they are doing is producing sound bites for media propaganda narratives prepared elsewhere.
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