There were parts of Miliband’s speech on banning settlement trade that were deeply troubling. For example, he declared that he was “unwavering in my support for the state of Israel”. But the International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, concluded in 2024 that Israel had imposed a system of apartheid rule over the Palestinian people for more than half a century. How can Britain claim to be taking the moral high ground, and carrying out a “reset” in relations, when it expresses “unwavering support” for an Israeli state engaged in apartheid? Miliband also stated: “Our argument is not with the people of Israel, with whom the UK has unshakeable bonds. Our argument is with the conduct of its government.” But how, if we continue to have “unshakeable bonds” with the people of Israel, do we pressure that society – one steeped in the Jewish supremacist ideology of Zionism – to stop electing governments, year after year, decade after decade, that seek the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their historic homeland? Poll after poll shows Israel’s Jewish population overwhelmingly against the creation of a Palestinian state – the explicit goal of Britain’s new sanctions policy – and in favour of the expulsion of Palestinians from all parts of their homeland. In the midst of the Gaza genocide, almost half of Israelis expressed support for killing the enclave’s entire population, including its children. How would apartheid in South Africa have been brought to an end if Britain and other western states had preferred to maintain “unshakeable bonds” with the white population, rather than impose boycotts and sanctions on the whole society? Miliband’s aim is to treat Israel as discrete from its settler militias and the more fanatical members of the current government – figures such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. But it is a distinction without a meaningful difference. It falsely regards the crude, open and relatively small-scale violence of settler terrorists as categorically more important than the controlled, covert, incremental and far larger-scale violence wielded against Palestinians by every government in Israel’s history. Culpability rests not with a few rogue elements in the settlements, but with the entirety of a society that has chosen apartheid, ethnic cleansing and finally genocide, as its “solutions” to silence the claim of the native Palestinian people to sovereignty over part of their historic homeland. This is an extract from my latest article Britain's settlement trade ban is cosmetic. For it to work, it must sanction Israel. Find a link to the rest in the reply post ⬇️

There’s been much-better-than-expected news on that in the first half of this year, with the UK having the fastest growing economy in the G7 and GDP per capita up too. That does not mean that everything is rosy. It means that lots has been done – and we’ve got a lot more to do.

We can do this!

My latest @newscientist cartoon

🚨We are in a new era, @andyburnham. For decades, western states have used the rule of law as a tool of foreign policy: applied to others, never to themselves or their allies. That era is over. Every politician, court and government that props up this selective order is now seen clearly, and remembered. That we saw it was a significant strand in the downfall of Starmer, and of a Labour Party that served Israel’s lobbyists more than it served the rule of law. You have a chance to do better. But only one. An apology is more than we have had before. But recognising Palestinian pain is not enough, and it is worth little if you can only see it through the prism of the pain of others, or qualified by antisemitism. Recognise the occupation. Recognise the genocide, the war crimes and the crimes against humanity perpetrated by Israel. Without qualification. Just once. Then apply the law equally: to you, to your colleagues, and to the allies who violate it. The only thing that makes an apology true is action. If action does not follow your words, they are meaningless, and we will not let you forget them. And you have little time, because this clock does not count in seconds, minutes or hours. It counts in the lives of Palestinian men, women and children lost to the criminal regime that is Israel every single day. Time ran out long ago.