When Will It Stop?
British complicity with the apartheid regime of Israel has long been an intentional multifaceted cooperation via military, political, economic and media apparatus. In a letter from the then foreign secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild in 1917, the UK began supporting a movement that aimed to dispossess Palestinians. This project was enforced from 1920 under the British mandate, laying groundwork for the ethnic cleansing of nearly a million Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba.
The UK has many enduring military ties to the state of Israel. Just last week the ministry of defence admitted to currently training IDF soldiers on UK soil. British sovereign bases are also used to forward weapons and intelligence to Israel. In September last year the conservative government suspended 30 out of 360 arms licenses to Israel - despite the government admitting there is a clear risk of international law being violated - they specifically exempted parts UK firms produce that make up 15% of the infamous F-35 fighter jets used to drop 2000lb bombs on Palestinians. In May 2025 over 800 prominent international law experts wrote to the British government urging them to act in accordance with its obligations under the Geneva Convention and international law by imposing sanctions and suspending arms sales, there was no reply. Instead the UK government continues to allow arms sales, maintains £5.5 billion in annual trade and continually ignores the ICJ. The double standards of mainstream media is beyond evident; Ukrainians are rightly portrayed as victims of aggression and deserving of aid, whilst Palestinians are denied the same moral clarity. We see emotive terms like “massacre” and “atrocity” overwhelmingly reserved for Israelis. A recent study of over 35,000 BBC stories revealed Israeli deaths are given 33x more coverage per fatality than Palestinians.
Just like with the Iraq war a huge chasm has opened up between the public and governments sentiment. Thatcher labelled the ANC as terrorists and refused to sanction South Africa during the apartheid years, the government only ended their complicity under massive domestic and international pressure. I ask the UK government, when will your complicity stop?
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