{"id":53388,"date":"2025-06-03T07:32:17","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T15:32:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=53388"},"modified":"2025-06-03T07:35:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T15:35:58","slug":"tory-leader-blurts-out-the-truth-britain-is-at-the-heart-of-gaza-proxy-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/03\/tory-leader-blurts-out-the-truth-britain-is-at-the-heart-of-gaza-proxy-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Tory Leader Blurts Out the Truth: Britain Is at the Heart of Gaza &#8216;Proxy War&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you have spent the past 20 months wondering why British leaders on both sides of the aisle have barely criticised Israel, even as it slaughtered and starved Gaza\u2019s population of more than two million people, you finally got an answer last week.<\/p>\n<p>Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the quiet part out loud. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=m9XdN0ME9o0\" rel=\"\">She told Sky<\/a>: \u201cIsrael is fighting a proxy war [in Gaza] on behalf of the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/m9XdN0ME9o0?si=0JCkTsPA_xN_e7KC\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>According to Badenoch, the UK \u2013 and presumably in her assessment, other western powers \u2013 aren\u2019t just supporting Israel against Hamas. They are willing that fight and helping to direct it. They view that fight as centrally important to their national interests.<\/p>\n<p>This certainly accords with what we have witnessed over more than a year and a half. Both the current Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and its Tory predecessor under Rishi Sunak, have been unwavering in their commitment to send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropsitenews.com\/p\/uk-israel-munitions-shipments-palestine\" rel=\"\">British arms<\/a> to Israel, while also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/new-report-lays-out-full-extent-uk-israel-military-partnership-gaza\" rel=\"\">shipping weapons<\/a> from the United States and Germany to help with the slaughter.<\/p>\n<p>Both governments used the Royal Air Force base Akrotiri in Cyprus to carry out surveillance flights to aid Israel with locating targets to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.declassifieduk.org\/britain-sent-over-500-spy-flights-to-gaza\/\" rel=\"\">hit<\/a> in Gaza. Both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2025\/4\/7\/uk-lawyers-accuse-10-britons-who-fought-for-israel-in-gaza-of-war-crimes\" rel=\"\">allowed<\/a> British citizens to travel to Israel to take part as soldiers in the Gaza <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/explainers\/meaning-definition-what-genocide-israel-gaza\" rel=\"\">genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Neither government joined South Africa\u2019s case at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/topics\/israel-icj-case\" rel=\"\">International Court of Justice<\/a>, which found more than a year ago that Israel\u2019s actions could \u201cplausibly\u201d be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/icj-rule-israel-allies-put-on-trial-genocide\" rel=\"\">considered a genocide<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And neither government proposed or tried to impose alongside other western states, as happened in other recent \u201cwars\u201d, a no-fly zone over Gaza to stop Israel\u2019s murderous assault, or organised with others to break Israel\u2019s blockade and get aid into the enclave.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, both governments steadfastly maintained their material support for Israel, even if Starmer recently toned down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/uk-ignore-starmer-theatrics-gaza-trail-blood-leads-straight-his-door\" rel=\"\">rhetorical support<\/a> after images of emaciated babies and young children in Gaza \u2013 reminiscent of images of Jewish children in Nazi death camps like Auschwitz \u2013 shocked the world.<\/p>\n<p class=\"header-anchor-post\"><strong>Coded language<\/strong><\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"image2-inset\">\n<picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 424w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_848,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 848w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1272,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 1272w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 1456w\" type=\"image\/webp\" sizes=\"100vw\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"sizing-normal\" src=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp\" sizes=\"100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_424,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 424w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_848,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 848w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1272,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 1272w, https:\/\/substackcdn.com\/image\/fetch\/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp 1456w\" alt=\"\" width=\"1400\" height=\"788\" data-attrs=\"{&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp&quot;,&quot;srcNoWatermark&quot;:null,&quot;fullscreen&quot;:null,&quot;imageSize&quot;:null,&quot;height&quot;:788,&quot;width&quot;:1400,&quot;resizeWidth&quot;:null,&quot;bytes&quot;:86888,&quot;alt&quot;:null,&quot;title&quot;:null,&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image\/webp&quot;,&quot;href&quot;:null,&quot;belowTheFold&quot;:true,&quot;topImage&quot;:false,&quot;internalRedirect&quot;:&quot;https:\/\/jonathancook.substack.com\/i\/164996584?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F206243b1-6b47-4362-aad0-64afe9e6ad38_1400x788.webp&quot;,&quot;isProcessing&quot;:false,&quot;align&quot;:null}\" \/><\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>If Badenoch is right that the UK is waging a proxy war in Gaza, it means that both British governments are directly responsible for the huge death toll of Palestinian civilians \u2013 running into many tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands \u2013 from Israel\u2019s saturation bombing.<\/p>\n<p>It also makes it indisputable that the UK is complicit in the current mass starvation of more than two million people there, which is indeed what Badenoch went on to imply in the coded language of political debate.<\/p>\n<p>In reference to Starmer\u2019s recent, and very belated, criticism of Israel\u2019s starvation of Gaza\u2019s entire population, she observed: \u201cWhat I want to see is Keir Starmer making sure that he is on the right side of British national interest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to Badenoch, Starmer\u2019s implied threat \u2013 so far entirely unrealized \u2013 to limit the UK\u2019s active collusion in the genocidal starvation of the people of Gaza could harm Britain\u2019s national interests. How exactly?<\/p>\n<p>Her comments should have startled, or at least baffled, Sky interviewer Trevor Phillips. But they passed unremarked.<\/p>\n<p>Badenoch\u2019s \u201cproxy war\u201d statement was also largely ignored by the rest of the British establishment media. Rightwing publications did notice it, but it appeared they were only disturbed by her equating the West\u2019s proxy war in Gaza with the West\u2019s proxy war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Or as the opposition leader put it: \u201cIsrael is fighting a proxy war on behalf of the UK just like Ukraine is on behalf of western Europe against Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A column in the Spectator, the Tory party\u2019s house journal, criticized her use of \u201cproxy war\u201d to describe Ukraine, but appeared to take the Gaza proxy war reference as read. James Heale, the Spectator\u2019s deputy political editor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spectator.co.uk\/article\/russians-seize-on-kemis-proxy-comment\/\" rel=\"\">wrote<\/a>: \u201cBy inadvertently echoing Russia\u2019s position on Ukraine, Badenoch has handed her opponents another stick with which to beat her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <em>Telegraph<\/em>, another Tory-leaning newspaper, ran a similarly themed article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/politics\/2025\/05\/26\/kremlin-seizes-kemi-badenoch-ukraine-proxy-war-russia-uk\/\" rel=\"\">headlined<\/a>: \u201cKremlin seizes on Badenoch\u2019s Ukraine \u2018proxy war\u2019 comments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"header-anchor-post\"><strong>Related wars<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The lack of a response to her Gaza \u201cproxy war\u201d remark suggests that this sentiment actually informs much thinking in western foreign policy circles, even if she broke the taboo on articulating it publicly.<\/p>\n<p>To reach an answer on why Gaza is viewed as a proxy war &#8211; one Britain continues to be deeply invested in, even at the cost of a genocide &#8211; one must also understand why Ukraine is seen in similar terms. The two \u201cwars\u201d are more related than they might appear.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the consternation of the Spectator and Telegraph, Badenoch is not the first British leader to point out that the West is fighting a proxy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/topics\/russia-ukraine-war\" rel=\"\">war in Ukraine<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Back in February, one of her predecessors, Boris Johnson, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1894078847399686257\" rel=\"\">observed<\/a> of western involvement in the three-year war between Russia and Ukraine: \u201cLet\u2019s face it, we\u2019re waging a proxy war. We\u2019re waging a proxy war. But we\u2019re not giving our proxies [Ukraine] the ability to do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If anyone should know the truth about Ukraine, it is Johnson. After all, he was prime minister when Moscow invaded its neighbor in February 2022.<\/p>\n<p>He was soon dispatched by Washington to Kyiv, where he appears to have strong-armed President Volodymyr Zelensky into abandoning <a href=\"https:\/\/english.almayadeen.net\/articles\/analysis\/how-britain-sabotaged-ukraine-peace\" rel=\"\">ceasefire talks<\/a> that were well advanced and could have led to a resolution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"header-anchor-post\"><strong>Offensive frontiers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There are good reasons why Johnson and Badenoch each understand Ukraine as a proxy war.<\/p>\n<p>This weekend Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump\u2019s envoy to Ukraine, echoed them. He told Fox News that Russian president Vladimir Putin was not wrong to see Ukraine as a proxy war, and that the West was acting as aggressor by supplying Kyiv with weapons.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3l9ZRk2U1DI?si=1Tj4DqyhcO3_6Y44\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>For years, the West had expanded NATO\u2019s offensive frontiers towards Russia, despite Moscow\u2019s explicit warnings that this would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/opinion\/russia-ukraine-us-invasion-paved-how\" rel=\"\">cross a red line<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With the West threatening to bring Russia\u2019s neighbor Ukraine into NATO\u2019s military fold, there were only ever likely to be one of two Russian responses. Either Putin would blink first and find Russia boxed in militarily, with NATO missiles \u2013 potentially nuclear-tipped \u2013 on his doorstep, minutes from Moscow. Or he would react pre-emptively to stop Ukraine\u2019s accession to NATO by invading.<\/p>\n<p>The West believed it had nothing to lose either way. If Russia invaded, NATO would then have the pretext to use Ukraine as a theater of war to bleed Moscow, both economically with sanctions and militarily by flooding the battlefield with western weapons.<\/p>\n<p>As we now know, Moscow chose to react. And while it has indeed been bleeding heavily, Ukrainian forces and European economies have been hemorrhaging even faster and more heavily.<\/p>\n<p>The problem isn\u2019t so much a lack of weapons \u2013 the West has supplied lots of them \u2013 as the fact that Ukraine has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/lacking-manpower-ukraine-resorts-to-harsh-means-to-force-draft-dodgers-into-combat\" rel=\"\">run out of conscripts<\/a> willing to be sent into the maw of war.<\/p>\n<p>The West is not, of course, going to send its own soldiers. A proxy war means someone else, in this case Ukrainians, does the fighting \u2013 and dying \u2013 for you.<\/p>\n<p>Three years on, the conditions for a ceasefire have dramatically changed too. Having spilled so much of its own people\u2019s blood, Russia is much less ready to make compromises, not least over the eastern territories it has conquered and annexed.<\/p>\n<p>We have reached this nadir in Ukraine \u2013 one so deep that even US President Donald Trump appears <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=5EFcLr38Fcw\" rel=\"\">ready to bail out<\/a> \u2013 precisely because Nato, via Johnson, pushed Ukraine to keep fighting an unwinnable war.<\/p>\n<p class=\"header-anchor-post\"><strong>Full-spectrum dominance<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nonetheless, there was a geopolitical logic, however twisted, to the West\u2019s actions in Ukraine. Bleeding Russia, a military and economic power, accords with the hawkish priorities of the neoconservative cabals that run western capitals nowadays, whichever party is in charge.<\/p>\n<p>The neoconservatives valorize what used to be called the military-industrial complex. They believe that the West has a civilizational superiority to the rest of the world, and must use its superior arsenal to defeat, or at least contain, any state that refuses to submit.<\/p>\n<p>This is a modern re-imagining of the \u201cbarbarians at the gate\u201d, or as neoconservatives like to frame it, \u201ca clash of civilizations\u201d. The fall of the West would amount, in their view, to a return to the Dark Ages. We are supposedly in a life-or-death struggle.<\/p>\n<p>In the US, the imperial hub of what we call \u201cthe West\u201d, this has justified a massive investment in war industries \u2013 or what is referred to as \u201cdefense\u201d, because it is an easier sell to domestic publics tired of the endless austerity required to maintain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sipri.org\/media\/press-release\/2025\/unprecedented-rise-global-military-expenditure-european-and-middle-east-spending-surges\" rel=\"\">military superiority<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Western capitals profess to act as \u201cglobal police\u201d, while the rest of the world sees the West more in terms of a sociopathic mafia don. However one frames it, the Pentagon is officially pursuing a doctrine known as US \u201cglobal full-spectrum dominance\u201d. You must submit \u2013 that is, let us control the world\u2019s resources \u2013 or pay the price.<\/p>\n<p>In practice, a \u201cforeign policy\u201d like this has necessarily divided the world in two: those in the Godfather\u2019s camp, and those outside it.<\/p>\n<p>If Russia could not be contained and defanged by turning Ukraine into a NATO forward base on Moscow\u2019s doorstep, it had to be dragged by the West into a debilitating proxy war that would neutralize Russia\u2019s ability to ally with China against US global hegemony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"header-anchor-post\"><strong>Acts of violence<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That is what Badenoch and Johnson meant by the proxy war in Ukraine. But how is Israel\u2019s mass murder of Palestinian civilians through saturation bombing and engineered starvation similarly a proxy war &#8211; and one apparently benefiting the UK and the West, as Badenoch argues?<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, Badenoch offered two not entirely compatible reasons for Israel\u2019s \u201cwar\u201d on Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Initially, she <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=m9XdN0ME9o0\" rel=\"\">told Sky<\/a>: \u201cIsrael is fighting a war where they want to get 58 hostages who have not been returned. That is what all of this is about \u2026 What we need to make sure is that we\u2019re on the side that is going to eradicate Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But even \u201ceradicating Hamas\u201d is hard to square with British foreign policy objectives. After all, despite the UK\u2019s designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization, it has never attacked Britain, has said it has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dropsitenews.com\/p\/hamas-terrorism-uk-marzouk\" rel=\"\">no such intention<\/a>, and is unlikely to ever be in a position to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it is far more likely that Israel\u2019s destruction of Gaza, with visible western collusion, will inflame hotheads into random or misguided acts of violence that cannot be prepared for or stopped &#8211; acts of terror similar to the US gunman who recently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/cy9vr10n732t\" rel=\"\">shot dead<\/a> two Israeli embassy staff in Washington DC.<\/p>\n<p>That might be reason enough to conclude that the UK ought to distance itself from Israel\u2019s actions as quickly as possible, rather than standing squarely behind Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n<p>It was only when she was pushed by Phillips to explain her position that Badenoch switched trajectory. Apparently it wasn\u2019t just about the hostages. She added: \u201cWho funds Hamas? Iran, an enemy of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cornered by her own logic, she then grasped tightly the West\u2019s neoconservative comfort blanket and spoke of a \u201cproxy war\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"header-anchor-post\"><strong>&#8216;Bracing&#8217; truth?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Badenoch\u2019s point was not lost on Stephen Pollard, the former editor of the <em>Jewish Chronicle<\/em>. In a column, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejc.com\/opinion\/kemi-badenoch-and-the-lost-art-of-telling-the-truth-ynl9lfhs\" rel=\"\">he noted<\/a> of the Sky interview: \u201cBadenoch has a bracing attitude to the truth &#8211; she tells it as it is, even if it doesn\u2019t make her popular.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cbracing\u201d truth from Badenoch is that Israel is as central to the projection of western power into the oil-rich Middle East as it was more than a century ago, when Britain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\/news\/balfour-declaration-dissected-67-words-changed-world\" rel=\"\">conceived of Palestine<\/a> as a \u201cnational home for the Jewish people\u201d in place of the native Palestinian population.<\/p>\n<p>From Britain\u2019s perspective, Israel\u2019s war on Gaza, as Badenoch concedes, is not centrally about \u201ceradicating Hamas\u201d or \u201cgetting back the hostages\u201d taken during the group\u2019s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Rather, it is about arming Israel to weaken those, like Iran and its regional allies, who refuse to submit to the West\u2019s domination of the Middle East \u2013 or in the case of Palestinians, to their own dispossession and erasure.<\/p>\n<p>In that way, arming Israel is seen as no different from arming Ukraine to weaken Russian influence in eastern Europe. It is about containing the West\u2019s geostrategic rivals \u2013 or potential partners, were they not viewed exclusively through the prism of western \u201cfull-spectrum dominance\u201d \u2013 as effectively as Israel has locked Palestinians into prisons and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailysabah.com\/opinion\/columns\/gaza-as-an-extermination-camp\" rel=\"\">concentration camps<\/a> in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n<p>This strategy is about averting any danger that one day Russia, China, Iran and others could unite effectively to oust the US and its allies from their heavily fortified hilltop. Alliances like BRICS are seen as a potential vehicle for such an assault on western dominance.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the rhetoric, western capitals are not chiefly concerned about military or \u201ccivilizational\u201d threats. They do not fear being invaded or conquered by their \u201cenemies&#8221;. In fact, their reckless behaviors in places like Ukraine make a cataclysmic nuclear confrontation more likely.<\/p>\n<p>What drives western foreign policy is the craving to maintain global economic primacy. And terrorizing other states with the West\u2019s superior military might is seen as the only way to ensure such primacy.<\/p>\n<p>There is nothing new about the West\u2019s fears, nor are they partisan. Differences within western establishments are never over whether the West should assert \u201cfull-spectrum dominance\u201d around the globe through client states such as Israel and Ukraine. Instead, factional splits emerge over which elements within those client states the West should be allying with the closest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"header-anchor-post\"><strong>&#8216;Rogue&#8217; policy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The question of alliances has been particularly fraught in the case of Israel, where the far-right and religious extremist factions in the government have a near-Messianic view of their place and role in the Middle East.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many of those closest to him have been trying for decades to maneuver the US into launching an attack on Iran, not least to remove Israel\u2019s main rival in the Middle East <a href=\"https:\/\/www.plutobooks.com\/9780745327549\/israel-and-the-clash-of-civilisations\/\" rel=\"\">and guarantee<\/a> its nuclear-armed regional primacy in perpetuity.<\/p>\n<p>So far, Netanyahu has found no takers in the White House. But that hasn\u2019t stopped him trying. He is widely reported to be deep in efforts to push Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/05\/27\/trump-netanyahu-not-bomb-iran-nuclear-talks\" rel=\"\">into joining<\/a> an attack on Iran, in the midst of talks between Washington and Tehran.<\/p>\n<p><em>Jonathan Cook is the author of three books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His website and blog can be found at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\">www.jonathan-cook.net<\/a>. This originally appeared in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.middleeasteye.net\">Middle East Eye<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have spent the past 20 months wondering why British leaders on both sides of the aisle have barely criticised Israel, even as it slaughtered and starved Gaza\u2019s population of more than two million people, you finally got an answer last week. Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch said the quiet part out loud. She [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[1061],"class_list":["post-53388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53388"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53399,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53388\/revisions\/53399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53388"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=53388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}