The event, in one sentence: Britain today banned trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband told the Commons the government now considers what's happening to Palestinians there "ethnic cleansing... perpetrated by settler terrorists" — language no British government has ever put on the record about an ally, coordinated with France and Canada, answered within hours by Israel shutting the UK consulate in Jerusalem. * A serious topic, so we'll keep the jokes on a leash and point them exclusively at page layout. Start with the Daily Mail's headline: "Israel shuts British consulate in furious retaliation after Ed Miliband sanctions West Bank settlements - with Trump poised to wade in." Read the cast list. Israel acts. Trump looms. Miliband provokes. The thing Britain actually said — the phrase that made this a historic story rather than a trade-policy story — is not in the headline. A government calling out ethnic cleansing is filed behind the reaction to it. * It gets better in the Mail's second paragraph, where the phrase finally appears: the Foreign Secretary "lashed out at 'ethnic cleansing' by 'terrorists' in the disputed areas." Count the distancing devices in fourteen words. "Lashed out" — the verb you use for a man losing his temper, not a minister reading a prepared statement to Parliament. Quote marks around everything he said, which is fair practice. And then the quiet masterpiece: "the disputed areas." On the very day the British government formally declared the occupation of the West Bank unlawful — the day the dispute, as far as UK policy goes, ended — the Mail re-disputed it in its own voice. * Paragraph one, meanwhile, calls the sanctions "controversial" before anyone has been quoted objecting, and puts 'illegal' — describing the settlements — in scare quotes. The International Court of Justice, most of the UN, and as of this morning His Majesty's Government use that word without the protective gloves. The Mail handles it like it's radioactive. * Now the contrast, because this is a choice, not a house style forced on everyone. The Guardian: "UK accuses Israeli 'terrorists' of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing" — accusation in the headline, attributed, done. NPR: "U.K. accuses Israeli settlers of 'ethnic cleansing,' bans trade." Even the BBC, which also led its homepage with Israel's retaliation (that's the newest development; fair enough), describes the location in its own words as "the illegally occupied West Bank." One newsroom is quoting the world's courts. Another is quoting a real-estate listing. * And the Mail finds room, high up, for the full deterrence package: Trump "poised to wade in," a Florida congressman threatening to ban British imports, Netanyahu ministers pledging to back Argentina on the Falklands. All real, all reported elsewhere too — but stacked in the opening paragraphs before the reader learns what Britain's actual accusation was, the effect isn't information. It's a warning: look what you've done now, Ed. * Here's the tell, as always: imagine the same layout with the countries swapped. If a British foreign secretary accused an adversary of ethnic cleansing, does anyone believe the Mail would headline the adversary's "furious retaliation" and describe our man as having "lashed out"? The phrase would be in 60-point type on the front page. Which country got the courtesy tells you what the layout is for.