OPINION - Ukraine vs Gaza: Double standards of the West

By Dr. Sami A. Al-Arian

- The author is a public affairs professor and director of the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) at Istanbul Zaim University.

ISTANBUL (AA) - Since the Russian attack on Ukraine in Feb. 2022, the US and its Western allies have mobilized the whole world against Russia, drawing attention to the devastation caused by the war. The UN estimates that Ukraine lost [1] around 10,000 civilians, including 560 children, and about 18,500 others injured during the first 21 months of the conflict. Every US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other high-ranking American and European officials accused Russian troops of committing genocide [2] and war crimes. [3]

Conversely, in the Middle East, Israel has killed at least 25,000 Palestinians and left thousands more missing in just the first 100 days of its onslaught on the Gaza Strip in the wake of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, with women and children accounting for 70% of the casualties. In addition, over 63,000 Palestinians have been injured [4], many of whom have been maimed, with one again women and children making up the majority of those injured. While the destruction of property in wars like those in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Iraq, or Syria cannot be minimized, the UN says the destruction of civilian life and structures in Gaza has surpassed all previous levels of destruction [5], which the world has not been seen since World War II.

- Double standards and dehumanization of victim

The US has not only justified Israel’s brutal actions and supplied it with all weapons used to wreak havoc on Gaza, but it has also shielded it diplomatically, using its veto power in the UN Security Council to kill [6] resolutions calling for a cease-fire and defending its ruthless behavior in other international forums in the face of desperate pleas and warnings from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres [7] and dozens [8] of other leaders from around the world.

Though the US's double [9] standard for Israel is extreme, it is not unique. The US has created an international order that favors certain countries, peoples, and cultures as it continues the centuries-long legacy of imperialist European powers.

In 1875, the British governor of Bombay wrote, "We hold India by the sword." More than a century later, in 1988, an Israeli prime minister, witnessing the first Palestinian uprising against Israel's brutal military occupation, said, [10] "The Palestinians must be crushed like grasshoppers, and their heads smashed against the boulders and walls." Thirty-five years later, in Oct. 2023, another Israeli defense minister pledged to starve Palestinians in Gaza, calling [11] them “human animals.”

In its quest to demonstrate its “superior” culture and values, the West indulges in self-righteousness, employing lofty rhetoric of its unyielding belief in democracy, the rule of law, human rights, free speech, representative government, international institutions, the right to self-determination, respect for diversity, and so on. However, whenever these principles and ideals interfere with its exercise of hegemony over the Global South or the advancement of its narrow interests, it turns a blind eye to them.

When over 1.8 billion Muslims are offended by political cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad in derogatory ways or public celebrations of Quran burnings, the West is quick to condemn "Muslim outrage" and defend these provocative actions on the grounds of defending the value of free speech or expression. However, when supporters of the Palestinian struggle speak out against Israeli aggression and its genocidal war, or call out the racist and supremacist nature of Zionist ideology and institutions, Western governments, politicians, media outlets, and cultural elites immediately launch campaigns to silence anti-Zionist voices, if not outright defame them, fire them from their jobs, or even prosecute them.

The West celebrates liberal values when applied to its societies, but is unwilling to extend them universally. It promotes them selectively depending on its system of racial hierarchy of people around the world. Israel is, thus, judged by a single standard, regarded as a democracy, and granted all the privileges and benefits accorded to Western countries. Palestinians are not.

- Israel – a new face of colonialism

The Zionist state has, thus far, been successful in establishing a settler-colonial state in the historical land of Palestine. It has implemented several strategies and employed varying tactics to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians since 1948.

It uses tactics that include the forced expulsion of millions of Palestinians and the denial of their return, the confiscation and annexation of territories and holy shrines, the establishment of a security state in which over half of the population of historical Palestine is subject to military rule, and discriminatory practices protected by unjust laws.

Israel institutionalizes an ethnically based ID system, establishes Jewish-only colonies/settlements, and builds separate roads for Israeli citizens around many of these colonies. It establishes hundreds of military checkpoints in the West Bank, constructs a separation wall around the majority of Palestinian communities, and employs Palestinians as cheap labor, perpetuating inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and access to land and resources. A discriminatory legal structure is established, which includes marriage law, the passage of citizenship and Jewish nationality legislation, the ongoing Judaization of Jerusalem, and the denial of religious rights to Muslims and Christians.

Assassinations are used as a tool to eliminate thousands of Palestinians and other supporters around the world for resisting the brutal occupation, as well as countless other tactics to usurp Palestinian territories and expel as many Palestinians as possible from their historical land. Moreover, it imposed a crippling siege on Gaza for over 16 years before launching a genocidal and destructive war against its people over the last 16 weeks, with no end in sight.

Such strategies and tactics used by Israel over decades have resembled and surpassed many aspects of the South African Apartheid regime of a bygone era, constituting blatant forms of neocolonialism and a new form of an Israeli Apartheid system, contrary to international and humanitarian laws. However, the US has yet to condemn, let alone actively reverse, any of these actions that directly contradict its professed liberal values.

Because of their deep racist attitudes towards non-Western peoples, the US and its Western allies have refused to recognize Israel’s oppressive regime. They only see one side as human, one party as deserving sympathy and backing with all means, with no qualms or feelings of guilt.

As the great American author Noam Chomsky once said, "For the powerful, crimes are those that others commit." That is the primary principle that the US has used to maintain its global primacy, and by extension, to ignore Israel's crimes and allow it to rule over its victims. If double standards are required to accomplish this, then so be it, liberal values be damned.

[1] https://ukraine.un.org/en/253322-civilian-deaths-ukraine-war-top-10000-un-says

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-61093300

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrbNKLAJAhY

[4] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/gaza-death-toll-from-israeli-attacks-nears-25-500-since-oct-7-health-ministry/3116243

[5] https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/gaza-destruction-bombing-israel-aa528542

[6] https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144562

[7] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/7/un-secretary-general-invokes-article-99-on-gaza

[8] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/13/unga-decisively-backs-gaza-ceasefire-resolution-how-your-country-voted

[9] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/gaza-ukraine-wars-show-us-double-standards/3044159

[10] http://www.miftah.org/Doc/Factsheets/Other/mar11a2k3.html

[11] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbPdR3E4hCk

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu