Afrasianet - Sadiq Al , Tai - Some videos that spread on Instagram and TikTok platforms provoked a lot of ridicule, because they played on a funny irony, as activists cut parts of speeches and statements by Western politicians condemning war crimes, killing civilians and preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, and then it appears at the end of the video that the talk was about what is happening in Ukraine, not what is happening in Gaza. Days after the start of the Israeli response to the Hamas offensive on October 7, the blockade imposed on Gaza constituted collective punishment and violated international law.
Amnesty International documents unlawful attacks on civilians and calls for them to be investigated as war crimes.
In condemning the atrocities committed against civilians, the ICRC objected to Israel's orders for Gazans to evacuate their homes, without access to basic necessities, as contrary to international law.
The hypocrisy of the West was most evident at the G20 Summit in New Delhi, where US leaders and their Western allies called on the countries of the Global South to take a stand on the Russian occupation of Ukraine and the allegations of crimes resulting from Russia's military operations in Ukraine, taking into account that Ukraine received and receives the largest volume of military, civilian and logistical aid in the history of the world's wars, but all this support was wrapped in slogans of commitment to international law, non-violation of human rights, and prevention of war crimes.
Despite the catastrophic toll of death, destruction and devastation caused by Israel's frenzied war on the besieged Gaza Strip, international law, human rights and the prohibition of war crimes appear to be in the footnotes, while Israel's allies show their solidarity and unwavering support for Israel's unfettered right to self-defence, timidly repeating that an Israeli attack must be carried out within the framework of the laws of war, but have not supported this by condemning the crimes against humanity committed by Israel.
They have not made real efforts to stop the aggression. The Financial Times published an article by Henry Foy that said: "Officials and diplomats have warned that Western support for Israel's offensive on Gaza has weakened efforts to build consensus with important countries of the Global South such as India, Brazil and South Africa on condemning Russia's war against Ukraine.
The reaction to the war in Gaza has spoiled months of work to portray Moscow as a global pariah for violating international law, exposing the hypocrisy of the West, the United States and their allies, they said. Just four weeks before Hamas's attack on Israel, U.S. leaders and Western allies attended the G20 summit in New Delhi and asked the countries of the Global South to condemn Russia's attacks on Ukrainian civilians in order to uphold respect for the UN Charter and international law.
Several officials in the South who attended the G20 summit later told the Financial Times that they responded to the United States and its Western allies with the same argument and demanded condemnation of Israel's retaliatory assault on Gaza and its decision to block supplies of food, medicine, water, electricity and gas there.
France is particularly concerned about the risk of escalation in the conflict in the Gaza Strip and believes that Russia no longer plays the traditional "superpower" role of reining in its allies in the region, but instead sees an opportunity to consume U.S. resources and divert attention from Ukraine.
A senior Western diplomat said: "We have to prevent Russia — with the support of the Chinese — from taking the initiative and using it against us. "There is a risk that in the next vote in the UN General Assembly on support for Ukraine we will see a big explosion in the number of abstentions." At an emergency summit in a videoconference, EU leaders spoke a few days ago, with many leaders warning that failure to support Palestinian rights in Gaza risks exposing Western countries to charges of hypocrisy, according to several people familiar with the discussion.
Even with a post on social media platforms. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva criticized US arms supplies to Ukraine, calling them "encouraging" war. Brazil, in its capacity as President of the United Nations Security Council this month, drafted a resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. But the United States vetoed the resolution, because it did not mention Israel's right to self-defense, and Brazil's ambassador to the United Nations, Sergio França Danez, expressed frustration. "Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza can't wait any longer, in fact, they've waited for a very long time," he said.
Western leaders must judge Israel's words and actions with clarity and moral courage, as double standards are unmistakably visible.
The hypocrisy of the West is most evident in European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's repeated condemnation of allegations portraying Russian attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, as war crimes committed by the Putin administration, while we see her rushing to visit Tel Aviv and supporting Netanyahu's right-wing government and refusing to acknowledge the suffering caused by the barbaric Israeli bombing on Palestinian civilians. Countries like Russia and China will invest it in breaking the international consensus that condemned the Russian operation in Ukraine.The
Palestinian cause has long flourished in the Global South, so the Gaza war has only increased resentment in Africa, Asia and Latin America, where the West treats Ukraine as a special case, because it is a European war, and they give generous money spent on arming Ukraine, while development goals are ignored in various countries of the South.
Hannah Nott, a Eurasian analyst in Berlin, said there is a perception that the West "cares more about Ukrainian refugees, about the suffering of Ukrainian civilians, more." "What it does when people suffer in countries like Yemen, Palestine, Sudan, and Syria."
In Europe, the debate took place largely on social media, with some commentators criticizing Europe's hypocrisy for its different approaches to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, while few politicians commented directly. Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister, wrote on Twitter: "The world sees double standards in Western policy towards the two wars, and whether it's right or wrong, that's something we have to deal with."
Today, Western leaders must judge Israel's words and actions with the same clarity and moral courage, as double standards are unmistakably visible. It is clear that Palestinian lives are of less value in a conflict in which they have been dehumanized, including portrayed as "human animals" in statements by Israeli government officials.
Therefore, any previous or subsequent talk about human rights, war crimes, genocide, and forced displacement used by Western governments to condemn what is happening in various battlefields in the world are lies and accusations that are exploited to pass political deals wrapped in disgusting Western hypocrisy.