Afrasianet - Double standards mean that an association adopts a fundraising campaign for a refugee with cancer, accompanied by an emphasis on the brutality of the Russian aggressor who denies women treatment, but there is silence when Israel demands that hospitals be evacuated from cancer patients to die in silence and pain.
The world today is experiencing double standards, the only term that applies to what Europe is experiencing in particular, which presents itself as the protector of human rights and the defender of humanity, or at least that is the image in which it wants to appear.
We will not delve into the history of the use of this term because it is long explained, but it is simply "the application of a different set of principles to similar situations, that is, there are certain concepts that are acceptable to apply to one group of people, but are considered unacceptable – forbidden – when applied to another group." It is clear, for example, when we make a simple comparison between the European reaction to what is happening in Palestine and that of what is happening in Ukraine. Suffice it to compare European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's remarks describing the war Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure and cutting off water, electricity and heating for men, women and children despite the cold winter were also classified as war crimes in particular, but did not comment on the Israeli defense minister's description of Gazans as "human animals" and his threat to cut off fuel, food and water to two million Palestinians and threaten to displace them.
Von der Leyen stressed that "Europe stands by Israel in this tragedy," and the statements intensified after the European Union announced that it was in the process of stopping development aid to the Palestinians, worth $ 730 million, which increased the wave of confusion and division in European positions, a decision that was quickly reversed after a number of European governments expressed their opposition to this decision.
Double standards, although understandable in politics due to the overlap of economic and commercial factors and international interests, remain surprising to humanitarian organizations and associations and even peoples. These same organizations waited days to issue statements about what was happening in Gaza. Some of these statements were written in completely neutral language, to the extent that it is difficult to understand the significance of them without assigning responsibilities, unlike their statements in Ukraine, which were quick to confirm allegations. Violations, and loud even when the event was minor, were highlighted as a major violation of the laws of war on Russia' s part.
I remember very well when an international delegation and representatives of international organizations visited a shelter for Ukrainian refugees, and they cried when hearing the alleged stories of children about the sounds of war, about losing their toys and about missing their parents . I mention this incident to indicate the silence of these same envoys about what is happening in Gaza.
I remember very well the screams of one of these "humanitarians" when he walked out of a session because he could no longer bear to listen to the tragedies of war, shouting: "No child should see what they have ever seen." Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, I have been accessing the page of this "humanitarian" every day, and I don't see him caring about what the children of Gaza are experiencing. He is more interested in avoiding losses on both sides. Not interested in the remains of children scattered on the walls of a hospital or a child lying in the arms of his murdered mother in front of him, he just wants Avoiding losses, the story of the Ukrainian child made him cry, but the remains of a Palestinian child considered them "losses."
The world today is experiencing double standards, the only term that applies to what Europe is experiencing in particular, which presents itself as the protector of human rights and the defender of humanity, or at least that is the image in which it wants to appear.
The double standard becomes evident when your co-workers collapse to the sight of a rocket that hit a balcony (and luckily no one was hurt), their productivity decreases and they sit all day in the office tense declaring "the death of humanity", but at the same time they call to advise me to remain neutral and not forget that I am a humanitarian worker and should not be a party or partial to one side of the "conflict", for them "humanity is not dead" when a hospital is bombed and the remains of corpses are collected with plastic bags.
The double standard becomes clear when you see people justifying the right of a people to a land, because one of the gods promised a prophet a "promised land", but they fear that a people will resist its occupier, just because the dead of this people cry out "Allahu Akbar" when they die.
Double standards mean that an association adopts a fundraising campaign for a refugee with cancer, accompanied by an emphasis on allegations of the brutality of the Russian aggressor who denies women treatment, but silence prevails when Israel demands that hospitals be evacuated from cancer patients to die in silence and pain.
Double standards is allowing thousands of Europeans to demonstrate in front of Russian embassies and painting them red to denounce Russia's war on Ukraine. In return, he forbade any form of solidarity with Palestine and prevented people from approaching Israeli embassies.
Double standards for Europe to receive millions of displaced Ukrainians and provide them with all facilities, while refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Africa die from frost, cold and disease at the entrances to Europe. Double standards for a European to come to our countries to teach us international humanitarian law and human rights law, to give us examples and to tell us how the world can be a better place. But today, when we desperately need to enforce these laws, he is waiting and has to listen to all sides of the story.
Double standards Send an additional billion dollars to Ukraine to cover humanitarian needs during the winter, and a billion dollars shortfall in your humanitarian mission in Somalia. In a report published by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) entitled "Ukraine: The Double Humanitarian Standard War, 5 Examples", we read that media attention and media coverage throughout the first months of the war in Ukraine were large compared to other issues and crises that were ignored.
The report also adds that international attention has disappeared in relation to other tragedies occurring around the world. The report gave the example of the crisis in Afghanistan, which has disappeared in the media despite the humanitarian situation in the country having deteriorated considerably. The report also compared the death toll in Ukraine, which according to the United Nations stood at 5,827, while in Ethiopia there are nearly half a million people killed by the war since September 2022.
Another issue addressed in the report is the duplicity in dealing with Ukrainian refugees who are not seen as "security concerns", "carriers of disease" or "economic migrants seeking opportunities" as refugees fleeing other conflict situations are portrayed. Double standards have also manifested itself in the humanitarian response for Ukraine, with the UN considering it one of the largest, fastest and most generous in terms of funding, amounting to nine previous UN appeals for other emergencies.
The report cited former UN humanitarian coordinator Mark Lowcock, who said that "diverting aid to Ukraine will exacerbate the situation elsewhere with humanitarian needs." In return for this generous funding for Ukraine, where there are 15.7 million people in need, funding for responses has shrunk in other parts of the world such as Syria and crisis-related areas, where 34.1 million people are in need, 30.1 million in Afghanistan, 29.4 million in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and 25.9 million. in Ethiopia.
The report also noted that the protection of civilians in times of armed conflict requires that the right of residents to remain as close to their homes as possible, and the right to leave, be upheld, criticizing evacuations, especially those allegedly carried out by the Russians, as they moved civilians to areas occupied by Russia or to Russia itself.
The report also touched on allegations of targeting health facilities and bombing hospitals, as the World Health Organization reported 503 attacks on health care facilities, killing 100 people and injuring 127 others, and these attacks topped the news in exchange for a blackout on other targeting hospitals that took place in Syria and Ethiopia.
The double standards lie not only in the media coverage of hospital targeting incidents in Ukraine, but in how the bombings are portrayed as "deliberate, war crimes," while in other armed conflicts, there are cases in which these attacks are not strongly condemned, especially if the perpetrators are allied with the West, with normalization of rhetoric for a possible mistake, or even holding the hospital administration responsible, which is what actually happened when Israel targeted the Baptist Hospital in Gaza.
In light of this madness that the world has been experiencing for the past two weeks, it is good to return to international law that is clear in its expression of the right of people under occupation to resist by using whatever means at their disposal to protect themselves.
This international law, which Europe adhered to and supported the Ukrainian resistance with money and equipment in the face of what it called the Russian aggression, is now ignoring it and supporting the apartheid practiced by Israel, without asking the question about the "right of self-defense" that Israel repeats, in whose name it bombs Gaza.