The tragic events unfolding in Gaza have exposed the double standards of the West with regard to human rights. The West has been blackmailing different peoples and regimes on the pretext of defending human rights. Rarely does a Western official visit the region without lecturing about human rights.
Today, the West has trampled on all forms of humanity with their steadfast support for Israel’s brutal actions and indiscriminate bombardment of Palestinians in Gaza.
It seems that the ‘civilised’ international order, represented in the UN and its organisations, has become completely incapable of halting the barbaric Israeli war on Gaza, and protecting itself too as buildings carrying UN flags are not safe from Israeli attacks, thus dealing a heavy blow to all international conventions. We can say that the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza has written the death certificate for the rules-based international order.
It now transpires that the West’s sugar-coated words about freedom of expression and human rights are just slogans that are raised whenever they want. The smell of death is everywhere in Gaza and the Palestinian death toll has been rapidly increasing since October 7.
Speaking about this desperate plight in Gaza, UN Secretary General António Guterres said: “The continued nightmare in Gaza is collapse of humanity. Israel is indiscriminately launching its attacks against civilians, hospitals, refugee tents, mosques and churches. No one and no place is safe. Gaza has turned into graves for children who have never been killed in such high numbers in any conflict for more than three decades.
The current events in Gaza are a major test for many politicians, thinkers, intellectuals, and media institutions. The masks of many of them who were thought to be fighter of justice and defend human rights and freedoms have fallen.
When the US administration was asked about the war on Ukraine about one year ago, National Security advisor Jake Sullivan said: “We are monitoring what is taking place there and gathering evidence. We found that war crimes were committed there. Out situation is clearly based on realities.”
US President Joe Biden vehemently supported this situation when he said in March this year: “Yes, there are war crimes committed in Ukraine.”
However, in relation to the current events in Gaza, the US double standards policy and bias to Israel are clear. The US has neglected the international law for its sake. In the aftermath of Hamas’s Al-Aqsa Flood operation against Israel on October 7, Western countries with exceptions, sent a unified message declaring their support for Tel Aviv and the crimes of the Israeli occupation against Palestinians.
The western officials who headed to the Ukrainian capital Kiev to speak about the killings of children, and the bombing of schools and hospitals there, are the same who stood silent before the Israeli bombardment of hospitals, schools, churches and mosques in Gaza, depriving their inhabitants of basic necessities and killing of children there.
In a nutshell, the current Israeli war on Gaza has exposed the falsehood of slogans raised by the West. Those who fuelled the war in Ukraine are the same who today support the annihilation of Palestinians in Gaza. The West, which is hiding behind the values of democracy and the fake slogans of human rights, is the maker of both tragedies.
Mohamed Fahmy is the editor-in-chief of The Egyptian Gazette and Egyptian Mail newspapers
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