OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — When the war in
Ukraine broke out three weeks ago, many Palestinians
questioned the way European and the US reacted, particularly the difference in
the international community’s response
compared to the decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
اضافة اعلان
Soon after the
Russian invasion of Ukraine began,
images started emerging of Ukrainian civilians preparing Molotov cocktails and
arming themselves to resist the Russian military, with military, financial, and
political backing from Western governments, and unprecedented praise from
journalists and media outlets.
Drawing on the decisive response from Washington,
London, Berlin, Paris, and Brussels against
Moscow, Palestinians wondered why
the same treatment wasn’t applied to them.
Political analyst Nour Odeh told
Jordan News that
the
EU and US’ double standard is “jaw dropping”.
“I think the most striking aspect of the hypocrisy
of it all is hearing state representatives talking about the illegality of the
acquisition of territory by force, talking about upholding international law,
talking about accountability, when these same representatives refuse to apply
that standard of international law to Israeli actions regarding occupied
Jerusalem, the West Bank, and illegal settlements,” Odeh said.
According to Odeh,
while Western media have framed the actions of Ukrainians defending their
homeland and resisting occupation forces as “rightfully” legitimate, the
Palestinians — who are internationally recognized as a people under occupation
— do not receive the same treatment from
those same governments and media outlets.
Israel describes
Palestinians who resist the
occupation forces using the same methods and tools as “terrorists”, and
Palestinians say even throwing rocks at Israeli tanks has become forbidden.
Palestinians laud Ukrainians’ efforts to defend
their country and resist a Russian occupation, but call for the international
community to apply the pressure it is exerting to expel Russian forces out of
Ukraine on Israel, she said.
Western media coverage of the Russian invasion of
Ukraine raised eyebrows throughout the
Middle East, with people comparing
European and US media outlets’ language and coverage of the war to that of the
their coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli home demolition policies, or
Israel’s forced evictions of Palestinians. This has culminated in these outlets
being accused of unfair and biased reporting.
“The criticism is warranted; we’ve seen enough
evidence to see that objectivity is completely discarded,” Odeh said.
“As a Palestinian it shocks me. I can see reports on
mainstream media outlets where the reporter expresses personal views, awe, and
(praise for) Ukrainians preparing Molotov cocktails,” she said, adding that
“the same reporter would be talking of Molotov cocktails in the hands of
Palestinians as terrorist,” says Odeh.
Palestinians lament the West’s hypocrisy toward
their efforts to resist Israeli occupation. For years they called out Western
countries, accusing them of paying lip service to the
Palestinian cause and
providing absolute support for Israel.
Ali Jarbawi, an associate professor of political
science at
Birzeit University, told
Jordan News that ti is a “double standard
in the clearest way”.
“This hypocrisy is governed by interests, on the
basis of which political and international relations are built,” he said.
Furthermore, Jerbawi stressed that the US and Europe
do not see Ukrainians as different from them.
“They consider Ukraine as part of the Western group,
as opposed to Palestine being the ‘other’, which it deems different — and they
consider Israel also as part of the Western group.”
Last month, a report published by
Amnesty International accused Israel of apartheid for its treatment of Palestinians,
prompting Israel to fire back, labeling the allegation as anti-Semitic.
“Whether they live in Gaza, East Jerusalem and the
rest of the West Bank, or Israel itself, Palestinians are treated as an
inferior racial group and systematically deprived of their rights,” the report
from the London-based Amnesty read.
The report found
that the Israeli state maintains “an institutionalized regime of oppression and
domination of the Palestinian population for the benefit of Jewish Israelis.”
The US dismissed the report.
“I reject the view that
Israel’s actions constitute apartheid. The (US State Department’s) own reports
have never used such terminology,” its spokesperson Ned Price told reporters.
“I think that it is important, as the world’s only
Jewish state, that the Jewish people must not be denied their right to
self-determination, and we must ensure there isn’t a double standard being
applied,” he added.
Palestinians said they were not surprised by the
West’s policies towards them.
“Laws were adopted in the US to literally punish Palestinians, and to sanction the ICC because it dared to open an investigation
into Israeli war crimes in Palestine — so the double standard at the state
level was absolutely stunning,” Odeh said, referring to the
International Criminal Court.
The US and many other Western nations took swift
measures following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last month, imposing crippling
economic sanctions almost immediately, but have avoided taking similar steps
against Israel.
US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken told the UN
Human Rights Council that it must send a “resolute message” to Russian
President Vladimir Putin to stop an invasion that has destroyed schools,
hospitals, and residential buildings, and killed hundreds of civilians.
“These are the human rights abuses this council was
created to stop. If we cannot come together now, when will we come together?”
he said.
Palestinians accuse Washington of cherry picking,
arguing that the US only turns to the UN when it serves its interests. They
point to a different speech by Blinken, in which he described the council’s
ongoing investigations into Israeli actions in the
Palestinian territories as
“a stain on the council’s credibility” and called for those investigations to
be halted. The investigations have found Israel responsible for persistent
“violations of the right to life” and other crimes.
All this further cements the belief that there are
two sets of laws, Odeh said.
“I think ultimately what this crisis has done is
reveal and expose the fact that powerful countries treat international law as a
tool to serve their political goals and interests, and they are willing to bend
the law — and to even undermine it — in order to protect an ally like Israel.”
She chastised the way Israeli media have been
covering the war calling it “bizarre” and “schizophrenic”.
“They don’t see the occupation and they don’t see
the Palestinians, and they identify themselves as European, Western, and
‘civilized’ — belonging to that club,” she said.
In Britain, Labor MP
Julie Elliott told parliament
that there was a double standard when it comes to standing up for Palestinians.
“The Palestinians are looking to us to speak and act
in the same terms. We sanctioned Russia over
Crimea, and we are now likely to
impose more sanctions, with which I wholeheartedly agree, yet Palestinians ask
why we do nothing to end Israel’s occupation,” she said.
Palestinians say
even sports was used to show support for Ukraine, when its flags have been
widely flown at recent football matches with the approval of footballing
authorities. However,
UEFA fined the Scottish Premier League team Celtic after
its fans flew Palestinian flags at international games, saying that they were
political symbols.
Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett slammed his
government for “double standards” for its sanctions on Russia over its invasion
of Ukraine, but not taking similar measures against Israel for its violence
against Palestinians.
Barrett sits in the Irish parliament for the
left-wing People Before Profit party.
“You’re happy to correctly use the most strong and
robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of
Vladimir Putin but
you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing
Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians,” he told parliament.
He listed Israeli violations of Palestinian rights,
including assaults on Gaza and the annexation of land, and said: “You don’t
want to even use the word apartheid, never mind sanctions.”
“(It took) five days for sanctions against Putin and
his thugs. Seventy years of oppression of the Palestinians, and it wouldn’t be
— What was the word you used? — it wouldn’t be ‘helpful’ to impose sanctions.”
Attorney Moien
Odeh, who specializes in human rights and international law, told
Jordan News
that applying a double standard is not a new approach for different countries
in general and the West in particular.
“International law and the UN bodies were always a
tool for the supreme powers against the weak ones,” he said, adding that he did
not doubt that Russia’s actions in Ukraine “deserve to be in the ICC”, and that
its crimes in Syria are “no less horrific”.
“Unfortunately, in the Syrian case the international
community didn’t want to intervene or take the Russian crimes to the ICC,” he
said.
The US and its allies are “defending their crimes in
Iraq and Palestine,” the lawyer explained.
“I think it is an important moment for the
Palestinians to support the West’s efforts of taking the Russian crimes in
Syria and Ukraine to the ICC and to request the West’s support of taking the
Israeli crimes against them to the ICC as well. I think the Palestinian
Authority should start an international advocacy campaign to support Ukraine
and to show the Israeli crimes at the same time.”
Read more Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
