Global PREJUDICE

The response of Western democracies to civilian killings in Ukraine and that of Palestinians in Gaza has exposed their double standards

- Seema Guha

THE moral high ground that the US and Western democracies took while chastising Russian President Vladimir Putin for sending his army to Ukraine in February 2022 is strangely missing when it comes to close ally Israel and Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu's response to the Hamas onslaught on Israel last month. Granted, 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and over 200 people, including children and old people, were taken hostage in the surprise attack. But Israel's response-carpet bombing of the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 10,000 civilians, 40 per cent of them children-is being accepted without question. The West's high moral principles have gone out of the window.

Israel has broken all international rules of war with impunity. Civilians in the Gaza Strip have no place to hide. Nothing is off limits for the Israeli air force, be it schools, ambulance services, hospitals, mosques, civilian housing or even the UN-sponsored refugee camps, as the one in Nabila. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said that Gaza is turning into a "graveyard for children" and called for a ceasefire.

The world watched with respectful silence as Yoav Gallant, Israel's defence minister, said at the start of operations: "I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly." Writing in The Guardian, Moustafa Bayoumi, writer and professor, had this to say about Gallant's words: "Let's be clear: Gallant's language is not the rhetoric of deterrence. It's the language of genocide."

The plight of over two million residents trapped in Gaza is not just turning global opinion against Israel, but the double standards of the US and its allies are getting exposed, especially in the Global South.