On Watching Ukraine Through Palestinian Eyes
The rightful outpouring of support for Ukraine teaches us that the West can condemn occupation when it wants to.
March 4, 2022
(Left) A Ukrainian refugee at the train station 2022, amid Russian attacks; and (right) an ethnically cleansed Palestinian refugee by Israel 1948. (Photo inserted)
Tanks rolling through city streets. Bombs dropping from fighter jets onto apartment buildings. Military checkpoints. Cities under siege. Families separated, fleeing to seek refuge and not knowing when they will see each other or their homes again.
When
a military occupation begins to unfold before our eyes,
the whole world is forced to pay attention. But while we
may all be watching the same thing, some of us see it a
little differently.
My first thoughts as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine commenced last week was for the civilian population in Ukraine, who will face the heaviest burden as a much more powerful force seeks to impose its will on them. How many must die? How many civilians will be killed by “precision bombs” that are anything but precise? How soon will freedom come for them? Will they see it in their lifetime? Or will they, like us Palestinians, see the struggle last for generations? I hope, for their sake, that it is the former.
Still, even as it was easy as a Palestinian to identify with the scenes of bombardment, destruction, and refugees, the international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was totally foreign to us.
Overnight,
international law seemed to matter again. The idea that
territory could not be taken by force was suddenly an
international norm worth defending. Western countries
sought to advance a United Nations Security Council
resolution condemning Russia’s actions despite knowing
full well that Russia, a permanent member of the Security
Council, would veto it. “Russia can veto this resolution,
but cannot veto our voices,” said the US ambassador, Linda
Thomas-Greenfield. “Russia cannot veto the UN Charter. And
Russia will not veto accountability.”
When the inevitable Russian veto came down, Western diplomats emphasized how it highlighted Russia’s isolation. Indeed, Russia was isolated. Just as the United States has been each time it cast the lone UNSC veto on over 40 resolutions condemning Israel’s violations of international law and abuses against Palestinians.
The
US also decided to rejoin the United Nations Human Rights
Council just at this moment. It left the UNHRC several
years ago because it opposed the council’s efforts to hold
Israel to account. Meanwhile, countries have called on the International
Criminal Court to act on Russia’s
invasion—the same court whose prosecutor the United
States sanctioned for investigating war crimes committed
in Palestine.
Then there is the regime of “restrictive economic measures” that the US and its European partners have taken against Russia. Together they have not only imposed broad sanctions but have initiated a robust series of targeted sanctions to hold powerful actors personally accountable. Meanwhile, not only have Western nations refused to use sanctions to hold Israel to account for its violations, it actively enables them through economic, military, and diplomatic support.
Even boycott and divestment efforts are being heralded by the West. Liquor stores in Canada and states in the US are deshelving Russian vodka. The Metropolitan Opera said it would no longer engage with performers that support Putin. Within two days of the invasion, Russia was kicked out of Eurovision. It has also been suspended from premier international soccer leagues like FIFA and UEFA. Russian ballets are being canceled.
All
of this after just five days. Not five weeks or months,
let alone decades. Five. days.
Remarkably,
boycotts, divestment, and sanctions are not controversial
when used to hold certain violators accountable, but when
it comes to the rights of Palestinians, we are repeatedly
told that nonviolent economic measures like boycotts are
wrong. In fact, several US states that have taken action
to ban using boycotts for Palestinians rights are now
passing boycott and divestment resolutions targeting
Russia!
The
double standards don’t stop at nonviolent efforts. In
Ukraine, the West is actively supporting armed resistance
by both shipping weapons and glorifying their use. In
Palestine, the West is sending weapons too—to an Israel government practicing apartheid.
When
Ukrainians prepare Molotov cocktails to use in
resistance against the Russian military, we will call them
freedom fighters—and The New York Times
memorializes their efforts with expertly produced videos
of the explosive-making process. When Palestinians do so
against the Israeli military, they are invariably shot and
killed by a Western-financed weapon in the hands of an
Israeli soldier, whom we will then shield from
accountability at the United Nations and the International
Criminal Court.
And
as social media erupts with crowdfunding links to help
purchase weapons for Ukraine, those of us who try to
send money for food or medicine to families in Gaza or
Syria or Yemen routinely have their transactions denied.
What could possibly explain these gobsmacking double standards that have been so brazenly on display this week?
Well,
some western news reporters have offered us clues. The
Ukrainians, we are told, are not like Iraqis or Afghans,
because Ukraine is “relatively civilized, relatively
European.” This isn’t “some developing third world
nation.” Their cars “look like ours.” They look
like “prosperous middle-class people…like any European family you
might live next door to.” They are “people with blue eyes and blonde
hair. Or, as one correspondent put it, they “are Christians. They’re
white.”
How
deeply ingrained is this racism? As Russian soldiers
entered Ukraine, a photo of a young, blond Ukrainian girl
standing up courageously to a Russian soldier went viral
on social media. It was going viral, that is, until it was revealed that the girl
wasn’t Ukrainian but Palestinian and the soldier was
Israeli, not Russian.
It
seems the main reason Westerners were quick to jump to
defend the human rights of Ukrainians while they’ve
ignored the human rights of Palestinians and so many
others is that they see some of us as less human than
others.
To
be clear, the international community should hold
human rights abusers and law violators to account, and the
swift action against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
demonstrates unequivocally that such action is possible
when governments have the political courage to do so. But
not doing so when our allies are the oppressors, or when
the victims look different than us, has significant costs,
most directly for people like the Palestinians and others
with a generally darker complexion and eyes, but also for
the world at large. When international law is enforced
only when it suits powerful nations to enforce it, and
ignored when it suits powerful nations to ignore it,
then international law does not exist as anything other
than an instrument of power. If we want
there to be an international norm against aggression,
colonization, and the acquisition of land by force, we
can’t keep making exceptions for our friends when they
violate it. When we do such things—and we have done so
consistently when it comes to Israel, for example—we make
it clear that there is no rules-based international order;
there is only the rule of power. Might makes right.
A world based on might makes right is ultimately a threat to all—blue- and brown-eyed humans alike—and anyone who doubts this should just look at Ukraine.
Yousef
Munayyer
is a Palestinian American scholar and non-resident fellow
at the Arab Center in Washington, D.C.
https://www.thenation.com/article/world/ukraine-palestine-occupation/
