In terms of international law, there’s no ambiguity: Russia’s occupation of its Ukrainian neighbour is illegal, just as Israel’s occupation of its Palestinian neighbour is illegal. The United Nations has repeatedly condemned them. Both should elicit the same censure from the West, which defends a ‘rules-based order’. But they don’t. In one instance, the United States and the European Union stand with the country under attack; in the other, with the attacker.
From the start of the war in Ukraine, Europe flung its doors open to millions of Ukrainian exiles, showing a level of hospitality that would shock refugees from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. ‘[Ukrainians] seem so like us,’ wrote one British commentator. ‘[They] watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers’ (1). There’s been no such welcome for the hundreds of thousands of people wanting to flee Gaza. After 44 days of Israeli bombings, French president Emmanuel Macron reluctantly agreed to take 50 injured Palestinian children ‘if it is helpful and necessary’.
Washington and Brussels responded to the Russian invasion by imposing tough sanctions on Moscow (an oil embargo, trade and banking restrictions, asset freezes for oligarchs, a ban on Russia Today broadcasting in Europe etc). Calls for boycotts targeted athletes, musicians, filmmakers and writers. Exhibitions were cancelled, concerts called off. There’s been no such response to Israel. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement established in 2005 has advocated, in vain, for retaliatory measures against Tel Aviv. Regularly labelled antisemitic, it is marginalised in Germany and banned in around 30 US states. In France, it has faced legal challenge, and in Canada, it’s prohibited to promote it.
The list of disparities goes on… The West provides arms to occupied Ukraine but sells weapons to occupying Israel, threatening retaliation against anyone who would support the Palestinians militarily. US president Joe Biden called the bombing of the Mariupol hospital ‘an outrage to the world’ but remains silent when Israel’s bombings and blockades incapacitate a third of Gaza’s hospitals. He condemned the Bucha massacre as ‘genocide’ but refuses to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, where nearly 20,000 people have died in less than three months.
Western commentators often compare the 1,200 victims of Hamas to Israel’s population of eight million, suggesting that for the US, a country of 331 million, the equivalent of Hamas’s killings would be the deaths of 45,000 civilians – ‘20 times 9/11’ – or for France 9,000, ‘a hundred Bataclans’. But how about comparing the 20,000 deaths in Gaza with its population of 2.3 million? In France, this would equate to 580,000 deaths. And for the US, about 2.8 million – more than the total of all American wars combined, including the civil war. Nearly 70% of Gaza’s population has been forced into exile. So why not compare that, too? It’s the equivalent to about 50 million French people and nearly 200 million Americans.