by Gretchen Small (EIRNS) — Mar. 22, 2024
March 22, 2024 (EIRNS)—With Secretary of State Tony Blinken at his side, host Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry warned yesterday that the Arab and Muslim world’s continued cooperation with the United States and the so-called “rules-based order” is being called into question by the refusal to act to end the military and humanitarian assault on the Palestinians.
The occasion was the joint press conference held by Blinken and Shoukry in Cairo on March 21 after their larger meeting with ministers and officials from Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., Jordan, Qatar, and the Palestinian Authority. Blinken spoke as if everyone there were best of allies and so a solid consensus had been reached. Then Reuters asked Shoukry if he was bothered about such double standards as the U.S. withholding $85 million in military aid to Egypt last year on grounds of alleged violation of human rights, and U.S. “unwillingness to use the same leverage on Israel.”
Shoukry brushed off the dispute over U.S. military aid, but took up “the broader issue of double standards” towards the Palestinian cause.
“We are concerned that the world’s rules-based order is under severe stress because of a perception and an application of double standards as relates to the Palestinian cause in comparison to other conflicts in the world, whether in terms of humanitarian, in terms of human rights, in terms of cessation of hostilities—which has always been the basic principle of international order … that in any conflict there should be an immediate cessation and halt to military activity and resolution of a conflict through diplomatic channels.
“So the moral basis upon which we can rely on a world order is being strained directly because of a sense in many quarters—among them ourselves, many of our Arab and Muslim colleagues—is that there is an application of a double standard. And this should be recognized as a severe challenge to our ability to work together, to continue to cooperate on a predictable set of principles that should govern all our—of our actions.”