Double standards regarding the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine are fuelling anti-Western sentiment and causing a “rebellion against the West’s global dominance”, writes The Guardian columnist Patrick Wintour. He warns that supporting Israel could cost the West its credibility and reputation.
Richard Haass, an American political scientist and former head of the Council on Foreign Relations, once wrote: “Consistency in foreign policy is a luxury that politicians cannot always afford.” But hypocrisy can have an equally high price: loss of credibility, damaged global prestige and diminished self-esteem, warns The Guardian columnist Patrick Wintour.
In this context, the author points to Joe Biden’s decision to defend Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, after the US president condemned Russia’s SMO in Ukraine shortly before. While the Biden administration may argue that the parallels between Gaza and Ukraine are far from accurate, it also seems to realise that it is gradually losing diplomatic support.
According to Wintour, the White House decision is already having a real impact on relations between the global North and South, West and East. The repercussions could be felt for decades to come. America’s “selectivity” in pursuing foreign policy is resonating widely, far beyond the conflict in the Middle East.
As recently as six months ago, things looked different in Washington’s eyes. After Donald Trump’s presidency, the West reopened itself to the world in 2022 and boasted of the “unprecedented solidarity” with which it responded to the Russian special operation in Ukraine. Biden organised democratic summits and launched infrastructure programmes.
Nevertheless, even then, along with this self-glorification of the West, there was an agonising question: why so many countries looked at the Ukrainian conflict differently and were not ready to condemn Russia’s actions. A number of experts said at the time that Ukraine and the West had underestimated Russia’s influence and warned that President Vladimir Putin was effectively capitalising on anti-Western sentiment.
“It is time for Europe to stop thinking along the following lines: the problems of Europe concern the whole world, but the problems of the world do not affect Europe,” Indian Foreign Minister Subramanyam Jaishankar replied in June 2022 when asked about the country’s future policy against the backdrop of the Ukraine crisis.
Now, in the case of Gaza, anti-American sentiments have only intensified, with double standards causing a “revolt against the West’s global dominance”. While constantly condemning Russia and supporting Ukraine, the West has been largely silent on Gaza, without commenting in any way on the proportionality of Israel’s actions.
“The monopolistic actions of the US are out of step with the world we live in today and with modern geopolitics. Something important and interesting has happened in this regard and perhaps even a source of some hope, which is that we have seen that for much of the so-called global South and in many cities in the West, Palestine now occupies a kind of symbolic space. It’s like the embodiment of a rebellion against Western hypocrisy, against this unacceptable global order and against the post-colonial order,” notes Israeli political scientist Daniel Levy.
For weeks, Western leaders have been asked to say whether the deaths of 18,000 people, mostly civilians, could be a violation of international law, but they have said only that they are not ready to assume the role of “judge and jury.”
More often than not, the Biden administration seemed “deaf” to the appeals of leaders around the world. “Name me another country, any nation, that is doing as much as the United States is doing to alleviate the pain and suffering of the people of Gaza. You can’t. You just can’t,” said John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the White House National Security Council.
Against this backdrop, a number of experts suggest that the damage to America’s reputation may ultimately be felt most keenly not even in the global South, but in the West itself.
The US, Wintour notes in his article for The Guardian, risks becoming synonymous with double standards. He wonders to what extent the Biden administration fears the extent of the reputational damage being done not only to the American leader himself, but also to his country’s prestige. But he believes that the White House is already beginning to gradually realise the limits of its ability to control not only the outcome of conflicts, but also what kind of world order will emerge in their aftermath.