by CHELSEA NGO MINH NGUYEN
The vastly different responses to the two wars reveal the hypocrisy at the heart of global statecraft
The last two years have witnessed impassioned debates about the role of the “Global South” in international politics to an extent not seen since the early 1980s. In early 2022, countries in the Global North criticized the Global South’s reluctance to participate in the unilateral sanctions against Russia, a country that invaded its neighbour — a clear violation of international law — and triggered a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By refusing to participate, the argument went, the countries of the Global South were crudely prioritizing their own strategic interests over the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, democracy, and human rights.
For the Global South, however, the overriding question since 24 February 2022 has been, would support for the West’s cause in Ukraine lead to a more egalitarian and consistent rules-based world order, or rather reinforce the hierarchical status quo, characterized by the selective application of and compliance with international law across different wars and occupations? The answer to that question has been on full display since Israel’s latest war on Gaza, triggered by the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, began. The result has been an ongoing collapse of confidence in the so-called “rules-based international order” not only in the eyes of the Global South, but also in the eyes of many feminist, environmentalist, and human rights movementsaround the world, who are appalled at their Western counterparts’ treatment of the Palestinians.
Popular anger continues to rage against a peripheralized, liberal notion of humanity that values civilian lives differently across different wars and occupations. On 21 November 2023, following Israel’s siege and destruction of the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, the Indonesian aid organization that ran the hospital, the Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, published a searing open letter to US President Joe Biden, stating: “You have destroyed the international rules of the game, insulted the authority of the United Nations (UN), torn apart the sense of justice, hurt human values, and tarnished the face of human civilization.”
On 21 October 2023, King Abdullah II of Jordan spoke against the West’s unabashed renunciation of international law when it comes to the Palestinian people: “The message that the Arab world is hearing is loud and clear. Palestinian lives matter less than Israeli ones. Our lives matter less than other lives. The application of the international laws is optional. Human rights have boundaries, they stop at borders, at races, at religions. That is a very, very dangerous message, as the consequences of continued international apathy and inaction will be catastrophic — on us all.”
Notwithstanding the internal contradictions and divergent “national interests” pursued by various states within the Global South, Western leaders, diplomats, and publics are living in denial as they continue to disregard this anger and provide, whether tacitly and openly, unconditional support for Israel’s occupation. By displaying such flagrant double standards, they undermine their own credibility in the eyes of billions. Indeed, the long-term consequences of this deepening but longstanding North–South alienation will be grave.
Western Moralizing and the Illusion of Reciprocity
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the West was unequivocal in its condemnation, while even in the Global South, shock and repugnance were common beneath the layers of official neutrality.
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