In the Palestinian village of Bil’in, known for its creative nonviolent demonstrations against Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, protesters approached the separation wall built on their land, covered in Ukrainian flag overalls. What happened next proved to demonstrate the stark double standards applied to those who are not on the side of the collective West.

Demonstrations have taken place every Friday for over 17 years in the village of Bil’in, located West of Ramallah city, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Throughout the years, the village has hosted some of the most creative attempts to break the sound barrier that surrounds the Palestinian cause internationally and to shine a light on the ongoing usurpation of Palestinian lands. Yet, when Palestinians attempted to draw parallels between their suffering and that of civilians in Ukraine, the media chose to ignore them.

Back in April of 2022, Palestinians decided to begin covering themselves in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, attempting to draw parallels between their cause and the narrative surrounding what is going on in Ukraine. They held signs stating “Palestine 74 years of suffering," attempting to strike a chord with Western audiences. The protesters also wore helmets, in the shape of globes, and covered their eyes, ears, and mouths to symbolize the continuous silence of the international community on Palestinian suffering. Following these demonstrators and speaking to those present, it became apparent that their intent was to show onlookers, not only that they sought to draw comparisons between the Western narrative on Ukraine, but also that they sought to point out the double standards of the international media that willingly ignore their suffering.

One of the protesters, who stood with those covered in Ukrainian flag colors and wished to remain anonymous out of fear of Israeli persecution, said, “Everyone stands with Ukrainian civilians, basically it's the world… why is it then that after all these years of military occupation and suffering, the world will not stand with us too?” This specific demonstration, shown in the photos presented here, was organized to recognize Palestinian Land Day [March 30], a yearly nationwide occasion that began following a 1976 crackdown on Palestinian citizens who had risen up nonviolently in Al-Jalil, in opposition to "Israel’s" illegal seizure of thousands of dunams of Palestinian land.

Following the demonstrators who had covered themselves in the Ukrainian flag, paying specific attention to one individual who seemed to be the most animated, turned out to be revealing. One man, captured in the photographs below, decided to set old tires on fire in front of Israeli occupation forces sent to quell the peaceful protest. However, he did not do so without paying a price.

Seemingly out of nowhere, an Israeli soldier fired a teargas canister that directly hit the man clearly wearing the colors of the Ukrainian flag. He immediately dropped to the ground screaming in pain.

Khalil, the Palestinian man who was shot with the tear gas canister, says, “We wanted to show the world that even if we dress in the Ukrainian flag, the occupation will still deal with us the same way.” 

Showing his frustration, Khalil stated the following, “I see the suffering in Ukraine every day on social media, and I see the world's outrage. I wanted to defy the occupation and show my solidarity with all the civilians suffering. When I did this, they shot me directly with a tear gas bullet [canister]. I fell to the ground from shock, and I lay there thinking, how is it that people can’t see us in the same way as they see Ukrainian civilians; aren’t we both suffering from an occupation right now, and haven’t the Israelis said they are against the occupation in Ukraine? But for them, they couldn’t see it as we can, we have been suffering for seventy-four years, we know what war is like, and we all feel the war every day, I couldn’t help myself but think that some of these soldiers probably support Ukraine and even the soldier who shot me could have supported Ukraine, but he still shot at me even with the flag all over my body. Wow. When will people learn the truth?”

Another young protester, Osama Tamimi, son of the well-known journalist and activist Bilal Tamimi, was shot with live ammunition in both his arm and leg that day. Many Israelis have shown their sympathies for Ukraine and even demonstrated in “Tel Aviv” for the Israeli government to take in more Ukrainian refugees. The Israeli government itself has responded with sympathy for Kiev and voted at the United Nations to condemn Russia for launching its special military operation. Yet, the irony of occupying a people's land simultaneously, with a military force that will shoot at unarmed Palestinians, even when they wear the Ukrainian flag, is truly striking.

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If anything, this shows that the soldiers who attacked the demonstrators were either incapable of seeing the similarities in the Ukrainian and Palestinian struggles that the protesters were attempting to highlight, or they simply did not care. Regardless, the images speak for themselves.

The Palestinian people are living under what is described by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and "Israel’s" top human rights group B’Tselem as an apartheid system. While the Western world has rallied behind the Ukrainian cause, this support has not manifested itself in the same way for the Palestinians; something that Palestinians in the West Bank see as reflective of the “double standards” of the West, according to several local residents of Bil’in who used these exact words. 

“We see how the world is dealing with the situation in Ukraine and also know how they have been dealing with the Palestinians for seventy-four years now, so we decided to bring attention to our case. And at the same time, our message is that war everywhere is wrong,” said Mohammed Khatib, a human rights activist from Bil’in. “We are against war. We are against any invasion. And all we ask the international community is for them to deal with Palestine as they are dealing with the case of Ukraine.”

Mohammed went on to say, “We held up a banner pointing out the silence on the issue of Palestinian suffering, we did this while standing up to Israeli forces to show the world that as unarmed civilians facing the Israeli occupation, we too represent suffering just as Ukrainian civilians do.”

“I feel that civilians everywhere are the same. You know, when you speak about the children here, are they not the same as the children there, in Ukraine? Maybe the international community doesn't care about the killing of our children, because they are, you know, not white, but for us, we are the same, we are human. People everywhere need human rights.”

“You ask us if we were surprised that they shot a young boy that day [during the demonstration on March 30], even with us wearing the Ukraine flag? We were prepared for this because we know we aren’t seen as equals. Yet, through our artistic expressions at these demonstrations here in the village of Bil’in, we know that art can reach a world that may not see us the same way as the occupation does.”

In the first weeks of Russia’s war with Ukraine, news reporters across Western media justified their pro-Ukrainian bias based on the country’s European and White identity. Most infamously, CBS’ Senior foreign correspondent, Charlie D’Agata, expressed his shock at the war in Ukraine by saying that such violence isn’t expected in a “relatively civilized, relatively European” nation, which he said wasn’t “like Iraq or Afghanistan." This sort of false dichotomy may be part of the reason why Israeli soldiers are incapable of comprehending the attempts by Palestinian demonstrators to draw parallels between their fight against an invading military force and the fight of the Ukrainian civilian population. That is to say that those classed as outside of the civilized world - AKA, the West - are not capable of being as human as those living in the so-called civilized nations.

Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was welcomed to address "Israel’s" Knesset a number of times and did so to draw comparisons between the Israeli predicament and the Ukrainian one; before asking for further military assistance. “We are in different countries and in completely different conditions. But the threat is the same: for both us and you – the total destruction of the people, state, and culture. And even of the names: Ukraine, Israel,” Zelensky said in his speech. However, despite Ukrainian President Zelensky’s framing of this and the Israeli support for the Ukrainian regime, some Palestinians are able to transcend this relationship and seek to point out the similarities between all those who suffer in war. Unarmed Palestinians, covered in the colors of the Ukrainian flag, were fired upon by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank to prove just that. 

“An end to the occupation should be universal and not limited based upon geography or ethnicity," said one of the demonstrators, who asked for his identity to be concealed. While the governments and media of the collective West claim that Russia should be opposed to “occupation” and “annexation” in Ukraine, the decades-long Zionist occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian lands is ignored. Ultimately, it then begs the question, are these media outlets and governments even qualified to determine what occupation is, let alone cast moral judgments?