Ukraine Crisis Exposed Western Hypocrisy: Why should Europeans be deemed different from those in Middle East?

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The conflict in Ukraine has revealed the reality of the West's so-called universal values. As a result, social media users have criticized Western authorities and media outlets for their views about the Ukraine conflict in Europe compared to other conflicts. When one set of regulations is applied differently to one group than to another, this is referred to as a double standard.

On social media, the rapidity with which the worldwide response, including Russia's banning from some cultural events, has sparked outrage at the lack of a similar response to other global problems, including Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Afghanistan—contrasting this with the representation and response to conflict victims in non-Western locations such as the Middle East.

Similarly, media analysts, reporters, and policymakers have been accused of cynicism for praising Ukraine's military resistance to Russian soldiers while simultaneously expressing shock at the idea of such a conflict taking place in Muslim nations.

Such double standards have sparked uproar on social media, demonstrating the West's attitude toward the European crisis, which has claimed the lives of "those with blue eyes and blonde hair". Unfortunately, the West's skewed perspective is also mirrored in its material impact on individuals affected by conflict in areas like Palestine, Afghanistan, or Yemen (Salman, 2022).

"Israel's" persistent aggression and persecution of the Palestinian people are well documented. In most European countries, cities have come to condemn "Israel's" bombardment of Gaza and appropriation of its citizens, alongside prominent artists and activist groups. Nonetheless, the UK and several other Western countries continue to provide diplomatic and military backing for colonial activities while benefitting from a significant arms trade.

Apart from the long-standing oppression of Palestinians as second-class citizens, Israeli-Palestinian hostilities have resulted in tens of thousands of deaths over the decades they have lasted. They erupted most recently in May 2021, when freedom protests devolved into 11 days of airstrikes and explosions that cost the lives of over 250 Palestinians.

The West's double standards condemned Russia for invading Ukraine while overlooking Israeli crimes against Palestinians. This crisis in Europe has shown terrible double standards. Palestinians have witnessed a world flipped upside down since the Ukraine crisis. If Palestinians fight for Palestine, they would be labeled as terrorists.

Moreover, despite the Israeli occupation's atrocities, ethnic cleansing, and racial persecution, no one is holding "Israel" accountable for acting as if it were a state above the law. Palestine had been occupied for decades, and the West had offered zero condemnation despite years of harsh rule, land theft, and violations of international law.

Significantly, what's going on in Ukraine and how it's being portrayed in the media is an example of how the West can pick and choose which movements to support. Daily, war crimes are committed against Palestinians. "Israel" bombs and invades Palestine whenever it gets the chance. Hospitals, houses, and schools are bombed and attacked, but little is published in the media to recognize Palestine's suffering. For the crisis in Ukraine, Western countries apply one set of norms, but for emergencies in the Middle East, they adopt a different set of rules. 

Since the Ukraine crisis started, there has been an outpouring of support for Ukrainians across the Western world. A CBS News senior correspondent said earlier, "This isn't a location like Iraq or Afghanistan, where conflict has raged for decades. This is a reasonably cultured, European city where you wouldn't expect or want for something like that to happen”. Similarly, a commentator on France's BFM TV remarked "We are in the twenty-first century, we are in a European city, and we have cruise missile fire as if we were in Iraq or Afghanistan, can you imagine?".

Furthermore, the western media presents racist reporting that normalizes violence in non-European regions by contrasting the besieged Ukrainians with the people of the Middle East. This type of analysis mirrors a widespread trend in Western journalism to normalize tragedy in places like the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. It dehumanizes and makes their war experience seem normal and expected. 

Most importantly, the moves in support of Ukraine, on the other hand, have enraged people all over the Middle East. Many people there believe that Western countries have a double standard for dealing with international crises. Palestinians react to the disparity between how the Western media portrays Ukraine and Palestine.

Notably, the Chinese Foreign Ministry stressed that all countries' legitimate security concerns should be respected. By abandoning double standards, regional hotspot concerns can be dealt with fairly, and lasting peace in Europe and other parts of the world be attained.

Consequently, the West's lack of regard and support for all humans is apparent. Instead, they care about and support those who benefit from their political and financial interests. Compared to a situation similar to the Ukrainian crisis, the West's interests are part of why media coverage of the Middle East and what happens there is so poor. Europeans are entitled to protect themselves and their freedoms, but when Muslims do the same thing, they are classified as something altogether different. 

The Palestinian conflict does not receive much attention in Western media because it "doesn't fit Western media's narrative. However, the amount of positive media coverage and sympathy shown to Ukraine in recent days has been astonishing. It's incomparable to the kind of coverage the Palestinian people have received from the international media and world leaders over the last seven decades.

Why should Europeans be treated differently than the people in the Middle East? Despite the fact that Westerners promote so-called universal principles every day, the slanted coverage in the Western media exposes the underlying essence of white supremacy that exists in the West. Westerners believe that conflicts should not take place in a "reasonably civilized" Europe populated by people with blonde hair and blue eyes. Their thinking is that people in "non-white" regions like Iraq and Afghanistan deserve war, yet wars waged by the United States and its European allies should not be stopped or criticized. Hence, the West's exploitation of the Ukraine situation in recent days has outstripped all of its previous rhetoric on Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. (GT, 2022).