DOUBBLE STANDARD AND INTERNATIONAL HYPOCRISY
By Ali Abu Habla
February 22, 2025
Translated from Arabic by Ibrahim Ebeid
The weakness and fall of the Ottoman Empire and the intervention of external hegemonic powers on the countries and peoples of the region, where the world is witnessing double standards and international legal hypocrisy, and since the campaign of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1801 AD, as well as the German intervention since 1930 AD in the region that was under Ottoman occupation, up to the interventions of the victorious powers in the First World War, especially Britain and France, and until today, with their formation of the regional system and the international scene appropriate to their interests, hegemony and looting, the standards, laws and procedures followed were not the same in dealing and friction with peoples and the communities of the region.
If we monitor and follow the Charter of the United Nations, the body of international laws, international agreements and treaties, global and regional institutions, and this huge amount of legislation after the Second World War until now and in all disciplines, especially those related to international legitimacy, the approach and international legal interaction with the file of human rights, the sanctity of human life, various conflicts and the importance of achieving stability, there is a huge number of arrangements, formations, institutions and various committees in this context. But did the existing international laws and standards achieve the desired and maintain the stability and security of societies and peoples, and achieve justice and right, or contribute to it, even if in reasonable proportions, especially in the Middle East? Unfortunately, these laws and legislations within what is known as the Charter of the United Nations have become a tool for external powers to interfere in the affairs of the region, and similarly to the international authoritarian powers affiliated with the dominant powers in subjugating societies and peoples and liquidating our values, cultures and rich diversity under the banner of maintaining the central state formed through laws and agencies emanating from the application of these laws dedicated to preserving the authorities and regulations and far from the spirit of justice and the right equality, sharing and brotherhood in human life and its various fields.
Many approaches and examples prove international hypocrisy and the policy of double standards in how to deal and interact with the issues of the peoples of the region, including:
1- The just Palestinian cause: Despite all the excesses and practices of the Israeli entity, the predominance or legal superiority in international forums is often for the Israeli aggressor and not for the right, oppressed and wasted Palestinian right to his land and home, because Israel represents the nucleus of regional hegemony of the dominant world order.
We can say that the legal approach drawn and determined by the interests of global hegemony over the region, which affects the rights of many peoples of third world countries, including the rights of the Arab peoples, and how British, French, and Italian colonialism dominated the capabilities of these peoples and digested their rights, and our example is the French colonization of Algeria, Syria, and Lebanon, the Italian colonization of Libya, and the British colonization of Egypt. The irony is that several international legal institutions, including several courts, are also a case of legal theorization, institutional structures, and international bodies. Capitalism and global authoritarianism and their regional tools, where say about the crimes committed that they have justifications and need legal paths that must be taken by states, not peoples and societies, despite all the documents and evidence, as if whoever does not have a state or is not sponsored by a state must die and end, it is what resulted from international laws that only care about the structure of the law, its body, and its deceptive features, and not its just and true spirit and its application for the sake of man and society wherever it is. We have shown the decisions issued by the International Court of Justice regarding the war of extermination in The Gaza Strip, the decision of the International Criminal Court, the issuance of arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Galant, the US House of Representatives imposition of sanctions on the court’s employees and their daring to issue arrest warrants against American allies, so that the legislation of the US representatives comes to immunize America’s allies from international prosecution.
The Middle East, the state of confusion and chaos that exists, the state of instability, civil wars, the war of genocide in Gaza, calamities, lack of solutions and the spread of chaos, which is due to laws and the issue of national sovereignty in the countries of the region have also become indicators of duality and the state of qualitative relativity even in laws and dealing between countries according to the desire of the authorities and not according to the reality of these concepts and the interests of societies and peoples, for example, when a state interferes with the sovereignty of another state or people and the rights and unity of these countries and peoples are violated, this Perhaps the case of many countries in the region is a witness to the state of non-sovereignty or incomplete sovereignty, qualitative law and dual approach, and all forums and institutions of international law, its branches, courts and organizations are not enough to punish a state or authority for its transgressions and has influence and influential force, even if it is oppressive, invading and aggressor, or that its criminal behaviors are overlooked because it is one of the important tools for carrying out illegal acts of global domination. Monopoly as in the case of Israel, Turkey, and many other countries is one of the tools of global hegemony in the region.
The West and Human Rights
Western ideas centered on the human being and his rights began to emerge in the seventeenth century in the west of the European continent, after the emergence of the idea of citizenship in the state. This idea revolves around the fact that the citizen in the state has rights, and this state must respect them and not infringe on them, and then there was a lot of talk about these rights, and the term human rights became more popular in the eighteenth century in the period of American independence, which came with the saying: “All human beings are created equal.”
The slogans of equality, rights, and aspirations towards a decent life, embodied in the revolution of the French people in 1789, were born out of the suffering of the third class in French society at the time, a society whose philosophers formulated the principles of freedom, justice, and equality, laid the foundation stone for the development of human rights concepts and placed the responsibility for protecting them on the shoulders of the international community.
This upward trajectory in the formation of the theory of equal rights between human beings was followed by a succession of events between violations of human rights on the one hand towards colonial peoples or in Western societies themselves towards women, the poor and black people, and the intensification of interests and calls for the defense of human rights on the other hand, as local and international organizations and bodies were established, such as the League of Nations and the United Nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was in 1948.
From theorists to violators
In 1945, the Charter of the United Nations was promulgated, which states in paragraph 55 that the international community has a responsibility to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to sex, language, or religion.
In 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established, and ratified by most countries of the world, and all countries in general, and Western countries in particular, committed themselves to respect human rights in several conventions and conventions, such as the American Charter of Human Rights in 1950 and the Helsinki Convention of 1975.
At the popular level, people in many democratic countries have rushed to establish non-governmental institutions concerned with monitoring the extent of countries’ commitment to respect human rights, such as Amnesty International and American Freedom House, so that the slogans of freedoms, equality, and non-racial discrimination have become a culture in the world, which most people think that its pioneer is the European and American peoples, and the seeker must go through stages of intellectual and psychological development, and fill his thought with new ideas and opinions, and look through a lens Western to events and things, to fill the gap of backwardness between him and the civilized Western man, and be as close as possible to that Western model that must be generalized to all human beings, because, according to what he imagines, it is the most suitable and optimal model for man with values and principles.
Despite the existence of these governmental and non-governmental organizations and bodies, we are witnessing quite a few violations of human rights in the world, which were not the focus of the attention of the democratic Western world, but rather that not a few of these violations were responsible for countries that praised these rights, values, and principles or sponsored regimes that carried them out.
The United States of America was unique in its hegemony over the world after strengthening relations between it and European countries and establishing NATO in the face of the Soviet tide, until the events ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the extinction of communist thought against the capitalist orientation, as it became the upper hand over its allies, as well as its enemies, and took care of its interests in the world through its foreign policies, as the political scene in the world is almost not free of interference by the United States of America in the internal policies of countries, especially third world countries.
These interventions, under the slogans of confronting terrorism and spreading democracy in the world, are accompanied by huge and extensive media campaigns to strengthen them with local and international support, but the interventions of the United States of America were not only political interventions. On the contrary, the calamities, wars, and violations of human rights witnessed by several countries in the world were signed by the United States. According to what the Chinese diplomatic mission in Moscow published in a tweet, the United States attacked or bombed 33 countries after World War II.
As indicated by the study of the costs of war conducted by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University, the number of victims of the United States of America under the pretext of fighting terrorism since 2000 until today exceeded 929 thousand people, and the US military operations in Afghanistan caused the death of 174 thousand people, including more than 30 thousand civilians, and the injury of more than 60 thousand people, in addition to the painful images and scenes of American soldiers torturing prisoners with the most heinous types of torture that spread in prisons, such as Abu prisons. Strange and Guantánamo.
Beautiful values, principles, and names are concepts, perceptions, and behaviors that tickle feelings, and have their considerations and value in our contemporary life, but they turn into something else, or we can say, their ugly face appears at the moment of resolving the dispute with others or compromising private interests.
Dual application of human rights
About after the start of the war between Russia and Ukraine, which is no secret to anyone how powerful the media machine that injects a huge amount of lies and misinformation into it, to gain popular sympathy for Western-backed Ukraine to confront Russia, the greatest enemy of the Americans, the hidden face of that civilized West appeared, and racism and discrimination floated on the face of Europe, so the moral violation of the lowest human rights according to color, sex and religion, and the deprivation of the right to life according to color, sex and religion, and the people with white skin and blond hair became The colored eyes are more deserving of being evacuated from conflict and battle zones by black people and Arabs, Christians are more deserving of evacuation than Muslims, and Europeans are more deserving of survival than the people of poor and distant countries, such as Iraqis and Syrians.
Charlie Dagata, a reporter for the American network “CBS”, said that comparing the invasion of Ukraine with the war in Iraq or Afghanistan is not possible, because the war in Ukraine is “more civilized, and its people are European,” and explained that “Ukraine is relatively civilized and European, a country where you do not expect war to happen or hope that it will not happen.”
Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov said in a televised statement: “Ukrainian refugees are not the refugees we are used to. So we will welcome them. These are Europeans, intelligent and educated, and they don’t have a mysterious past, like terrorists.”
Programs on the right-wing French channel “BFM” included similar rhetoric since the beginning of the Russian invasion, including phrases such as: “We are not talking about Syrians fleeing the bombing of their Putin-backed regime, but we are talking about Europeans driving cars like ours,” while the British newspaper “The Telegraph” said: “This is a different war. “It’s a war against European people who look like us and use Netflix and Instagram, not a war against distant and poor countries.”
Finally, the former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine explained that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was very emotional for him, given that it included “the murder of blue-eyed Europeans with blond hair.”
This came in addition to the preparation for this war and the training of Ukrainian citizens by military organizations in the atmosphere of a possible war with the Russians. In other words, Ukrainian resistance movements were created to defend their territory against any possible Russian military attack inside Ukrainian territory. “People in big cities are used to the fact that conflict is far from them, and now they know that war can reach them,” says coach Sergei Vishnevsky.
Yes, it is well known that international law has given great importance to the principle of the right of people to self-determination, the right to self-defense, and the human right to live in freedom and dignity. Thus, from an international and global human rights point of view, Ukrainian civilians have the right to carry weapons, learn how to use them, and have combat experience, and there are calls for foreigners to join the ranks of fighters, through Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, too defend Ukraine and confront the Russians, in exchange for visa exemptions.
On the other hand, in countries far from the West, where Western military bases are spread in different regions to preserve various interests, whether political, economic, or military, especially the interests of the Israeli entity, which is a major advanced fulcrum for the West in the Middle East, the acquisition of weapons and their use for resistance too defend land and wealth and confront occupiers and invaders is considered terrorism and an excuse for Western military intervention or support for regimes that take care of Western interests in the Middle East. Area to eliminate it.
America’s plans for world domination
The United States will continue to look for ways and means, not to spread its democracy in the world, to dominate and control this world, which thought that the state of America could change and look for other roles such as spreading the culture of peace and coexistence, supporting the weak, and confronting any conspiracy aimed at destroying the world.
Noam Chomsky, the well-known American-Jewish thinker in his book “Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for World Domination”, analyzes with historical and logical gradation America’s quest for global supremacy, and tracks the relentless American policies to achieve complete and comprehensive control at any cost, and shows beyond any doubt that the recent manifestation of a policy of global control, starting with unilateralism of power to the dismantling of international agreements and ending with state terrorism, and the weaponization of space, is fully consistent with the unbridled desire for hegemony that threatens the survival and integrity of humanity.
Since the beginning of 2003, studies indicate increasing global fears of the United States, which has reached a high degree of hegemony and control, in addition to a lack of confidence in its political leadership, but despite what the current US administration and its planners seem to be extreme, its programs and curricula have roots in American history aspiring to global control, there is an abundance in history that shows the willingness of political leaders to threaten to resort to violence in the face of catastrophic risks, but the risk is much greater today, the choice between survival or hegemony did not It is not as intense as we are witnessing today.
In 2002, America announced its grand strategic agenda, which stated the intention of the most powerful country in history to maintain its hegemony through the threat of military force.
In that imperialist strategic agenda, the United States affirmed its intention to wage a “preventive war,” not a defensive war.
It is different from defensive warfare, and it even falls within the category of war crimes, especially if it is actually carried out according to “whose turn it is your turn”, and so the world is certainly in a big dilemma.
9/11 was used to build a new model of control that dismantled international law and institutions, gave the White House the power to ignore the rule of domestic law, and adopted an appropriate definition of terrorism. Although this crystallization is not a precedent, the performance of successive US administrations, whether in Latin America, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, or East Asia, follows a single foreign policy that has nothing to do with justice and respect for human rights.
Foreign policy was not the only beneficiary of employing the events of 9/11, but the administration took advantage of those events under the slogan of patriotism and national security and applied several extreme measures that ultimately benefited the rich and weakened social programs that serve the needs of the vast majority and increased the compliance of the terrified population to state control, as reducing government services, reducing taxes and increasing government spending on armaments benefited only the rich and high-tech companies, and this scenario, which employs fear, is not a new thing. Reagan and Bush Sr. before him, which resulted in a deteriorating economic situation, a great disparity in the distribution of wealth, and the encroachment of capital owners made these administrations also resort to inventing enemies and wars one after another, once in the external arena (such as the war in Latin America) and once on the domestic arena “such as the war on drugs and vagrants”, to keep popular support behind the administration and distract it from the important.
The problem of control
With the decline of the British role in the Middle East and the American intervention to take over that role, American policy needed an alien state that acted as local police and preserved American strategic gains in the region. Thus, with continued support for it and except its nuclear arsenal of embargoes and inspections, Israel has become the largest military power in the region, as Israel is a military and technological base for America, as the backbone of its economy is linked to a technological military system with a strong relationship with the American economy.
This explains the shift in the American position regarding Israel’s policies in the occupied territories and its terrorism against the population, as it moved from adopting the obligation to apply international conventions in the occupied territories to abstaining from voting, as during the Clinton era, to ignoring those charters completely and disregarding them, as in the era of Bush Jr.
The last years of the last century have witnessed a record of terrorism carried out with the support of great power and their allies, and the reason is simple, many benefits can be obtained such as money and goods deprived of the weak, including the aid received by Nicaragua, Turkey, Colombia, and El Salvador to suppress their citizens, cases that the United States considers successful despite the economic, political and social devastation inflicted by American policies, and America even wants to repeat this “success” in the Middle East through the frantic campaign towards “democracy”.
Researcher Christelle Gino believes that Western powers are risking their credibility when they defend human rights with double standards while trying to rally the support of the countries of the South within the United Nations in the face of growing Chinese influence. Her unjust attitude poses a serious dilemma… Interview.
In conclusion, when there is a clash between human and human rights values on the one hand, and the material interests of States on the other, it is unfortunate that these values fall and disappear, while material interests triumph, and it is also unfortunate that rights theorists recognize them only when they are used as a weapon against their opponents. This view and philosophy are due to the duality of human rights implementation.
Translated from Arabic by Ibrahim Ebeid
