Egregious double standards

Always applied in this region, double standards are particularly egregious these days.

The Syrian air force is roundly condemned for striking insurgent held strongholds with barrel bombs while the Western world remains silent as Iraqi helicopters target Mosul, sometimes with barrel bombs, held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and Israel pounds Gaza, once again.

Sanctions are imposed on the Syrian government while insurgents trying to topple it are trained, financed and armed by the West and its Arab allies, and the Iraqi regime is bolstered by both the US and Iran. Israel, is, of course, given everything its heart desires and applauded in its battle against Hamas “terrorists.” The most contradictory attitude held by the West is the line adopted toward ISIL in Syria and ISIL in Iraq. The prime mover on the Western front, the US, is determined to oust the secular Syrian government even at the price of indirectly aiding the ISIL by providing guns and funds to other Syrian insurgent groups which cooperate with the ISIL. But Washington is determined to preserve the Shia fundamentalist regime in Iraq and destroy the ISIL in that country. No matter that the government in Baghdad is deeply indebted to Tehran, Washington’s rival for regional hegemony, and Iran and its Shia allies in Baghdad are providing aid to Damascus.

The US is following a nonsensical policy. The ISIL is the ISIL wherever it has taken root.

If US President Barack Obama had not called for Syrian President Bashar Assad to stand down in August 2011 at a time he was still strong and in charge, Washington might have adopted a more pragmatic approach to the Syrian conflict and the ISIL would not have been a threat to the entire region and beyond at this point in time. Now that Assad has reasserted his control over Damascus province, the area along the Lebanese border, Homs and portions of the south while the so-called “moderate” insurgents are in disarray, Obama continues to cling to a policy that is both obsolete and foolhardy.

The policy the US has adopted towards Israel has been nonsensical for decades. The US cannot close its eyes to Israel’s colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem (as Washington did of Gaza earlier on) and finance and arm Israel so it can defend its illegal expropriation of Palestinian land and harsh treatment of Palestinians, then complain about Israel’s excesses.

This week’s Israeli air strikes on Gaza are totally out of proportion to the random rockets fired by Palestinian fighters that fell on wasteland in southern Israel, damaging nothing and harming no one. Israel also called up 40,000 reservists in anticipation of a possible ground assault on Gaza, the first since the devastating operation Cast Lead of 2008-09 in which 1,450 Gazans were killed and hundreds of homes, businesses and public buildings destroyed.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon warned that the current Gaza campaign could be protracted. He said the objective would be to “exact a very heavy price from Hamas.” Israel’s ultimate goal is to drive Hamas from power in Gaza but has failed to achieve this end through military onslaught, siege and blockade, keeping 80 per cent of the 1.5 million Gazans on the brink of starvation and depriving them of medicines and other essential goods.

Israel can bomb and starve Gaza at will but the Syrian government must tip-toe around insurgents who take over entire villages, towns and quarters of major cities and use their hapless inhabitants as human shields while assaulting the Syrian army and taking further territory.

The current flare up involving Israel and the Palestinians followed the kidnap and murder of three Israeli teenage West Bank settlers and the brutal revenge slaying of a Palestinian teenager from occupied East Jerusalem by Israeli extremists. Israel blamed Hamas for the abduction and killing of the Israeli teens and bombed Gaza in retribution although the boy disappeared in the West Bank.

Whoever kidnapped the Israelis clearly wanted to scupper the Fateh-Hamas unity government. The abduction played right into Israel’s hands because Israel does not want Fateh and Hamas to get together and seeks to isolate Gaza from the West Bank as it has largely isolated East Jerusalem from the West Bank. Weak and divided Palestinians are less of a problem for Israel than Palestinians united under a decisive leadership and firm policy guidelines. The Palestinians, who have very clear demands, have suffered from vacillation and failure to stick to the policy they have set for themselves for too long.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas only agreed to the unity government after Israel scuppered US Secretary of State John Kerry’s effort to forge a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israelis. Israel defeated Kerry by simply carrying on with the colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, announcing the construction of new housing units every time he arrived at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on his mission to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by brokering the emergence of a Palestinian state on Palestinian land.

Israel has always rejected this possibility and is determined to block any and every attempt to effect the “two state solution,” adopted by the entire international community, including the US. Instead of leaning on Israel, the US pumps in more money and more arms while the Fateh-run Palestinian Authority is chastised for forming a unity government with the aim of ending the split with Hamas.

The permutations of double standards go on and on, particularly in this region where the exercise of might by some is right while the use of force by others is a ticket to The Hague where the International Criminal Court is based.