As the US-led West rushes to support Israel in its war against Hamas regardless of the escalating civilian death toll, much of the Global South is questioning the perception of their “different evaluations of the cost of human life”, Robinder Sachdev, geopolitical and economic diplomacy analyst and founder president of India's The Imagindia Institute - a non-partisan think-tank - told Sputnik.
“The West, especially the US, thinks that it is bound in duty to protect Israel at any cost. So if there is an attack on Israel, the US would normally condemn it and stand with Israel. Where it gets tricky is the point when Israel says it has a right to defend itself … To which the West also agrees, ‘You have a right to defend yourself’ … Where it gets lost, I think, is: to what extent your right to defend yourself exceeds commonly understood terms of what a retaliation of attack on you could be … Now here Israel has gone beyond cold calculations … And has vowed to eliminate Hamas totally,” said the pundit.
Furthermore, under the present circumstances, it would be increasingly difficult for the West to continue to press the Global South to support the NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, Sachdev emphasized. He agreed with a recent opinion cited in a US media report that claimed that unequivocal Western support for Israel’s pummeling of Gaza has “poisoned efforts to build consensus with significant developing countries” regarding supporting the Kiev regime.
Western officials and diplomats had been cited as warning that the response to the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, coupled with Israel’s retaliatory actions, had exposed Washington, Brussels, and their allies to “charges of hypocrisy". Amid the latest spiral of the Palestine-Israel conflict, there has been a flurry of shuttle diplomacy from Western officials, but although they avidly professed support for Israel, they have been faulted for failing to defend the interests of 2.3 million Palestinians.
As it is, efforts of leading Western states to draw the Global South, such as India, Brazil and South Africa, away from Russia over the Ukraine conflagration had spectacularly failed. But backlash over the Western response to the Palestine-Israel conflict, officials reportedly said, only served to “solidify” positions in the developing world regarding Russia, and would probably “derail future diplomatic efforts on Ukraine".
“We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South… All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost… They won’t ever listen to us again,” a senior G7 diplomat was cited as saying.
In the present situation, when the death toll mounts in Gaza, the enclave is gripped by a humanitarian catastrophe, and Israel’s ground offensive looms, there are “stark contradictions” to which countries of the Global South are increasingly drawing attention, Sachdev said.
Looking at it from a purely humanitarian perspective, as the developing countries were doing, when civilians are killed in the Gaza region, that is not a war crime – that is the narrative that appears to be pushed by the West, said the expert.
Just recently, the United States showed its true intentions when it vetoed the UN Security Council resolution seeking a humanitarian pause in the Israel-Hamas war, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy said. Washington had vetoed a Brazilian-drafted UN Security Council resolution that calls on Israel to rescind its evacuation order for Gazans. Russia and the United Kingdom had abstained. Russia had sought to amend the draft resolution to include a condemnation of "indiscriminate attacks" against civilians in Gaza, "in particular the heinous strike against al-Ahli hospital", and also to include a call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. The UN Security Council rejected both proposed amendments.
Palestinians react to the debris after an Israeli strike near an United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023.
© AFP 2023 / MAHMUD HAMS
The "comparative value of life in one situation, versus another situation - that's the big picture," and this is what is alienating the Global South, Sachdev said, adding:
"The perceptions of the [Palestine-Israel] conflict, perhaps, are that the value of a life in a Western nation is different from the value of life in a non-Western nation. That's the bottom line, I think: a disconnect, which is out there."
He added that “public opinion in the global South will go more against the US interests as a consequence of this unfortunate conflict in the Gaza.”
20 October 2023, 16:46 GMT
After his brief visit to wartime Tel Aviv on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden, who voiced determination to support Tel Aviv, requested more than $105 billion from Congress in aid to Ukraine and Israel, along with other "national security needs". If greenlighted, a whopping $61.4 billion would be allocated to Ukraine, and $14.3 billion would go to Israel.
The US and collective West will face challenges in their relations with the Global South, Sachdev emphasized. He added that the "public opinions in the countries of Global South will diminish their respect of the West".
On Saturday, as the Cairo Summit for Peace took place in the Egyptian capital with the participation of over 30 states and a series of international organizations, the first 20 trucks with medical supplies and food for residents of the Gaza Strip passed through the Rafah checkpoint on the border with Egypt. Their cargo was handed over to the Palestinian Red Crescent, the Egyptian branch of the humanitarian organization said in a statement on 21 October. However, it was also reported that participants of the summit were unable to adopt a final statement because of disagreements between the Arab and European delegations over the wording "Israel's right to self-defense" and the issue of condemning Palestinian movement Hamas.
Sachdev pointed to "group think” in the West, when they are "not even thinking what this tragedy conflict means for the people in Gaza". The pundit's words ring particularly true as reports reveal that the United States has distributed to the UN Security Council a draft resolution on the conflict in the Gaza Strip, condemning Hamas, recognizing Israel's right to self-defense, but not calling for a ceasefire. The draft, obtained by Sputnik, reaffirms "Israel's inherent right of individual and collective self-defense" as well as respect for international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.
"The West is going along with Israel’s right to defend itself… which is disproportionate… Which speaks to the narrative that the value of life in Israel is more than the value of a child's life in Gaza," Sachdev repeated.