To: Les H who wrote (40425 ) 1/26/2024 9:24:20 AM From: Les H Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Chatham House is one of the most prestigious international relations think tanks so when its director @bronwenmaddox gives her annual lecture, it is an occasion. She framed her criticism of the West’s stance towards Israel in a broader context of its mounting impact on the claims in the Global South that the West exhibits double standards. She said “The consent of many countries for supporting the old order is unravelling and that is partly because of the accusation from many countries that those that wrote the rules 70 years ago wrote them in their own favour and respect them only when it suits them”. Although she said this accusation is not novel, “it needs to be answered if support for international law and institutions is to continue”. She said “There are not many countries that initially denied Israel a right to respond to the deliberate slaughter by Hamas on October 7, but Israel's bombardment and constraint on humanitarian aid has lost it much of the world support, and there is cause for that. “It is entirely possible to condemn Hamas and now to criticise Israel for its response and for the casualties that it has caused. Even in the US and the UK some of Israel’s warmest supporters have begun to say so”. She said the "white hot" criticism of the West for months has been that “it cares about Ukrainian suffering and not Palestinian, that it defends international law in Ukraine, but not the West Bank and Gaza or Iraq. If countries that support Ukraine and are working for peace in the middle east do not realise how powerful this charge has become, or answer it, they will fail to help solve either conflict or other such as in Sudan”. She added "they will also fail to understand how this charge is a challenge to the waning respect for the old principles of world order and the contest that is going on about new ones". Kudos to her for addressing head-on the difficult accusations of western double standards. Right to say western countries have national interests so degree of inconsistency inevitable, but West has left its principles open to being weaponised by luminous hypocrites such as Russia. She said unsure either UK front bench prepared to voice the concerns of Britain's younger generation about UK foreign policy
