For 20 months, the Biden administration has attempted to stake out the moral high ground against Russia, condemning its brutal war on Ukraine for indiscriminately killing civilians.
The argument resonated in much of the West, but less so in other parts of the world, which viewed the war as more of a great-power conflict and declined to participate in sanctions or otherwise isolate Russia.
Now, as Israel bombards the Gaza Strip, killing more than 4,300 people since Oct. 7, the Biden administration’s unwavering support risks creating new headwinds in its efforts to win over global public opinion.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, President Biden tied American support for Ukraine and Israel together, describing both nations as democracies fighting enemies determined to “completely annihilate” them. Russia invaded and seeks to annex Ukraine, while Hamas, the group that controls Gaza and denies Israel’s right to exist, staged a terrorist attack that killed at least 1,400 people in southern Israel.
But Israel’s counterattack on Gaza, its threats to mount a ground invasion and America’s tight embrace of its most important Mideast ally, regardless, have prompted cries of hypocrisy.
Such accusations are not exactly new in the Middle East conflict. But the dynamics of the dual crises have gone beyond Washington’s desire to rally global support to isolate and punish Russia for invading its neighbor.
Increasingly, the Middle East region is emerging as a renewed front in the struggle for influence in the Global South — the collective name for the developing nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America — pitting the West against Russia and China.
“The war in the Middle East will drive a growing wedge between the West and countries like Brazil or Indonesia, key swing states of the Global South,” said Clifford Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a New York-based risk assessment organization. “That will make international cooperation on Ukraine, like sanctions enforcement on Russia, even harder.”
President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, which does not recognize Israel, has condemned the “ongoing injustices against the Palestinian people.” The Gaza war will only worsen the global situation, he said, threatening higher oil prices after the Ukraine war already slowed wheat exports.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has criticized U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine as “encouraging” the war but blamed both sides for the conflict and offered to mediate. Brazil, as president of the United Nations Security Council this month, drafted a Gaza humanitarian cease-fire resolution, which also explicitly condemned “heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas.”
After the United States vetoed the resolution because it did not mention Israel’s right to self-defense, Brazil’s ambassador to the United Nations, Sérgio França Danese, expressed frustration. “Hundreds of thousands of civilians in Gaza cannot wait any longer,” he said. “Actually, they have waited far too long.”
Arab leaders — including President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt, King Abdullah II of Jordan and the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud — all lashed out in speeches on Saturday at the Cairo peace summit at what they called double standards.
“Anywhere else, attacking civilian infrastructure and deliberately starving an entire population of food, water, basic necessities would be condemned, accountability would be enforced,” said King Abdullah. “International law loses all value if it is implemented selectively.”
Palestinians have criticized Western capitals for not expressing outrage over the bombing of Gaza similar to their labeling of Russian missile attacks against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure as “barbaric” and “crimes against humanity.”
When the war in Ukraine first broke out, Palestinians were elated by the tough stance taken by Western capitals against one country occupying another’s land, said Nour Odeh, a Ramallah-based Palestinian political commentator. “But it seems that occupation is only bad if the guys who are not on your side are doing it.”
In some ways the Gaza conflict has been a boon to the Kremlin, knocking the spotlight off the Ukraine war and burnishing Russia’s image in the Middle East and Global South. In recent years, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has sought to restore some of the Soviet Union’s lost…
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