By Badie Younes

Since October 7th, analyzes and expectations have been increasing. Some of them are rational, realistic, and pragmatic that are worth learning about, while other analyzes tend to be intensely emotional, dominated by wishes, and in which subjective fantasies prevail at the expense of rationality and what is happening on the ground.

Some standards have changed since Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, and these are some of its indicators:

1- Russia’s condemnation of its devastating war on Ukraine, its destruction of infrastructure, and its occupation of lands in a neighboring country did not apply to the same extent and level to what is happening in Gaza. Many countries refrained from condemning Israel for its brutal and devastating aggression, invasion and destruction of the Gaza Strip. What is not permissible in Donetsk, Luhansk, and the cities of Ukraine appears to be permissible in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, becoming “legitimate” in the international malice against the Palestinian people.

2- Washington complained about Moscow’s repeated use of its veto in the Security Council to protect its war in Ukraine. This use was described in the ugliest terms, to the point of turning the countries of the world against the United Nations Charter, and against the Security Council system, even demanding that its working methods be modified and the number of its members be changed. On the other hand, the United States used its veto more than once to protect Israel in its aggression, to prevent the delivery of aid, and to prevent the opening of humanitarian corridors. It allowed its use of its veto to destroy hospitals, clinics, schools, and places of worship.

Tehran kept the Hezbollah Party in a safe location to avoid exposing it to painful blows, and thus its interests converged with those of Tel Aviv and with the interests of the “Great Satan” in preventing the expansion of the war and its extension to the Lebanon front.

3- Usually, Moscow reacts to every threat, big or small, and seeks to protect its allies or friends around the world. However, since the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, it has not taken any hard-line stance against Israel. Rather, it informed the Hamas delegation during its visit to the Russian capital that it “aspires to protect the large Russian community in Israel” instead of taking a clear public position aimed at protecting Palestinian civilians from the oppression of Israel and the oppression of settlers.

4- In turn, as is its habit of remaining neutral, Beijing did not take any explicit position in support of the Palestinian issue. China does not want to support one party over another. It prefers neutrality between the conflicting parties at the expense of humanitarian and moral standards.

5- For their part, the European countries that were quick to stand up to Russia in its war on Ukraine, most of their leaders visited Tel Aviv to show solidarity with Israel, to the point that Netanyahu bragged about saying, “The world leaders are telling me in secret the opposite of what they are saying publicly.”

6- As for talking about ambiguity and the malice of dualities, talk about them without embarrassment when it is Iran’s turn. Tehran boasts of its “Quds Force” and its support for the Palestinian cause, while it has not fired a single shot in support of the causes of the Palestinian people. However, in Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, it deliberately created discord among the Palestinians and prevented them from unifying their words and agreeing on a single strategy. It supported factions against other factions to fuel disagreement with the aim of controlling the factions, and thus subjugating these forces to serve Iran’s agenda at the expense of the legitimate goals of the Palestinian people. Tehran converged with Tel Aviv to fuel the Palestinian-Palestinian conflict. It formed the other side of the coin with the Israeli extreme right and fueled it with its extremism.

7- Both Iran and the party initially sought to disavow the Al-Aqsa Flood operation, only to fall back into contradiction when its officials, leaders, and media bragged about its role and that “Iran was the one who lifted the Palestinian revolution from the stage of the stone intifada to the level and era of missiles and marches, and gave the armed struggle its momentum and scope.”

Double standards are not limited to the United States and Western society, but also include other parties that may be confronting America and its allies, such as Russia, China, and Iran.

8- Tehran kept the party in a safe location to avoid exposing it to painful blows, and thus its interests converged with the interest of Tel Aviv and with the interest of the “Great Satan” in preventing the expansion of the war and its extension to the Lebanon front. It also kept the Golan front calm, where Iran and the party have a direct presence, but both Damascus and Tehran do not want to expand the war or get involved in it, nor do they want an actual confrontation in order to ward off the possibility of the fall of the Syrian regime and prevent the actual balance of power from being exposed. Meanwhile, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and eastern Syria were mobilized to claim that the principle of “unity of arenas” had not collapsed as a result of practical reality. While in reality, since the second day of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, no military action, including the party’s daily bombing of Israeli settlements, has changed the nature of Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. Then came the Houthi movement in the Red Sea and its threat to international shipping to prove that Iran’s agenda towards Washington is not related to Gaza, but rather to the nuclear negotiations, enrichment, billions, releasing deposits, and lifting the blockade on the export of oil and gas, in anticipation of the results of the presidential elections in America and the loss of the Democratic Party.

Double standards are not limited to the United States and Western society, but also include other parties that may be confronting America and its allies, such as Russia, China, and Iran. With the Gaza war, the world has become without fixed standards, as interests have come before everything else and international institutions and their laws have become in vain.