By Khalid Amayreh

The ongoing Malian crisis looks quite minor when compared with far more tragic crises plaguing other part of the world. Yet, we have seen France, with the solid backing of the international community, embark on a bloody crusade to dislodge Islamist fighters from the sub-Saharan African country.

To be sure, the Islamist fighters in that region, particularly those affiliated with al Qaeda, are not quite sinless. However, it is sufficiently clear that whatever evil these people have or may have committed pales into insignificance when contrasted against the genocidal atrocities and injustices taking place in countries such as Myanmar, Syria and occupied Palestine.

In occupied Palestine, Israel, which was created by the West in the heart of the Arab world, has been slaughtering Palestinians and other Arabs rather wantonly for decades, destroying their homes, stealing their land and expelling them from their ancestral homeland to the four winds.

Yet, instead of pressuring the Nazi-like entity to give up occupied territories and accept peace, the West, including France, the US and Germany, chose to strengthen the Zionist entity militarily, politically and economically to the point of enabling her to defy the entire world, including its guardian-ally, the United States.

France, which prides itself on being the land of Liberté, égalité and fraternité had supplied Israel with a nuclear plant which enabled Israel to manufacture hundreds of atomic bombs and nuclear warheads which could incinerate millions of Muslims and Arabs whenever supremacist Zionist Jews feel like it.

It is the same France that sold Israel Mirage and Mystère IVs warplanes to murder Arab villagers in Sammou in 1966 and other places, just as the U.S gave Israel the Phantom warplanes to allow her to murder Egyptian school children at the Bahr el Bakar School and workers at the Abu Za'abal in 1971.

In fact, Israeli atrocities are too many to be counted in one article or even one book. However the point that must be made is that the West bears a huge and direct responsibility for every drop of Arab blood shed by Israel, every home demolished and every tree uprooted by the Nazis of our time.

The west had more than 60 years to try to make genuine efforts to force Israel to make peace with her thoroughly oppressed and tormented victims. But the West chose appeasement vis-à-vis Israel until the Zionist state reached the point of becoming able to defy the whole world, thanks to its huge military aggrandizement.

The second point I want to highlight to illustrate western, including French and American hypocrisy and moral duplicity is the situation in Syria. It is really difficult to relate to the plight of the Syrian people without invoking words like genocide. Yes, it is a slow- motion genocide, but it is still genocide.

We are talking about a Stalinist-minded tyrant who is seemingly willing to exterminate 10 or 15 million of his own people in order to stay in power. With almost religious zeal, Adolph (Bashar) El-Assad has so far murdered tens of thousands of Syrians, maimed hundreds of thousands and left virtually no residential building or home intact.

As if this were not enough, it is more likely than not that the Hitler of Damascus would use chemical weapons to annihilate millions of Syria's Sunnis especially if he sensed that his end was approaching.

But the question that must be raised in the face of shocking western hypocrisy, a pornographic hypocrisy by every standard of morality, is "which really warrants a more urgent intervention from the moral view point, the situation in Syria or the situation in Mali?

The answer is more than obvious and exposes the criminal double standards adopted by the international community toward various issues and trouble spots in the world. It is a morally-blind international community that refuses to see the rivers of blood in Syria but moves expeditiously to protect the colonialist interests of "big players" in the vast sands of sub-Saharan Africa.

The third example I want to mention to underscore western hypocrisy is the heart-rending tragedy of the Rehennga people in Myanmar, formerly Burma .

There the small Muslim community was the target of one of the worst atrocities since the Second World War. People, including children, even babies, were burnt alive, women, including girls as young as five year's old were brutally raped before they were summarily hacked to death. In fact, the massacres of the Rehennga have been too nefarious and too graphic to be described in words. Interestingly, most of the genocidal atrocities were carried out by government-backed groups, including the Burmese army and security forces.

Yet, we saw no real outcry from the West, apart from some faint voices from some human rights organizations. But no sanctions were imposed on the Burmese government, no threats were made…no ultimatums…nothing! Instead, Western officials visited Myanmar, giving the impression that "everything was fine."

The tacit message which the government of that country received was hair-raisingly simple, namely that the genocide against the small Muslim minority wouldn't affect the West's relation with Myanmar.

This is why even internationally-celebrated human rights defender Aung San Suu Kyi internalized the message and expressed solid support for the genocide.

Why is this moral stagnation? Because the west, which controls the international community, doesn't believe in the sanctity and equality of human life.

Imagine, just imagine, how the West would have acted if a few hundred Jews, not tens of thousands of Muslims, were the victims of a pogrom or ethnic cleansing scheme in a given country?

I imagine that alarm bells would instantly be rung rather unceasingly in Washington, London , Paris and even Moscow, yes Moscow , and won't stop ringing until the aggressors are punished and destroyed. And I'm sure there would be no disagreements at the UN Security Council obstructing the issuance of a strong resolution permitting military intervention. And even if there were disagreements, the US and its allies would act unilaterally and swiftly.

I am not writing these words in the hope of awakening the dormant conscience of governments in Europe and North America to intervene to stop the virtual genocide in Syria or ethnic cleansing in Palestine and Myanmar .

The truth of the matter is that the West is too unprincipled and too immoral to be expected to hasten to adopt a moral policy towards world issues, especially when the victims are Muslim..

In the final analysis, the west is part of the problem. Thinking it is part of the solution is the apogee of naïveté.

-###-

Source: the Palestinian Information Center http://palestine-info.co.uk/en/default.aspx?xyz=U6Qq7k%2bcOd87MDI46m9rUxJEpMO%2bi1s7fikhOIq%2bSoflnpVvdIG7KTLTA90N8%2bpGnt71bFKFucTFgayH4XMAAdlMyDaUnlzWywjrQYJgJeV%2fSH9ISfS3NGp79TKnx1nCU1QGs7S9L6c%3d

Khalid Amayreh
Occupied Palestine
amayreh2050@yahoo.com
solomonalfred@gmail.com