French geopolitical journal Le Grand Continent has divided governments into three groups. The groups include countries strongly supporting Israel, countries calling for a ceasefire and finally, countries supporting Hamas (France24). However, world leaders must take action to save humanity. World leaders must act based on international laws to make fair judgments regarding Palestine issues. They need to avoid Double standards. The U.K. sanctions on Hamas financiers are a clear piece of evidence of double standards against Palestine. The double standards make the U.K. complicit in Israeli war crimes.
Sanctions against Hamas
According to Reuters, Britain sanctioned senior leaders of the Palestinian group Hamas and its financiers on Tuesday (November 14, 2023). The sanctions are in response to the group’s attack on Israel in October. The sanctions were coordinated with similar actions in the U.S.” The government said political leader Yahya Sinwar was among individuals targeted by the new sanctions. The government said it had imposed sanctions on four senior Hamas leaders and two of the group’s financiers. The sanctions include travel bans, asset freezes and arms embargoes,
Similarly, Global Times says the U.K. announced sanctions against four senior Hamas leaders and two Hamas financiers on Tuesday. It vowed to “disrupt Hamas operations both in Gaza and wherever their leaders base themselves” with the U.S. cooperation.
U.S. supporting U.K. sanctions on Hamas financiers
The U.S. imposed a third round of sanctions on Hamas, targeting its leaders and financiers. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen emphasised collaboration with partners, including Britain, to sanction Hamas, citing the intention to prevent the group from accessing funds for what she referred to as their harmful activities. The U.S. Treasury Department says the sanctions were coordinated with the U.K. and target Hamas financing. The Department says it is imposing a third round of sanctions on Hamas.
Excuses for sanctions
Britain’s newly-appointed foreign minister, David Cameron, said in a statement that the government had proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation. He further added that ” we will continue to use every tool at our disposal to disrupt the abhorrent activity of this terrorist organisation, working with the United States and our other allies, making it harder for them to operate and isolating them on the world stage”.
According to Reuters, the U.S. Treasury Department says, “Together with our partners, we are decisively moving to degrade Hamas’s financial infrastructure, cut them off from outside funding, and block the new funding channels they seek to finance their heinous acts.”
Israel is killing Gaza civilians.
While Israel has killed more than 15000 Gaza civilians, the U.K. and U.S. have never condemned the massacre. According to Aljazeera, About 70 per cent of people in Gaza have been displaced by the fighting. The Israeli military ordered people in northern Gaza to move south. However, it continued to bombard the southern end of Gaza.
The New York Times wrote that even a conservative assessment of Gaza casualty figures shows that the rate of death during Israel’s attack has few precedents in this century, experts say.
U.K. and U.S. supporting Israel.
As Global Times reports, Israeli troops launched a ground assault on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. However, the U.S. and the U.K. announced coordinated sanctions targeting Hamas and its financiers. Chinese experts view the sanctions as a move in support of Israel. The sanctions could further worsen the humanitarian disaster by increasing Israel’s disregard for the mounting international pressure.
Yin Gang, a veteran scholar of the Middle East with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the sanctions show the U.S.’ firm stance in supporting Israel. Subsequently, Hamas will encounter more significant difficulties.
Israel and its allies are deceiving the public.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims Hamas, not Israel, is responsible for the harm to civilians. Israel’s allies are paradoxically asking it to end the killing of civilians while providing political and military help for it to continue the war crimes. According to the Financial Times, Israel faced mounting pressure from its Western allies to end the killing of civilians in Gaza. However, Benjamin Netanyahu said that world leaders should condemn Hamas, not Israel, for the killing of civilians.
As Global Times says, the U.S. is willing to provide Israel with all the support it needs to destroy Hamas. However, at the same time, it demands that Israel reduce the humanitarian crisis. “These two goals are contradictory and cannot be reconciled,” Niu Xinchun says. Niu Xinchun is a Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations research fellow.
The U.K. and its allies are using double standards.
European governments must impose sanctions against Israel to reduce the humanitarian crisis. The U.K. and its allies are using double standards in favour of Israel and against Palestine. They show selective responses to aggression.
As the Overseas Development Institute says, why is the killing of Israeli civilians an outrage and that of Palestinians collateral damage? Why has the world woken up to this decades-long conflict only when Israeli lives are lost? There’s no question that Hamas vows to ‘defeat’ Israel and Israelis is hateful. However, Western leaders must judge Israeli actions with equal moral clarity and courage. The double standards are obvious: clearly, Palestinians’ lives are valued less in a conflict where Palestinians have been dehumanised. Israeli government officials have depicted Palestinians as ‘human animals’.
