Netanyahu in Washington and Assad in Moscow: the hypocrisy of the Great Powers

By Michael Pröbsting, RCIT, 27 July 2024, www.thecommunists.net

It was certainly coincidence, but it was symbolic. Within 24 hours two statesmen visited the capitals of Great Powers where they received a red-carpet welcome.

On 24 July, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a bizarre speech to the U.S. Congress. He also met President Joe Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and the Republican leader Donald Trump. The next day, Syria’s tyrant Bashar Assad Russian met President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

Netanyahu’s speech to the Congress was a surreal event. There was hardly a single sentence without lies, falsifications or outrageous claims. The next day, nearly every major news agency felt obligated to publish a fact-checking article to refute “Bibi’s” nonsense. However, for everyone who is a bit familiar with the history of the Zionist state and his Prime Minister in particular, the content of Netanyahu’s speech was hardly surprising. (1)

What was much more astonishing was the reaction of the American Congress members who attended this spectacle. True, an honourable minority of 93 congress members boycotted Netanyahu’s speech. But most of the rest behaved like hysterical teenagers at a Taylor Swift concert. Here comes the commander-in-chief of the worst genocide in modern history, hated in most parts of the world, despised by the majority of his own population, facing an arrest warrant by the ICC chief prosecutor, indicted at home for corruption – and the vast majority of the political elite of the U.S. rejoice with wild excitement and tries to jump the queue just to get a selfie with the mass murder.

When Netanyahu arrived, he received an eight-minute standing ovation and during his 52-minute speech these fanatical supporters of the Zionist state gave him about 50 standing ovations, i.e. nearly every minute!

This disgusting scene symbolized the inextricably relationship between U.S. imperialism and the Zionist settler state, between bourgeois “democracy” and genocide, and between Western “civilization” and barbarism. It summarised the rotten nature of American politics, Western values and the imperialist “rules-based international order”.

One could refer to Vice-President Kamala Harris who did not attend Netanyahu’s speech. But leaving aside that she met the butcher of Gaza a few hours later, one should have no illusions about her motivation. Her concern is clearly not the suffering of the Palestinians – as the No. 2 in the Biden Administration she bears full responsibility for America’s support for the genocide. She is rather concerned for the votes of pro-Palestinian electors at the incoming Presidential election.

The regimes in Russia and China – as well as their supporters among the so-called “left” – regularly denounce America’s hypocrisy. But they are hardly better. First, both Great Powers have long-term economic relations with the Zionist settler state. Second, since the Russian Air Force plus a number of air defence units have a strong presence in Syria since 2015, they could easily stop Israel from making bombing raids in this country. They could equally warn Hezbollah about incoming attacks by the Zionist military. However, the Kremlin has refused to do so until now in order to keep relations with Israel.

Assad’s red-carpet welcome by Putin revealed the hypocrisy of the Eastern imperialists more than anything else. The tyrant of Damascus heads a regime which resembles a monarchy. His father came to power via a military coup in 1971 and since then the family runs the country with iron fist. When the Syrian people rose up in March 2011, the regime tried to crush the revolution with unspeakable brutality. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed since then and many more languish in prison facing torture. (2)

In summary, when Washington denounces Putin for his war crimes in Syria and the Ukraine and when the Kremlin attacks America’s support for the genocide in Gaza … both are right. And neither one nor the other has any moral right to lecture the world about civilisation and human rights.

Socialists and all supporters of the liberation struggles of the oppressed must oppose all Great Powers in East and West. They must side with the oppressed people wherever they fight for freedom!

Footnotes

1) We refer readers to special pages on our website where the RCIT documents on the 2023 Gaza War are compiled: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023/ and https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/compilation-of-articles-on-the-gaza-uprising-2023-24-part-2/

2) The RCIT has published a number of booklets, statements and articles on the Syrian Revolution which can be read on a special sub-section on our website: https://www.thecommunists.net/worldwide/africa-and-middle-east/collection-of-articles-on-the-syrian-revolution/