It is a divide that has only widened over the course of international crises, first in Ukraine and now in the Middle East. A growing distance from what is commonly called the “global South” from a West which seems ever more isolated on the world stage.
This divide appeared in February 2022 when around forty countries refused to vote at the UN to condemn Russian aggression. Certainly, some 140 States had done so, but these abstainers, during the four votes on the subject over the past 19 months, were demographic and economic heavyweights, starting with China and India, but also a number of African and South American countries.
If we add those who, while denouncing Putin’s policies, refuse to apply the sanctions decided by the United States and the European Union, more than two thirds of the world population have refused and still refuses to take sides in what they consider to be a “white man’s war”, not to say a “rich man’s war” and, above all, an internal affair between Europeans.
An opposition strengthened by the Israel-Hamas war
This opposition is even more evident today regarding the war waged by Israel against Hamas after the atrocious massacres of October 7. Certainly the two cards, those of support for Ukraine and that of those who support Israel in its right to defend itself, do not completely coincide.
Important countries, such as India and Kenya, have this time taken positions in unison with those of Washington and the Europeans. But there are even more of them, particularly in Africa and, of course, in the Arab world, to denounce “the double standards” of these Westerners who dominate the international system created after the Second World War around the United Nations. in the name of “never again”. This deep resentment of the countries of the South is also a fertile breeding ground for all nationalist and authoritarian leaders who want to assert themselves on the world stage at the expense of what the Russians call “the collective West”.
Erdogan castigates Western hypocrisy
“That those who mobilized the world in favor of Ukraine did not speak out against the massacres in Gaza is the most blatant sign of their hypocrisy,” insisted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who once again stands at the door -voice of the Arab-Muslim world, but also of a world public opinion increasingly indignant in the face of the humanitarian tragedy of Gaza, the besieged enclave, and the increasing intensity of Israeli bombings which, according to Hamas figures , left at least 6,000 dead. The massive air offensive on the night of October 27 to 28 carried out by the Jewish state further testifies to this outbreak of violence.
Erdogan’s position is all the more significant and full of meaning since the strong man of a Turkey both pillar of the south-eastern flank of NATO and occasional partner of Putin had been at the start of the crisis rather measured in his remarks, positioning himself as a possible mediator between Jerusalem and Hamas.
Read also Israel/Hamas: Recep Tayyip Erdogan steps up to the front
The war in Gaza is a boon for Vladimir Putin, and not just because it distracts from the Ukrainian tragedy. Having returned to the forefront of the world stage, the Palestinian cause is a flag for these authoritarian and revanchist “neo-empires”, to use the expression of the geopolitologist Bruno Tertrais in his book “The War of the Worlds” (L’Observatoire). These “neo-empires” are ever more determined to impose new rules – their own – in the world order.
“Neo-empires” to shake up the West
In particular, they shattered the taboo on the non-use of force which constituted the very foundation of the United Nations Charter. This is true for Turkey, which militarily and politically supported Azerbaijan in the reconquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to the exodus of the Armenian population who had lived there for centuries.
This is true for Russia in its war of colonial aggression against Ukraine carried out in the shadow of its atomic arsenal. This is also true for China, which is increasing pressure on the seas around it and does not hide its desire to reconquer Taiwan. This is true for Iran, which is increasingly asserting its desire for power and its power to cause regional harm through its “proxies”, Hezbollah and Hamas, and which, according to most experts, will soon be on its way. to acquire nuclear weapons.
This is not a new axis of evil, nor even a formal alliance. Each of these countries continues to push its own interests, even when they are opposed as we see with the war in Ukraine. Ankara, while refusing to apply sanctions against Moscow, continues to support Kiev militarily and strictly apply the Montreux agreements on the Bosphorus, thus preventing any reinforcement of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea.
Each of these neo-empires has its own agenda and its own methods of action. They are willingly disruptive and aggressive for Moscow, more patient and banking above all on its economic power for Beijing. Nor are these two structured blocs as during the Cold War, but rather groupings.
The Moscow-Beijing axis growing stronger
On the one hand, a liberal Euro-Atlantic camp which remains the most homogeneous, notably through NATO which thirty-four years after the end of the Cold War, remains the only major military alliance structured on a global scale. On the other, that of the “authoritarians”, centered on Eurasia and dominated by the Sino-Russian condominium with the “limitless friendship” celebrated by Vladimir Putin and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Their strategic and political convergences are nevertheless increasingly evident. Between these two groups, there is a vague and indefinite space of emerging countries that want their place in the sun and assert their interests. This “global South” is certainly heterogeneous, even more so than the non-aligned movement was during the Cold War, but it is increasingly asserting itself as a major component of world geopolitics.
Moscow and Beijing have a good time asserting themselves as the spokespersons for emerging countries. These two capitals, with similar accents, position themselves in the Gaza crisis as supporters of peace, advocate a humanitarian ceasefire and insist on the need for a Palestinian state.
It is significant that these two capitals, although generally very quick to denounce Islamic terrorism, did not have a word to condemn the atrocities committed by the Hamas killers. Their anti-colonial narrative, as hypocritical as it may be, seems to work all the better in the international arena since Westerners are wrong-footed. How can we claim to rally world opinion in the face of Russia’s violations of international law in Ukraine and unfailingly support Israel even when it ignores UN decisions, regarding colonization for example?
Israel: a United States-Russia opposition
The United States has blocked resolutions condemning the Jewish state some forty times in recent decades. We saw this again a few days ago when Washington vetoed two draft resolutions brought by Russia for a humanitarian ceasefire. And American diplomats also scrapped a project presented by Brazil and voted for by France, because it did not clearly highlight Israel’s right to defend itself. Beijing and Moscow, for their part, used their veto power to block an American draft resolution.
The UN Security Council, its supreme body, is therefore paralyzed as for the war in Ukraine or previously for Syria. The fault certainly lies with the States, starting with the great powers, but it is the entire UN system which is thus discredited.
For Washington, as for Israel and a number of European capitals, a ceasefire would play into the hands of Hamas, hence their alternative proposals for a pause or humanitarian corridors. This position risks becoming more and more difficult to maintain as images of Gaza under bombs multiply in the coming days and weeks, making a willingly fickle world opinion forget those of the Israeli bodies burned and tortured in the pogrom. from October 7.
The gap between “the west and the rest” – the West and the rest of the world – is a reality and it is likely to widen more and more.
2023-10-28 18:05:00
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