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Opinion | Growing pro-Gaza movement is exposing the hypocrisy of US leadership
- Gaza sympathisers are uniting in the US and across the Global South as Washington’s unwavering support of Israel’s ruthless war against the Palestinians galvanises many people around the world
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Despite numerous foreign policy missteps, the US continues to portray itself as the champion of freedom and rights. But the Gaza crisis may ultimately shatter America’s facade as the guardian of the rules-based world order.
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As pro-Palestinian protests erupted across US university campuses, senators and wealthy donors alike began pushing for a clampdown, testing an American core value: freedom of speech.
Sure, freedom has its limits, but determining when a peaceful demonstration turns into a “violent mob” can be subjective, flawed and often tinged with hypocrisy.
Senator J.D. Vance is among several Republican senators who have been called out for hypocrisy for condemning the protesters at Columbia University after defending the January 6 Capitol rioters.
Then there’s Senator Tom Cotton, who denounced the crackdown on Hong Kong protesters in 2020 – declaring that “Xi Jinping and his communist thugs must face severe consequences for crushing Hong Kong’s freedoms” – only to call on US President Joe Biden last month to deploy the National Guard to quell the Columbia student demonstrations. Clearly, for some US senators, not all protests are equal; some are deemed more legitimate.
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Last month, during an address at the University of Malaya, US academic Bruce Gilley accused Malaysia of advocating for “a second Holocaust”. The remark ignited a firestorm, resulting in the cancellation of his subsequent talks, and Gilley left the country the next day.
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