The West should come clean about its double standards in the Middle East

Luxembourg’s foreign minister accused the Turkish authorities on Monday of using methods in its crackdown on the failed coup plotters reminiscent of those used by the Nazis against the Jews during World War Two. Speaking to Germany’s Deutschlandfunk radio, Jean Asselborn said that people were fired, their names were published, their passports were destroyed and they had no chance of finding another job, and thus risked going hungry.

“These are methods, one must say this bluntly, that were used during Nazi rule,” he said, “and there has been a really, really bad evolution in Turkey since July that we as the European Union cannot simply accept.” He called for the EU to use its strong economic relations to put pressure on Turkey to stop its “Nazism” represented in what he called “an unbearable human rights situation.”

His remarks were echoed to some degree by Steffen Seibert, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “What we need is a clear and unified European position on the developments in Turkey,” he told a press conference, also on Monday.

Whilst US and Western criticism of Turkey’s harsh response to the coup plotters came in the immediate aftermath of the start of the crackdown, the remarks of these two officials — along with other, more widespread condemnation — followed the arrest of pro-Kurd opposition MPs last Friday.

It can be argued that whatever the Turkish authorities do to “punish criminals who attempted to push the country into a state of instability” it is nobody else’s business to decide whether the punishment and its consequences are right or wrong. The issue for many is why the West apparently applies double standards when responding to similar situations elsewhere, producing very different comments and responses.

Take, for example, Israel’s detention of freely-elected Palestinian MPs; this has received next to no criticism or condemnation by Western governments. Not one of them has ever dared to call for Israel to be punished, or for economic sanctions to be imposed. The Palestinian MPs were elected in exactly the same process — democratic elections — as their Kurdish counterparts, so why the hypocrisy from the West?

No world leaders ever accuse Israel of suppressing free speech or oppressing political dissidents or opponents; and yet that is what Israel does with regards to its Palestinian critics. Not one world leader has ever dared to describe Israel’s actions against the Palestinians MPs as being like those “used by the Nazis” as was applied to Turkey by Luxembourg’s foreign minister; and yet the “Nazi” comparison is one that has been suggested within Israel itself.

Despite its appalling human rights record and open contempt for international laws and conventions, Israel’s politicians get the red carpet treatment in Western capitals and it has even — you couldn’t make this up — been elected to chair the UN Legal Committee. Meanwhile, Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine continues; it is still holding Palestinian MPs as prisoners; and it is still imposing a near-total blockade on the occupied Gaza Strip, keeping 2 million Palestinians in what has been described as the “largest open-air prison in the world”.

We can also look at the double standards applied with regard to Egypt. The military coup there was not even called that by the US administration of Barack Obama, and yet it led not only to the arrest of freely-elected MPs, but also the first ever democratically-elected Egyptian President, Mohamed Morsi. Egypt’s coup leader, and now president, Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has massacred hundreds of his political opponents and arrested thousands more.

Why did the West turn a blind eye to what is going on in Egypt? Not only is Al-Sisi welcomed in Western capitals like his Israeli friends, but his regime is also being propped up militarily, economically and politically by the West. America’s annual grant of $1 billion was resumed several months after the coup, and Western states send him arms to use against those campaigning for freedom of speech. Al-Sisi has closed all opposition media outlets and arrested journalists, but we hear no condemnation of him from their Western counterparts; their attention is focused on condemning Tukey and its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. No comparisons with the Nazis from the West as far as Al-Sisi is concerned; he’s a good friend of Israel.

The list goes on: Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Bahrain all have seriously awful human rights records, but they get nothing but support from the West.

So why this hypocrisy? Why are such criticisms and condemnations applied to some countries and not to others? The West should come clean and tell us; at least we would then know for sure who our friends — and enemies — really are.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.