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IDEAS
BY BRUNO MAÇÃES
JANUARY 10, 2024 2:30 PM EST
Maçães was Portugal's Secretary of State for European Affairs and is currently a
consultant at Flint Global. He is the author of The Dawn of Eurasia and, most
recently, Geopolitics for the End Time
T here is something surprising in the way Western democracies have reacted to
events in Israel since the start of the military operation in Gaza. I call it the end of
hypocrisy. Take President Joe Biden. On two occasions he has publicly said that
Israel is conducting “indiscriminate bombings” in Gaza, a war crime under
international law. Lawyers have even argued his statements amount to a
confession of aiding and abetting war crimes, no small matter.
Why would Biden do this? Why not simply proclaim a number of high principles
and then proceed to ignore them in practice? The late Henry Kissinger seemed to
know better and to be concerned with the role of hypocrisy in world affairs, a
balancing act between the need for norms and the equally important need to
occasionally break them.
Biden, by contrast, says the quiet part out loud. His team, from Sullivan to
Blinken and the ineffable John Kirby, has followed his example. They have
consistently refused to even mention international law or universal principles,
preferring to point out that Israel is a “close partner.” To a partner, much or all is
allowed, including the deliberate destruction of hospitals and schools. When
Russia did it in Ukraine, Blinken and Kirby called it barbaric. “Hitting
playgrounds, schools, hospitals,” said Kirby, “is utter depravity.” He was talking
about Russia, not Israel. When asked what the Biden Administration would do if
Israel continued to commit war crimes, his answer was disarmingly sincere: “We
will continue to support it.” At the same fundraiser where he claimed Israel was
conducting indiscriminate bombings in Gaza, Biden added for good measure:
“We are not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel. Not a single
thing.”
No one could accuse the U.S. of double standards. What it is vulnerable to is the
accusation that it no longer has any standards at all.
But standards have their uses and not only for the sentimental. They give form to
world politics and drive other states to follow rules decided and enforced by a
higher power. With the right level of hypocrisy, they allow you to subject others
to your rules while remaining somewhat above them. The challenge is to explain
why the U.S. would be so willing to renounce the advantages of hypocrisy and its
role as rule-maker. In the way it has addressed the political and humanitarian
crisis in the Middle East, we see what it would mean for the existing world order
to unravel, as American power gives up on the mission of every hegemon: to
shape world politics according to its own plan and, as always happens, its own
standards.
The reason for America’s capitulation is that rules are always a hindrance to free
action. Even for those in charge of creating and enforcing them, or especially for
them, since ordering the world is hard work and gets in the way of enjoying it. No
great power has ever been founded on the subjectivity of desire or impulse, but
those temptations are just as present in the life of nations as in the life of
individuals.