IN a previous article, (Sunday, October 20, 2023 – “Gaza tragedy: The Judeo-Christian oneness”), I looked at the relationship between European Christianity and the Jewish race and concluded that for devout European and by extension American, Australian and Canadian Christians, the Jewish ethnicity is a special species of the human race.

Christians in those countries believe, from the reading of the Bible, that God chose a Jew to do his work on Earth and thus the Jews are God’s special children.

In a world of eight billion people, that acknowledgement of Jewish specialness is not present in the minds of people.

A vast majority of the world’s population just think of Jews as a race just like the Chinese, Africans, etc…. The countries of the Third World have no special feeling for a country named Israel.
What has happened since the Israeli committal of genocide in Gaza is that both the Jewish people and the state of Israel have now gone down in the bad books of the vast numbers of humans on Planet Earth.

I believe at a deep, academic level that if war should break out between Israel and Iran, most of, perhaps all of, the countries in the Third World will support Iran and would wish for Iran to carry the fight to Israel.

Of course the David and Goliath syndrome between Israel and Iran would still not evoke sympathy among the Global South for Israel. Israel is 8,000 square miles with nine million people. Iran is almost 700,000 square miles with almost 90 million people whose armed forces must be about ten times the strength of Israel’s.

The reason for total support among governments in the West (including Australia) for Israel and their rejection of a ceasefire (including the leader of the British Labour Party) has to do with their perception of the Jewish race.

Israel is a Middle Eastern country in Asia yet it plays all types of sporting events as a European country and participates in the European song contest.

It is this special embrace of the Jewish race that explains the insensitivity of the West towards four months of genocide. None of the Western countries supported the South African application to the World Court to condemn Israel for committal of genocide.

What genocide in Gaza has done is to block completely the awareness of the Russian war in Ukraine from the minds of the countries in the Global South.

I find it strange that Sir Ron Sanders from Guyana, working out of Antigua, can pen the following statement: “Conflating the plight of Ukraine, a victim of Russian aggression, with the Israeli-Hamas conflict is a misstep. Refusing to address the Ukrainian crisis unless Gaza receives comparable focus is counterproductive.”

I disagree vehemently with that quote above. I think Mr. Sanders ought to know better and I believe he must have lost admiration from those in the Third World that saw him as a competent analyst of world affairs. The two conflicts have nothing in common.

There is a war in Ukraine with Ukraine getting military aid from the most militarily advanced countries in the world. In Gaza, there is no war. Israeli jets have destroyed the landscape named Gaza. All schools, universities and hospitals have been destroyed.

There is no luck on the part of Hamas that the Ukrainian armed forces enjoy. There are no tanks and jet fighters in Gaza retaliating whereas in Ukraine, there is a war between two neighbours.
How can Sir Ron Sanders make that statement quoted above when there is the committal of genocide in Gaza? The world should hesitate to negotiate any ending of the Russian/Ukrainian conflict unless there is a simultaneous blueprint for a Palestinian state. But I have a huge question for Sir Sanders – why does he think that the Global South sees the Ukrainian war as a priority for the Global South?

India has answered that question. The charismatic, bright foreign minister when asked to comment on lack of Indian support for Ukraine gave a stunningly revelatory answer that should be noted by all Third World students who are studying international relations in any university in any country.

He said Europe must understand that Europe cannot see Europe’s problems as the world’s problems but the world’s problems are not Europe’s problems.

This has been the foundation of world affairs since 1945. Apartheid was not a world problem for the West that explains why it lasted for decades. But Ukraine is a world problem for the West and the Global South must pay attention. Genocide in Gaza is not a world problem and this explains frenetic Western support for genocide in Gaza. Wake up, Sir Ron!

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.