Today's wars are a reflection of an international landscape that is fragmented, divided and antagonistic – and therefore largely powerless. Whether it be the Russian-Ukrainian conflict or the one between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, the problem is the same: there is no "international community" capable of promoting or imposing a resolution.
The massacres that took place on October 7 in southern Israel should have been unanimously denounced, from south to north, from east to west. It was reasonable to expect a united front of condemnation from the major powers, all of whom have the best relations with the Jewish state. That is if the event is acknowledged to be comparable to the trauma caused by the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. And this was the Western countries' position, which condemned the Hamas operation.
But elsewhere – Asia, Africa, Latin America – the take was often different. The October 7 events were dismissed as the kind of terrorism that has become customary in the Middle East. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter... Then came the Israeli response, against a backdrop of an embargo on water, electricity and fuel, with no way out for the people of Gaza. The ferocity of the bombardments and the thousands of civilian casualties quickly came to overshadow the nature of the October 7 events.
But even before the Israeli response, neither Xi Jinping's China nor Vladimir Putin's Russia explicitly denounced the Hamas attack. These two countries have very good relations not only with the Jewish state but also with the entire Arab world and Iran.
'Unprecedented level of hatred'
In many respects, the Chinese and Russians were well placed to act as mediators. However, they opted for a different approach, expressing solidarity with the Palestinians, criticism of the Israelis and condemnation of US policy in the region. They were incapable of agreeing on a common starting point – in this case, condemnation of Hamas' actions. The mere threat of a veto by either of the two countries paralyzed the UN Security Council. Why was this?
The Chinese and Russians signed a declaration of "no-limits friendship" in Beijing on February 4, 2022, a few weeks before the Russian assault on Kyiv, with a common political and ideological aim, namely to denounce the US (or Western) "hegemony" over the international system handed down from 1945. They aim is to weaken the United States and shape the system in a direction more favorable to the interests of Moscow and Beijing.
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