Travel through Europe, and you’ll see Palestinian flags hanging outside homes, bars, and shops. Graffiti supporting the Palestinians covers walls. Perceived Israeli injustices against the Palestinians keep bringing people into the streets and university campuses. Ukrainian flags appear here and there, but they are a far rarer sight.
Yet, Russian missiles and drones keep pounding Ukraine while Kyiv asks its partners for more air defenses. Last week, strikes on Ukraine’s capital killed five people and injured more than 30, damaging apartment buildings, a school, and a health clinic. In only June and July, 730 civilians were killed, and 4,600 were injured. The death toll is still rising. These losses come after years of destruction in Europe’s largest war since 1945. Ukrainian officials estimate that tens of thousands died in Mariupol alone. Across this country, families have lost their homes, their children, their relatives, and the towns where they grew up.
It is true that Russia’s invasion brought crowds into European streets in 2022. Ukrainians abroad and their supporters still organize rallies and raise money. But as the death toll has grown, that early outrage has faded. The continuing destruction of Ukrainian cities has drawn nothing like the persistent protests seen over Gaza.
One could argue that Ukraine’s supporters have less reason to protest because Western governments already help Kyiv, while Gaza protesters want those governments to change their policies toward Israel. They point to American weapons deliveries and Europe’s ties with Israel as evidence of complicity, even though Western governments also provide substantial aid to Palestinians. Even accepting that argument, however, where is the sustained pressure on governments that have withheld support from Ukraine?
Or where were those same people when Iranian authorities reportedly killed more than 37,000 people during the crackdown on protests in January? These were people simply demanding the freedoms that Western activists take for granted at home. But nobody has taken to the streets to support those killed and urge their own government to act or provide aid. Or how about China? Western governments, companies, and universities maintain extensive ties with Beijing. At the same time, Chinese authorities have subjected the Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities to mass detention and abuse. Where is the comparable street pressure over cooperation with Beijing?
Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7 notwithstanding, images of civilian destruction in Gaza could understandably move someone in Paris or Rome to protest. But why not the footage from Iran, Syria, and China? Why not Ukraine?
The truth?
While images can provoke outrage, political beliefs ultimately determine which images people share and which victims they identify with. Established campaign groups, donors, and student networks have spent decades promoting the Palestinian cause. Foreign governments have also sought to exploit it. But money and organization explain only part of what’s happening here.
For much of the Western political Left, support for the Palestinians against Israel has become an article of political faith. A cause passed down from the 1960s generation to the present day. It preserves an old revolutionary worldview in which America and the West are the oppressors, and their opponents are fighting for liberation. In some cases, that politics also draws on hostility toward Israel itself and antisemitism. Jews abroad have been murdered in the name of a Palestinian state, while we have not seen the same anger toward Russians over Ukraine. Indeed, we rightly distinguish ordinary Russians from their government as it wages war on Ukraine.
The conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is long and complicated. A fair observer can understand arguments from both sides. Nevertheless, many activists reduce it to a simple story in which Palestinians are right and Israel is wrong. But these very same people who give enormous benefit of doubt to the Palestinians often absurdly also suggest that Ukraine and the West invited Russia’s onslaught.
There is another explanation for this moral dichotomy: fear. Confronting Russia carries costs, including military spending and the risk of a wider war. For many Europeans, taking a position on the Israel-Palestinian conflict is further removed from such dangers. Still, it sits awkwardly with claims of principled opposition to imperialism and injustice. Russia is clearly the imperial aggressor when it comes to Ukraine. Just read what Putin wrote prior to the war.
Those who speak in the name of justice should apply their principles consistently. Those suffering in Ukraine, Iran, Syria, China, and elsewhere deserve the same concern that activists demand for Gaza. That this concern is not offered suggests that hostility toward Israel, America, and the West is more important to the outraged than the human rights they claim to defend.