Chinese Support for Hamas - Not So Much Blindingly Hypocritical as Confidently Unworried
Earlier this week, China's state newspaper urged the United States to forgo the option of sanctions and give aid to the Palestinian government:
Now, Israel and the US are jointly pressing Hamas to change its course by economic sanctions, but past experiences have never proven sanction as an effective solution. Always a hardliner, Hamas made it clear that it will not yield to US pressure. And even former US President Jimmy Carter held that the US should play a positive role at such a delicate moment.
"Even" former US President Jimmy Carter is not even the amusing part of this editorial. The really amusing part (echoes of Meryl's "Israeli Double Standard Time") comes earlier:
Hamas remained as hard as a nail under pressure from all sides and made tit-for-tat responses against Israel. The organization stressed that not to talk with Israel is a strategic choice and it will never disarm as long as Israeli occupation exists, saying its right of military resistance is "naturally endowed" and thus can't be deprived.
It is a phenomenon worth pondering that China - a country that on principle opposes any sub-national group because of the precedent international support could set viz their Tibet policies - feels confident enough to side with the purported right of Hamas, an organization with explicitly genocidal goals, to engage in violence. China won't support international action anywhere if it risks weakening the control of a central government.
It makes an exception in the case of Israel, however, because China's leaders know that international actions toward Israel have no relationship to either international norms or to the expectations brought to bear on other countries. Absurd, disproportionate demands can be made against Israel with the confidence that such demands will never be turned against any other country. So China can feel quite safe demanding that Israel actually go so far as to fund Israel's sworn enemies, while knowing that the "right of military resistance" that they are supporting will never be taken seriously if asserted by, for instance, Tibetans.
Now, Israel and the US are jointly pressing Hamas to change its course by economic sanctions, but past experiences have never proven sanction as an effective solution. Always a hardliner, Hamas made it clear that it will not yield to US pressure. And even former US President Jimmy Carter held that the US should play a positive role at such a delicate moment.
"Even" former US President Jimmy Carter is not even the amusing part of this editorial. The really amusing part (echoes of Meryl's "Israeli Double Standard Time") comes earlier:
Hamas remained as hard as a nail under pressure from all sides and made tit-for-tat responses against Israel. The organization stressed that not to talk with Israel is a strategic choice and it will never disarm as long as Israeli occupation exists, saying its right of military resistance is "naturally endowed" and thus can't be deprived.
It is a phenomenon worth pondering that China - a country that on principle opposes any sub-national group because of the precedent international support could set viz their Tibet policies - feels confident enough to side with the purported right of Hamas, an organization with explicitly genocidal goals, to engage in violence. China won't support international action anywhere if it risks weakening the control of a central government.
It makes an exception in the case of Israel, however, because China's leaders know that international actions toward Israel have no relationship to either international norms or to the expectations brought to bear on other countries. Absurd, disproportionate demands can be made against Israel with the confidence that such demands will never be turned against any other country. So China can feel quite safe demanding that Israel actually go so far as to fund Israel's sworn enemies, while knowing that the "right of military resistance" that they are supporting will never be taken seriously if asserted by, for instance, Tibetans.
