The world is sick of Western double standards. Leaders condemn war crimes only when it suits their agenda, while deliberately ignoring and whitewashing Israel’s ongoing massacres in Gaza. When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called Russian President Vladimir Putin “perhaps the most serious war criminal of our time,” his words rang as both hypocritical and outrageous. Hypocritical because they ignore the daily acts of war crimes committed in Gaza under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Outrageous because Western leaders have, at this point, completely lost credibility by refusing to confront one of the worst perpetrators of genocide today, despite mounting evidence, while trying to lecture the world on “war criminals.”
In Gaza, Israel has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians in less than two years – most of them women and children. That is one out of every 37 people. Now compare: in Ukraine, 30,000 civilians have been killed in over three years, according to U.N. figures. The per capita toll in Gaza is exponentially higher. Schools, refugee camps, churches, mosques, hospitals and soup kitchens have all been bombed and targeted by Israel. Journalists, doctors, paramedics and aid workers have been killed in full view of the world, without any outrage. Palestinians are being starved under Israel’s siege, with growing evidence that it is carrying out a genocide. While Russia’s strikes, however indiscriminate, occur in a country where civilians can still flee westward to relative safety, Gaza’s population is trapped under siege, starved and bombed with no escape. To ignore this reality while posturing about Putin is not just hypocrisy – it is a deliberate attempt to shield Netanyahu’s government from accountability for crimes that, by every measure, surpass Russia’s in both intensity and scale. Why should anyone take Merz’s words seriously when he refuses to condemn the worst war crimes happening in front of the whole world?
The moral bankruptcy becomes even clearer with his latest refusal to support Palestinian statehood. Standing beside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Berlin last month, Merz said Germany would not join allies like Canada, Australia and France in recognizing Palestine at the U.N. General Assembly later this month. He claimed recognition would be “premature.” Instead, Merz clings to the empty rhetoric that Palestinian statehood can only follow “diplomatic negotiations” – negotiations Israel has spent decades sabotaging while expanding illegal settlements, annexing land and indiscriminately bombing Palestinians.
This is not about conditions being unmet; it is about shielding Israel from accountability. Germany has only frozen a small fraction of arms exports to Israel, but refuses sanctions, refuses to suspend trade agreements, and refuses to apply the kind of pressure it has applied elsewhere. While claiming to support a two-state solution, Merz is actively blocking the very recognition that could make it real. The result is a German policy that talks peace while enabling war crimes and destroying the country’s credibility in the eyes of the world. To leaders like Merz, genocide, war crimes, occupation and and all other violations of international law are fine to brush under the rug, if the perpetrator is an ally.
But on a more positive note, the German people see through it. A recent poll by public broadcaster ZDF found that 60% of Germans support Palestinian statehood, while only 22% oppose it. Merz is not representing his people; he is representing an entrenched political position that excuses genocide when deemed necessary.
This is in no way a defense of Putin. War crimes must be condemned wherever they occur. But to crown him the “worst war criminal of our time” while Netanyahu massacres tens of thousands in Gaza is more than hypocrisy – it is complicity. It undermines the very essence of justice, twisting international law into a selective weapon deployed against adversaries while sparing allies.
It is tragic that Germany, a nation stained by its own history of genocide, now marches beside today’s perpetrators instead of standing against them to prove it has ever learned a lesson.
Merz’s stance exposes the deep rot eating away at Western credibility. If leaders cannot condemn Netanyahu with the same urgency they condemn Putin, then their moral lectures are meaningless. Billions of people, like myself, see Western leaders as enablers of genocide, rather than guardians of human rights, because they have turned international law into a weapon for themselves and a cage for everyone else. War crimes are war crimes, genocide is genocide. To condemn them selectively is to share in the crime.
