In the thread, Al Khater said she is “genuinely puzzled” on the constant vetoing of such resolutions “and voting for Israel exceptionalism for the past 7 decades.”
Top Qatari official Lolwah Al Khater has called out Western politicians over their “Israeli exceptionalism” throughout its 75 years of Israeli occupation of Palestine and amid its ongoing war in Gaza.
Qatar’s Minister of State for International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued scathing thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Sunday, in which she questioned “secularist and liberal politicians” for their moral stances regarding the ongoing crimes against Palestinians.
“If you have already given up on your secular and liberal values, please DM millions of people who have received Western education, who believed you and believed in you, who paid heavy prices for their activism to promote the liberal values in very repressive context,” Al Khater said.
Since the start of the war on October 7, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have killed at least 9,488 Palestinians, including 3,826 children, with more than 1,000 others believed to be still trapped under the rubble.
At least four resolutions calling for a ceasefire in Gaza have been blocked by Israel and its western allies, namely the United States, triggering outrage worldwide.
In the thread, Al Khater said she is “genuinely puzzled” on the constant vetoing of such resolutions “and voting for Israel exceptionalism for the past 7 decades.”
“For WESTERN IDEOLOGUES we understand; they declared it as a ‘Holy War’, but how about you? Why does your position towards Israel seem so unconditionally ‘DOGMATIC’?” she said.
She added: “In the biggest global representative platform – the UN- you seem to have always either hindered the democratic voting through vetos or just ignored the ‘Free Will’ of the vast majority of the world. All in favor for ISRAEL EXCEPTIONALISM.”
The Qatari official also pointed towards the roots of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which has been widely justified by the west as a “birthright” of Jews, as per the the Balfour Declaration that supported the establishment of a Jewish state.
By 1948, the Israeli occupiers had forced out hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians from their homeland in what is widely known as the “nakba”, or catastrophe.
“What’s your take as a dedicated secularist/liberal towards a state the defines itself on purely RELIGIOUS basis? That defines the ‘birthright citizenship’ on purely RELIGIOUS basis?” Al Khater said.
The forced dispossession of Palestinians has continued over the past 75 years as Israel attempts to establish a wholly Jewish land while attempting to change the status quo of Muslim and Christian Palestinian sites.
The attempts have intensified in recent years by Israeli settlers who have repeatedly stormed holy sites, including the Al Aqsa Mosque, in an attempt to Judaize them.
More recent reports have pointed to Israel’s attempts to ethnically cleanse Gaza through its latest bombardment campaign, in which it has called for the forced displacement of the native population into neighbouring Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.
“Now close your eyes.. imagine there was no one else in that room of ‘self-confrontation’… and as a liberal/secular person ASK yourself.. WHY do I have to unconditionally support and protect the actions of an openly ‘religious fanatic’ who leads a nuclear power?”
Al Khater slammed the Israeli leaders’ use of “holy scriptures in declaring wars and as pretext to kill women and children”.
“Is it about the ‘Free World’ and Israel being a ‘democratic country’? As some of you have been trying to argue recently in an attempt to justify their support beyond the ideological/ religious language,” she said.
The Qatari diplomat also took on the perspective of “democracy” by limiting it to free and fair elections rather than human values. In doing so, she used Iran as an example.
“Iran for example runs regular elections and you still call it theocratic? You never refer to it as ‘democratic’; remember my point here is not to prove/negate whether or not Iran is democratic, but it’s to test the consistency of your own logic,” she said.
Al Khater added: “So you may say democracy is not only ‘elections’ but it’s about human rights and liberal values etc etc; fair enough can we then objectively apply whatever criteria you have on Israel too?”
Within the same thread, Al Khater offered a history crash course over the disregard to UN resolutions which have in turn further allowed Israel to act with impunity. Al Khater noted that Israel has ignored at least 45 resolutions between 1967 and October in addition to 44 resolutions that “have been vetoed since 1954 in favour of Israel.”
“On the 27th of October 2023 the UN General Assembly adopted Gaza resolution calling for immediate and sustained ‘humanitarian truce’, 120 nations voted to stop the war, only 14 was against it. Yet the free will of the vast majority of the world does not count,” she said, referring to a non-binding Arab resolution.
The non-binding resolution, drafted by Jordan on behalf of the Arab League, saw an overwhelming majority vote of 120 members, including Qatar. The resolution also saw 14 votes against it and 45 abstentions.
Israel and its main ally, the US, rejected the proposal.
Paradigm shift
The scathing rebuke by the Qatari official comes amid global uproar over the ongoing genocide. Millions of human rights activists and pro-Palestine supporters have flooded the streets in major cities around the world to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Over the last month, pro-Palestine and anti-war protests have been reported in places like London, Berlin, Rome, Paris and California, and Washington DC – the latter of which hosted a record 300,000-strong Palestine march for the first time in US history.
Al Khater noted that there is now “a huge paradigm shift that seems irreversible” that bridged the differences between the west and the Middle East.
“There is a huge shift not only among the public BUT among the Secular Arab and Muslim elites; intellectuals, academics and activists. Those who have long promoted Western Modernity as the only path to ‘Progress’, confronting all types of accusations- sometimes even beyond- by their cultural and political opponents,” she explained.
