The conflict between Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine shows that there are differences in the application of sanctions provided by different countries and international organizations. Conflicts between Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine have differences both in the span of the period, the escalation of the conflict, and the motives of interest behind the conflict. However, these two conflicts simultaneously have a domino effect, especially for people who are victims of existing conflicts. These two conflicts simultaneously both resulted in casualties of at least more than 10,000 civilians. The OHCHR verified that there were more than 30.000 civilian dead and wounded in Ukraine since 2022, while the Gaza Ministry of Health reported more than 58.000 dead as of July 20, 2025. Various humanitarian problems also arise from these two conflicts, ranging from violence, sexual harassment, destruction of vital infrastructure, to mass displacement of civilians. The Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols prohibit attacks on hospitals, schools, religious buildings, attacks on civilians, torture of prisoners of war or civilians, and the use of chemical or biological weapons. These two conflicts directly violate the rules applied by the 1949 Geneva Convention and the additional protocols related to these prohibitions. International organizations such as the United Nations, the Red Cross, and others condemn acts of violence in times of conflict. Although both violated the norm, the pattern of sanctions imposed on the two countries that carried out the invasion was different and noticeable. So, is there a double standard between these two conflicts? Is it because of religion?
The European Union banned imports of Russian crude oil in May 2022. It shut down Russian oil transportation in the sea. At the same time, the United States banned most Russian energy imports through an Executive Order in March 2022, in which the assets of Russian banks and energy companies were frozen. In contrast, Israel only received partial sanctions, with the Netherlands suspending exports of F-35 parts in February 2024 and Spain canceling ammunition contracts in April 2025. However, Washington still agreed to an arms sales package worth approximately US$20 billion in August 2024. This distinction is often questioned as a “double standard” between these two conflicts.
The UN General Assembly passed a resolution named ES-11/1 in March 2022 demanding the complete withdrawal of Russian troops, followed by ES-11/6 in February 2023. As for the Gaza region, Resolution ES-10/25 in December 2024 and Security Council 2720 in December 2024 demand a ceasefire and humanitarian corridor, but its implementation against Israel is much looser than against Russia. On the ground, an average of only 146 aid trucks per day made it into Gaza throughout the war, whereas U.S. evaluations state that at least 600 trucks per day are needed to prevent mass starvation. The latest OCHA Data States aid convoys are still often delayed, fired upon, or limited to a maximum of 29 trucks per day at some borders. Instead, Ukraine’s logistics lanes remain open for the Black Sea grain corridor until Russia unilaterally withdraws. Even after this, the EU set up Solidarity Lanes to ensure Ukraine’s grain exports continued.
Until this day, it is known that the countries of the Western alliance as well as their allies such as Europe apply a double standard (double standard) when assessing, suppressing, or punishing violations of international law in both of these conflicts. Some authors suggest this is because the Western alliance regards Ukraine as a bulwark of the West against Russia, and Israel as a strategic ally in the Middle East. This gives Western alliances such as the U.S. and Europe an advantage in applying sanctions against these two conflicts. In the case of Ukraine, several policy papers refer to the country as a “bulwark” of Western democracy against Russian expansionism, thus receiving massive financial military support and a multilateral sanctions package designed to weaken Russia. In contrast, Israel has positioned Washington and many European governments as its “main strategic allies” in the Middle East, a status that justifies billions of dollars in military aid and allows it to escape collective embargoes despite repeated accusations of human rights violations by Israel. The calculus of interests explains why the West tends to be tougher on Russia, but much softer on Israel. This phenomenon is reinforced by findings about the “hierarchy of victims” or “hegemon bias” – the tendency of some Western media and political elites to view the suffering of Europeans as an extraordinary tragedy. In contrast, the suffering of Arabs is treated as a routine reality in conflict areas.
The religion of Islam is often stigmatized as a” terrorist religion”, a narrative lived out by the legacy of islamophobia in Western foreign policy. In the Israeli-Palestinian context, the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, killed about 1200 Israelis. This tragedy became the focal point of the Western media and removed the fact that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories has been going on since 1948. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on October 7, Hamas attacked Israel first and then made the westernists / Western alliance forget that Israel’s position in Palestine had lasted since 1948. It is the legacy of islamophobia and religious racism that determines who is considered legitimate in self-defense.
On the other hand, there is a statement by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that “They are one of us and we want them in” on February 27, 2022, about Ukraine, which shows how Ukraine is being constructed as part of the “Christian-European family”, so that political-media empathy becomes thinner. The Mayaleh et al (2024) study names this pattern a “hierarchy of victims,” whereby the suffering of European victims is considered an extraordinary tragedy. In contrast, Arab/Muslim victims are treated as routine conflicts. It was this Christian colonialism that then shaped this selective empathy, which then manifested itself in a policy of double sanctions (double standards) in which Russia received a comprehensive energy embargo. At the same time, Israel avoided a similar collective embargo. Thus, the religio-racial bias here underpins the narrative of Islam as a threat that became important behind the double standards of the Western alliance in both of these conflicts.
In general, the public discourse on double standards often stops on two principal axes : (i) geopolitical interests, “who is an ally, who is an enemy,” and (ii) religious/racial factors that make the West more sympathetic to ”fellow” Christians-white Europeans. However, the reality is that these two dimensions do not stand alone; they reinforce each other and are even crossed by other layers such as economics, Information Technology, and international law. When this phenomenon is viewed through the lens of intersectionality, we can map the cross between “who is considered family” and “what is the material-strategic advantage obtained.” From this cross, it is then instilled into everyday practice: from the difference in dual-use technology export licenses to the selectivity of enforcing international court decisions. In short, it can be understood that double standards are not merely the product of moral bias, but the result of the convergence of the logic of racial-religious identity with the economic, technological, and legal calculus of a globalized world where everything meets at the point of intersection or intersection that sustains the hierarchy of victims and the hierarchy of sanctions.
The conclusion that can be drawn is that double standards are born from the intersection of four layers of power: (1) cultural‑religious identity, (2) strategic‑economic‑military interests, (3) International Policy and legal infrastructure, and (4) digital‑media discourse production. It is at this crossroads that Ukraine’s European‑white‑Christian identity is treated as part of the Western “Family”, thus gaining public empathy, legal legitimacy, and an extra umbrella of help; in contrast, the Arab/Muslim label attached to Palestine meets Western geopolitical interests in the Middle East and results in a distinctly different pattern of treatment.
Religion is an essential factor, but it does not stand alone. Double standards are formed when religion intersects with European race/identity, military‑economic interests (eg, energy supply, defense contracts), trade‑technology regimes, and algorithm design of digital platforms. If the analysis stops at one dimension. For example, “the West is biased because of Christianity”, then we will miss seeing how that bias is hardened through concrete instruments such as sanctions regimes, granting or denying humanitarian visas, moderating online content, and labeling groups as terrorists.
With the glasses of intersectionality, it becomes clear that double standards are not just a moral anomaly but the result of systemic work at the confluence of many mutually sustaining lines of power.
