During the so-called Arab Spring, protesters, who aspired to change the power structures of their states, wrapped themselves in their protests with the flag of their countries.. Underneath that fact, apparently an expression of a nationalist sentiment, and as Isaías Barreñada points out, there lay a very marked symbolic component: they represented the true country, the needs and aspirations of its population, the common people, unlike those elites. who governed them.

In all these demonstrations, along with the local flag, another one, the Palestinian one, was waved insistently.. It was an aspect that went beyond solidarity between peoples. It was a symbol of the forgotten, of those who were systematically ignored; It was a flag with which they pointed out the hypocrisy of their elites. This symbolic nature has been redoubled recently, given that a good part of the Arab countries had normalized their relations with Israel, while their populations could not leave aside the Palestinians.. The Hamas massacre of October 7 and the Israeli response introduced obvious friction between both directions, which was also an intention of the attacks. Most of the regimes in the area are autocracies, which are not especially sensitive to public opinion in their countries, for obvious reasons, but they are sensitive to the underlying unrest that can be channeled into revolts, because they can cause internal order to collapse. staggers. This fact has contributed to the retreat of Arab countries in their relations with Israel after October 7.

These factors could be manageable at another time, but we are in a moment of profound transformation in international relations.. The Gaza war contains a political conflict in Israel, another with Hamas and the Palestinians, another regional one and another moral one, which questions us about how we should act in this situation.. But along with them, a geopolitical conflict also appears in which American power in the world is at stake..

The two images

Let's put the game in the background. The Third Silk Road Forum was held in Zhenzhou on October 17 and 18.. Representatives from 140 countries and 32 international organizations participated and the Secretary General of the UN was present.. The Chinese press of those days dedicated a secondary space to Gaza and placed in the most visible places the news about logistics corridors, infrastructure construction and investment that their country was offering.. China offered trade, development and investment and Xi smilingly repeated that we are in a world of unprecedented historical changes. In the West, the front pages were dominated by war, fears of a war escalation and images of violence. A tense Biden addressed Americans to request more budget allocations to support his allies in Ukraine and Israel. The images contrast themselves.

As Stephen Walt noted in Foreign Policy, it was easy to imagine a Chinese official saying: “Let me point out that we have good relations with everyone in the region and that our only vital interest there is reliable access to energy.”. Therefore, we are committed to keeping the region calm and peaceful, which is why we helped Iran and Saudi Arabia restore ties last year.. Isn't it obvious that the world would benefit if America's role decreased and ours increased?.

Of course, in the West we see it differently, but the world is much broader than Europe, the US, Australia, Japan, Canada and South Korea.. The global south exists and is turning against the current international order: it wants space, reform of global institutions and a new distribution of cards. They call it multipolarity, but they refer to the end of American hegemony.

In this context, when the Palestinian flag flies in many countries around the world, it also has an obvious symbolic character.. It points out the lack of coherence between powers that claim to rely on an order based on rules, instead of an order based on the UN, and that can exonerate those they deem appropriate from compliance with them.. Point out Western hypocrisy. And when that message, instigated by China and Russia, penetrates states with many millions of people, raw materials and energy resources, and increasingly capital and technology, things tend to get complicated for the global north.. Emerging powers claim to offer trade, globalization and development, while traditional powers try to impose themselves by force. The international discussion about Palestine also has a lot to do with this.

The western response

The way in which the West is facing this new challenge seems particularly detached from the surrounding reality.. Partly due to internal divisions, which are expressed in the hegemonic country, the United States: the conservatives want to provide aid to Israel, but are not so willing to provide it to Ukraine; Democrats push hard for Ukraine to receive funds, but their commitment to Netanyahu's Israel is not so firm, and even less so among their voters. On another level, because some of the mistakes made after 9/11 are being repeated, and we already know how the war interventions of those years contributed to destructuring the world instead of settling it..

Deep down, there is a divergence on the Western Front that oscillates between unconditional support for Netanyahu's government and the need to put a firm brake on it.. Partly because an escalation in the area, which no one wants and which is considered unlikely, can occur at any moment, with all that that would mean, but also because it can generate very serious economic consequences.. The moment is taking shape when a good part of the Western bloc will demand many limits from Israel in its military response and will offer a political solution to Palestine at the end of the war process.. It does not seem that the Israeli government is very willing at the moment to do either of the two things. It is significant, in this sense, that a medium as influential as the Financial Times publishes an editorial calling for a ceasefire..

But, once again, with all the moral and humanitarian components that shake us with this so-called Sukkot war, the dimensions go much further, because they take place at a particularly complicated time for Europe.. A different West will emerge from this war, but the awareness of the moment has not penetrated European leaders and experts, many of whom continue to believe that the global south does not exist, that deglobalization has not arrived, that peace America is still in force to a large extent and that everything will return, more or less, to its normal course after the Israeli intervention. It's not like that, the world has fractured. The Palestinian flag has many meanings today.