Jordan queen raps West's 'glaring double standard'

Agencies | Amman                                               

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Jordan's Queen Rania accused Western leaders of a "glaring double standard" for not condemning Israel's killing of Palestinian civilians in its ongoing bombardment of Gaza, in an interview aired yesterday.

"The people all around the Middle East, including in Jordan, we are just shocked and disappointed by the world's reaction to this catastrophe that is unfolding. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen a glaring double standard in the world," she told CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

"When October 7 happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself and condemned the attack," she said of the day when Hamas militants began a rampage that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than 220 others, Israeli officials say.

"But what we’re seeing in the last couple of weeks, we’re seeing silence in the world." " Are we being told that it is wrong to kill a family, an entire family, at gunpoint, but it's OK to shell them to death?" she asked. Guterres sparked a furious reaction from Israeli diplomats when he said that the Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum”.

That sentiment was shared by Queen Rania, who told CNN that it was wrong to say the conflict started on October 7. “This is a 75-year-old story; a story of overwhelming death and displacement to the Palestinian people. It is a story of an occupation under an apartheid regime,” she said.