The first who invented the idea of manipulating history in the modern era were the Zionist Jews—their occupation of Palestine and the expulsion of most of its people based on two grounds.
The first is that the Jews have been in Palestine for two thousand years, which is ridiculous logic, and the second is that the Jews are hated in Europe, which is a reason that provokes more ridicule because the Palestinians have nothing to do with the history of the Jews.
Putin’s manipulation of history follows the Zionist logic; he says that Ukraine was part of Tsarist Russia, and this is true in modern history but does not work any longer. The reason is that Ukraine has become an independent country, and it is a political reality that must respected. And the Russian occupation must be rejected on moral and political grounds because the occupation is evil anywhere.
The problem with the West is that it has proven that it is a hypocrite, a champion of double standards, as it supports the Zionist occupation of Palestine, which has made the Palestinian struggle for freedom a conflict not only with Zionists but with the whole West which supports them. It is an unholy unity against the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, according to the charters of the United Nations. The West has not even respected what they signed at the UN regarding Palestine.
The Ukraine crisis revealed even to the blind the extent of the hypocrisy and duplicity of the West. The West decides what occupation is suitable and what occupation is wrong. They have the monopoly right to label history. When the first war broke out in 1914 between European countries, it was called the World War, and the rest of the world except the West had nothing to do with this war. And the same thing in the second war that broke out between European countries in 1939 was called the Second World War. These are false labels. It is time to change them in school curricula, at least in the third world.
The world after the Ukraine war should not be the same as the world before it. Many things should be reviewed, such as the veto system in the United Nations and the dollar’s domination as the world’s primary currency.
The world is not the West, and it is time for the world’s countries outside the West to have their say.
Salim Nazzal is a Palestinian Norwegian researcher, lecturer playwright and poet, wrote more than 17 books such as Perspectives on thought, culture and political sociology, in thought, culture and ideology, the road to Baghdad
