Queen Rania of Jordan has launched a remarkable attack on the West, accusing countries supporting Israel’s war on Hamas of ‘aiding and abetting’ the killing of Palestinians, and denouncing a ‘glaring double standard’ in response to the deaths.
Rania, who was born in Kuwait to Palestinian parents and grew up in the West Bank, spoke with barely-concealed fury at Israel’s shelling of Gaza, and called the Western world ‘complicit’.
Failing to condemn Hamas directly, she called Israel ‘an apartheid regime’ that ‘occupies, oppresses and commits daily documented crimes against Palestinians.’
Rania said that the Western world was ‘giving Israel cover: that it just wants to defend itself’, and said the 75-year conflict was ‘a fight for freedom and for justice’.
She criticized Joe Biden for saying he had seen photos of babies beheaded by Hamas, only for the White House to then walk it back and say it was unconfirmed. It has now been confirmed that such horrors occurred.
And she said there was a ‘shocking’ difference in global response to the killing of Israelis by Hamas, and the killing of Gazans by Israel.
‘Are we being told that it is wrong to kill a family, an entire family, at gunpoint – but it’s okay to shell them to death?’ she asked CNN’s Christiane Amanpour.
‘I mean, there is a glaring double standard here.
‘And it’s just shocking to the Arab world.’
Queen Rania on Tuesday condemned the ‘glaring double standard’ in the global response to the deaths of Israelis and Palestinians
The 53-year-old spoke to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, and was asked how she responded to October 7 ‘as an Arab, as a Palestinian, as a mother, as a human being’
Amanpour began by asking the 53-year-old how she had felt since the Hamas attack of October 7 ‘as an Arab, as a Palestinian, as a mother, as a human being’.
Rania replied: ‘I cannot begin to describe to you the depth of the grief, the pain and the shock that we are feeling here in Jordan.’
She said her country, home to the world’s largest Palestinian population, was ‘united in grief, regardless of our origin’.
Rania said that she was horrified by the images of mothers writing their child’s name on their limbs, so they could be identified if they were killed in airstrikes.
‘I just want to remind the world that Palestinian mothers love their children just as much as any other mother in the world,’ she added.
The queen, who worked at Citibank and in the marketing department of Apple before marrying Abdullah, now the king, in 1993, said the Arab world was angered by the hypocrisy of the West.
Rania is pictured in 1987, at school in Kuwait, aged 17. She became queen at the age of 28
Queen Rania and King Abdullah, who married in 1993 and have four children
The royal couple are pictured in June 2018 during a visit to the White House
The UN, World Health Organization and others have called for an end to the strikes on Gaza, and President Joe Biden has urged Israel to respect civilian life.
Rania said it was insufficient, and decried the ‘deafening silence’ about the bombing of Gaza.
‘Why isn’t there a call for an immediate ceasefire? We are seeing staggering human suffering happening today, so why is the narrative always skewed towards the Israeli side?’ she asked.
‘The Western media and policymakers are quick to adopt the Israeli narratives. When Israel attacks, Palestinians ‘die’, but when Israelis die, they are ‘killed,’ ‘murdered in cold blood.”
She said the response to the Hamas attack was telling.
‘When October 7th happened, the world immediately and unequivocally stood by Israel and its right to defend itself, and condemned the attacks that happened,’ she said.
‘But what we’re seeing the last couple of weeks, we’re seeing silence.
‘Countries have stopped at just expressing concern, or acknowledging the casualties.
‘But always with a preface of declaration of support for Israel.’
She said the West was too quick to accept the Israeli perspective, calling out Biden for his response to claims that babies were beheaded.
‘When the President of the United States is told that he has evidence he has seen evidence of children beheaded, only to retract it because the IDF said that there’s no proof of that. That is confirmation bias,’ said Rania.
‘Even at your network Christiane, the CNN website, at the beginning of the conflict reported a headline about Israeli children found butchered in an Israeli kibbutz. And when you read through the story, that’s not hasn’t been independently verified.
‘Now, my question to you is would you publish such a damning yet unverified claim made by a Palestinia—’
Amanpour told her: ‘Queen Rania, I just need to stop you right there because there have been pictures shown by the Israelis and our journalists have been down there. I’m not talking about beheadings, I’m talking about babies bodies riddled with bullets.’
Jordan, Rania continued, condemns the killing of any civilian, Israeli or Palestinian.
She said the Pact of Omar in Islam orders Muslims to respect human life.
‘I just want to emphasize that this conflict did not begin on October 7th, although it has been being portrayed as that,’ Rania continued.
Rescuers pull a child from the rubble of a building following Israeli strikes in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday
People gather around a building demolished by Israeli airstrikes to rescue injured civilians and retrieve bodies from the rubble on Tuesday
Tuesday was the bloodiest day in Gaza since the conflict began, according to Gazan authorities, with at least 704 people killed
‘You know, most networks are covering the story under the title of Israel at War
‘But for many Palestinians on the other side of the separation wall, and the other side of the barbed wire, war has never left.
‘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 that occupies land, that demolishes houses, confiscates land, military incursions, night raids.
‘You know, the context of a nuclear-armed regional superpower that occupies, oppresses and commits daily documented crimes against Palestinians is missing from the narrative.’
Amanpour told her that her words were likely to be received with great anger by Israel.
‘Let me just emphasize that that apartheid is a designation that was given not by Arabs, but by Israeli and international human rights organizations,’ she replied.
Rania added: ‘It’s not about me. It’s about speaking up for humanity.
‘You know, this is not about being pro-Israeli or pro Palestinian.
‘This is about choosing the people – the everyday people on both sides.
‘And, you know, and explaining again that the Palestinian people have for too long been living under oppression and dehumanization.’
The mother of four said Palestinians ‘suffer daily indignities and human rights violations’ – saying there was no freedom of movement, and condemning the 500 checkpoints across the West Bank; the ‘aggressive expansion of settlements on Palestinian land’; and the ‘humiliation’ of her people.
She said Israel violated UN resolutions, and ignored international law.
‘There’s a hyper fixation on Hamas now because of all that happened the last couple of weeks,’ she said.
‘But this is a problem that far precedes Hamas and will continue after Hamas.
‘This is a fight for freedom and for justice, and that is what needs to be heard.’
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