Democratic Senator from Maryland, Chris Van Hollen, confirmed today, Tuesday, that U.S. foreign policy suffers from "a clear double standard" and a significant gap between the declared principles regarding human rights and actual practices, stressing the need to link military support to accountability and to stop what he described as "collective punishment" imposed on the Gaza Strip.
This came during a speech delivered by Van Hollen at the annual celebration of the "Democracy Now for the Arab World" organization in Washington, D.C., attended by Shafaq News Agency.
Van Hollen began his speech by praising journalists and activists who advocate for human rights, recalling the late journalist Jamal Khashoggi and journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, stating that "authority often does not like the truth, and therefore regimes resort to suppressing journalists to hide facts and cover up their violations."
He noted the continued detention of journalists and their enforced disappearance in several countries in the region, including Egypt and Jordan, as well as the targeting of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip.
The U.S. Senator criticized the provision of weapons and military assistance to Israel without accountability, citing two visits he made to the Rafah crossing, during which he observed the accumulation of humanitarian aid convoys and relief warehouses that he said Israeli authorities prevented from entering, at a time when civilians suffer from hunger and dire humanitarian conditions.
He added that what he saw on the other side of the crossing during his second visit was "rubble and complete destruction."
Van Hollen criticized what he described as the failure of successive U.S. administrations to use their influence to prevent what he termed "genocide and ethnic cleansing" in Gaza and the West Bank, considering that there is a contradiction between Washington's calls for countries in the "Global South" to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and what he described as the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and repeated violations of international law.
Regarding the legislative path in Congress, the Senator explained that he has introduced a resolution based on Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act that would compel the U.S. State Department to provide a detailed report on the human rights record and accountability measures related to the killing of U.S. citizens in the West Bank.
He stated that the resolution received broad support from the majority of Democratic members in the Senate, compared to previous years.
In conclusion, Van Hollen urged the international community and member states of the International Criminal Court to "protect the independence of international justice and pursue perpetrators of crimes, and to prevent undermining the court or punishing its staff and supporters," as he also called for halting arms sales to the UAE, citing its "support for the war and ongoing violations in Sudan."