The five emerging nations that make up the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) held an extraordinary virtual summit on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Gaza six weeks after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. From Beijing, President Xi Jinping, in addition to calling for a ceasefire and humanitarian corridors to protect Palestinian civilians, assured that China “will provide more support and assistance” to the population of the strip, explaining that his country, with the help of Egypt had already sent 15 million yuan (almost two million euros) in food and medical supplies.
“The fundamental cause of this crisis is that the right to existence of the Palestinian people has been ignored for a long time,” Xi stressed in his first public speech on Gaza since the conflict broke out. The Chinese leader also called for the convening of an international peace conference and insisted that only a two-state solution would bring lasting peace. “There can be no security in the region without a just solution to the question of Palestine,” he stressed.
From Moscow, Vladimir Putin stressed that the BRICS can play a key role in achieving a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas. The Russian leader assured that the “sabotage” (by Israel) of the decisions of the UN Security Council made “the Palestinians live in injustice.” The president who ordered a bloody invasion of Ukraine said that “the deaths of thousands of people, the massive displacement of civilians and the humanitarian catastrophe that has been unleashed are deeply disturbing.”
It is the first time that a conflict in the Middle East is the focus of the meeting of a bloc that has gained a lot of weight and voice on the international stage. The summit was chaired by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, whose government requested a few days ago that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Ramaphosa on Tuesday accused Israel of war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
“The collective punishment of Palestinian civilians through the illegal use of force by Israel is a war crime. The deliberate denial of medicine, fuel, food and water to the residents of Gaza amounts to genocide,” said the South African. His party, the African National Congress (ANC), has often linked the Palestinian cause to its own fight against apartheid. “Let this meeting be a wake-up call for us to combine our efforts and strengthen our actions to put an end to this historic injustice,” he said. On Monday, Israel recalled its ambassador to South Africa.
Representatives of five new members of the group (Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates) joined the videoconference meeting, whose membership will be official next year. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, also participated.
Another notable intervention was that of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, who asked “all nations” to stop arms exports to Israel. “The brutal crimes unfolding in Gaza demand a collective effort to end them,” he added.
The major absence from the summit was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who sent his Foreign Minister, S. Jaishankar, in his place. This unexpected sit-in sends a clear signal that New Delhi is not at all comfortable with a meeting organized to criticize the Israeli army’s devastating bombing of Gaza.
Unlike the rest of the countries that make up the BRICS, India has at all times adopted a position closer to that of the United States. He has not demanded a ceasefire by Israeli forces and abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for an end to the offensive for failing to include an “explicit condemnation” of the attack in the declaration. of Hamas.
This position of the Modi Government represents a historic shift in his country’s position on the conflict in the Middle East, moving from support to the Palestinians – it was the first non-Arab nation to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) – , to a support that seems unconditional towards Israel, with whom India shares increasingly strong commercial and, above all, defense ties. Delhi is Tel Aviv’s largest foreign customer when it comes to the purchase of missiles, drones and border security equipment.
Just hours after the October 7 Hamas massacre, Modi was one of the first world leaders to condemn the terrorist attacks. In contrast, Beijing has yet to directly condemn Hamas. The second world power is increasingly focused on positioning itself as a mediator of the conflict and asking Israel to end the offensive in Gaza. Meanwhile, in India, many complaints have come out from activists saying that social media groups linked to the Bharatiya Janata (BJP), the Hindu nationalist ruling party, are spreading messages that all Palestinians are jihadists and that in the conflictive region Muslim-majority Kashmir’s Hindus face a threat like that of Hamas.
Modi will be at another virtual summit on Wednesday, that of G-20 leaders, which will also have the presence of Putin, who was absent from the group’s in-person meeting held in Delhi last September. Xi Jinping did not appear there either. Beijing has confirmed that the Chinese president will not participate in Wednesday’s meeting. His place, as happened a couple of months ago, will be taken by Premier Li Qiang.
Xi’s new sit-in is a new message sent from Beijing about the Chinese president’s personal commitment to the BRICS as a multilateral platform that helps counter Western dominance in international organizations, as well as turning it into a forum that provides new support to countries hungry for alternative governance structures.
As happened after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many of the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have moved away from the dominant position in part of the West, led by the United States, of supporting Israel in its war in Gaza. . There are two increasingly separated blocks, with one of them repeating messages that try to reveal the different standards by which some powers are governed depending on the current conflict that is most current.
In these troubled waters, an authoritarian force like China moves well, playing as a tightrope walker on all fronts, promoting charm diplomacy towards the so-called Global South and strengthening the attractiveness of the BRICS group, which has long since emerged from a discreet background to demand more global relevance.
