The hypocrisy of Daniel Oliveira

In his July 31st article in Expresso , Daniel Oliveira adopts an indignant and provocative tone to denounce what he considers the international community's hypocrisy in its handling of the Israel-Palestine conflict. He argues that if Western countries truly defended a world order based on international law, they should apply the same harsh measures against Israel that they have applied to other regimes, such as Vladimir Putin's: economic sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and war crimes trials, among others.

Oliveira, who frequently uses his alleged Jewish ancestry to attack the only Jewish state in the world and the only democracy in the Middle East, argues in his article that only with this type of pressure will it be possible to force Israel to seriously negotiate a peace based on parameters recognized by the UN, such as the withdrawal of settlements from the occupied territories, the sharing of Jerusalem and the return to the 1967 borders.

For Oliveira, the fact that these proposals are considered "unrealistic" only demonstrates that international law is only invoked when it serves the interests of major powers—and is ignored when it concerns strategic allies like Israel. His text, therefore, is not only a condemnation of Israeli policy, but above all a critique of the West's moral and legal double standards. The article presents no concrete examples, nor any attempt to contextualize the conflict. It merely adopts a pro-Palestinian stance, in an editorial tone that has been widely adopted by the Portuguese press: a biased and decontextualized attack on the State of Israel, intended to discredit and delegitimize it. This alone explains why an article of this nature was published in a mainstream newspaper without any editorial correction.

It is profoundly hypocritical to demand a complete severing of diplomatic and trade relations with Israel while so many countries maintain close ties with brutal regimes like Iran, China, and Syria. Israel, a democracy under constant attack by terrorist organizations like Hamas, is treated as a pariah while genocidal dictatorships remain integrated into the international system without major sanctions. The demand to impose sanctions against Israel as severe as those imposed on Russia completely ignores the difference between a war of aggression—like the invasion of Ukraine—and a self-defense response against a group that massacred civilians, raped women, and kidnapped hundreds of people, sadistically and cruelly filming the operation. Furthermore, proposing the trial of Netanyahu while silencing Hamas's barbaric crimes, including the systematic use of human shields and the deliberate firing of rockets at civilian centers, is not only unjust but morally indefensible. The text in question invokes international law but applies it in a biased and ideological manner, ignoring the basic right of any state to self-defense, enshrined in Article 51 of the UN Charter. Furthermore, transforming the 1967 borders, the complete withdrawal of settlements, and the partition of Jerusalem into a "starting point" for negotiations is not legal realism—it is a political imposition that ignores decades of Arab rejection of peace proposals based on these same parameters.

Oliveira does not demand that NATO member Turkey withdraw from northern Cyprus—a region it has left virtually uninhabited—but he considers it realistic and feasible for Israel to remove a million Jews from the vibrant towns and villages it has built in Judea and Samaria since 1967. He believes Israel does not have the right to make territorial claims that the international community disagrees with—but Thailand can.

No country, including the most civilized in Europe, would agree to surrender all its strategic interests before even beginning negotiations. Demanding this only of Israel is, once again, applying a double standard. The text criticizes the "world order based on international law," but it itself perverts this law, treating Israel as the only state that cannot err, cannot react, and cannot fully exist like any other. This selectivity is not justice—it is disguised persecution. It speaks of "carnage" but forgets who started it. It demands justice, but only for one side. It demands impartiality, but with language and demands laden with prejudice. The text, which purports to be morally elevated, in reality reveals the opposite: a veiled contempt for Israel as a sovereign state. And that, indeed, is true hypocrisy.