I agree with all of you that we should not tally crimes, that one crime doesn't justify another. But if I had to rank anyone morally, I'd say the same deed becomes morally worse the better off a person/group/nation is. We can trivially observe this in daily life, too. A rich person stealing 1€ from a beggar would be considered kind of monster, even though it might not even matter that much to the beggar. A beggar stealing 1€ from a rich person dropped wouldn't be a hero, but wouldn't raise any eyebrows either.

And the difference Gaza which has been cut off from the internet for 4 days in a row now, and a government that buys Google ads to smear the ICJ genocide charges as being politically motivated support of Hamas, is rather stark. The US senate just voted with a 75% majority to not even record Israeli war crimes. Are they affording that to other countries in the region, too?

> let alone countries in their own region

That's such an odd defense we never hear anywhere else, but constantly in contest of Israel. Why would the physical region matter? Those other countries aren't taking part in the Eurovision song contest, for example. They're not claiming to be a democracy respecting humanitarian values. Israel was founded by educated Europeans in no small part, not people from the region. If someone brags so much, including having "the most moral army in the world", while that army is doing what it is doing now, it might have something to do with them (too), not (only) the people who don't buy it having double standards.

We expect no better of other countries who currently aren't developed and weren't ever, we're barely even on speaking terms with them, when it comes to having a place at our table in polite company. I bet they also brag about being the best and having the best army, but we don't even hear about it and don't care. If one of them got accused of genocide via a formal trial, most media outlets would have covered and translated the first hearing, where the accusations where laid out -- instead of totally ignoring that and then reporting on Israel's so-called defense the next day.

We certainly don't have a fleet of journalists embedded in the armies of other countries in the region posting feel good stories, while the other half is writing up other random personal interest stories to make people feel good about the part of the picture they're not being shown at all. Or politicians just leaping to their defense before the ink on the accusation is even dry: https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2024/01/germany-rushes-to-decl...