For decades, Western democracies presented themselves as the gold standard of exemplary governance and tolerance; the shining “beacons of hope” that the rest of the world was expected to follow. But the Gaza genocide has torn that facade apart. What we have witnessed over the past two years is not a reflection of democracy but its humiliation. What we have seen is not the protection of human rights but patterns of racism and intolerance.
The mask is off, exposing a system built on double standards, selective outrage, and a chilling willingness to crush the very freedoms it claims to champion.
The Dutch shame: A pregnant woman vs. a police officer with his dog
Few incidents have exposed this hypocrisy as brutally as what happened in the Netherlands on 19th May. Dutch police officers responded to a disturbance at an asylum seekers’ center in Zeist. A Palestinian refugee, Wesam Miqdad, had smashed the television, fridge, and door of his room after learning that his brother had been killed in Gaza, however, he surrendered without resistance.
What happened next shocked the world. When his wife—nine months pregnant—tried to inquire about his condition and ask if she could stay by his side, an officer with a police dog approached her, pried her away from her husband, and violently threw her to the ground. The footage, which went viral on 29th May, showed a visibly pregnant woman being dragged and slammed onto the floor of the asylum center.
The response of the Dutch authorities was first, denial. According to the victim, the officials tried to deny the incident altogether, claiming there were no records to support their account. Then, police claimed they were responding to a threat involving a knife—allegations not being verified, and no recordings prior to the arrest that support their falsehood.
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Only when the video sneaked its way onto social media did the truth emerge. The victims had been fully compliant. The husband had been on his knees with his hands behind his back. There was no threat. There was no justification for brutality against a pregnant woman whose only “crime” was wanting to stay with her detained husband. The woman later gave birth, and both mother and baby survived—a miracle given the violence she endured.
What makes the incident even more disturbing, according to Wesam, is that the police’s brutality was driven by the knowledge that he was a Palestinian from Gaza—not by any threat he posed.
It looks like a pattern, not an isolated incident
What happened in the Netherlands was not an isolated outbreak of police brutality. It was the latest—and most grotesque—example of a systematic intolerance towards immigrants who once believed that they reached the land freedom, tolerance, and respect of human rights, and when adding the Palestinian dimension to the incident, it is, as well, a crackdown on anyone who dares to express solidarity with the Palestinian people or criticize Israel’s genocidal practices.
In Germany, the crackdown has been relentless and far-reaching. Since 7th October 2023, German authorities have imposed a comprehensive domestic crackdown on Palestine solidarity in tandem with the government’s political backing for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Almost in 2025 alone, Berlin police reported nearly 9,000 criminal charges linked to pro-Palestinian protests. Participants in these solidarity activities were constantly subjected to severe police brutality, including kettling, pepper spraying, punching, and choking.
The German government has formally outlawed and banned several pro-Palestinian groups. Human rights groups have condemned these measures, warning that the deliberate conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is being used to stifle free speech in solidarity with Palestine.
In France, the situation has been equally alarming. Pro-Palestinian events often unfold under heavy police presence, treated as threatening rather than a legitimate right to freedom of expression. In late April 2025, the French Interior Minister initiated proceedings to dissolve Urgence Palestine, one of the country’s most visible and active pro-Palestinian groups, on baseless grounds that the group is condoning terrorism.
These are not isolated incidents; they are a systematic pattern.
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The hypocrisy exposed: Democracy for some, repression for others
The Gaza genocide has done what decades of criticism could not: it has stripped Western democracy of its moral pretensions. The same governments that lecture the world on human rights have become laboratories for the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine. The same countries that hypocritically defend freedom of speech at home have banned slogans, cancelled academic events, and arrested students for expressing political opinion.
A report in October 2025 by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) warned that the crackdown “reveals a profound crisis: not only of human rights in the occupied territories but of freedom itself in societies that claim to be democratic.”
Governments in the UK, US, France and Germany have “weaponised” domestic counterterrorism legislation and fears of antisemitism to suppress public anger over the Gaza war, the study also said.
The final fig leaf has fallen
For me, this revelation was not shocking. I still remember how the Western governments overthrew elected governments in the region and beyond in the recent past. I remember the double standards on Palestine for decades. The only difference is that now, the brutality is being broadcast live on social media for the entire world to see.
The Gaza genocide has exposed the truth that Western democracy is not a universal standard of freedom—it is a selective tool applied when convenient, suspended when it contradicts with the interests of a criminal entity. The same Europe that sanctioned Russia for its conflict with Ukraine, stands silent while thousands of children and women were killed in Gaza.
As for the Dutch police officer who threw a pregnant woman to the ground, his superiors will investigate, they may reassign him elsewhere, they may issue a statement about “following procedures.” But the system that enabled him, justified him, and then tried to deny his actions will remain intact, exactly as such system allowed police to suppress freedom of expression in solidarity with Palestine.
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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
