Early in the Gaza conflict, a TikTok video of John Kirby went viral. In the first frames, the White House spokesman is composed as he describes civilian casualties in Gaza as part of the “brutal, ugly” reality of war. In the second part, he chokes up as he describes his horror at civilian deaths in Ukraine.

For the Biden administration’s critics, that video summed up America’s double standards. But the whole debate about the relative treatment of Ukraine and Gaza misses a wider point about selective compassion. The tragedies of Ukraine, Gaza and Israel all get far more attention than wars and humanitarian calamities elsewhere in the world. 

The threat of a famine in Gaza is currently making global headlines every day. But last week the UN warned that “Sudan will soon be the world’s worst hunger crisis” with 18mn people facing acute food insecurity. It highlighted an ongoing conflict that involves “mass graves, gang rapes, shockingly indiscriminate attacks in densely populated areas” and more than 6.5mn displaced people. Reports from refugee camps in Darfur describe children dying of malnutrition every two hours.