On Feb. 24, 2022, 190,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Two years later, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, “We did not start this war in 2022.”

On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists crossed from Gaza into Israel and murdered over 1,200 civilians, many of whom had been attending a music festival. The Hamas Media Office called the attack “a defensive act.”

Russia and Hamas were both guilty of using mirror propaganda to accuse the victims of their aggression of being its perpetrators.

Three years after the Russian invasion, Trump echoed Putin and declared Ukraine “should have never started” the war against Russia. No surprise. Trump has a record of expressing sympathy for Russia and admiration for its president. At the same time, he blames Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his 2019 impeachment and bridles at the “disrespect” he’s been shown by Zelenskyy.

Israel has enough enemies and Palestinian Arabs enough champions among media, politicians, influencers and students that Israel is way too often presumed the guilty party in any reaction to the current war. The very day after the Hamas attack, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and 33 other Harvard student organizations signed a statement that held “the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Neither nuance nor truth had any place in the condemnation.

The current Russian regime holds that the U.N.-recognized state of Ukraine is an “artificial” state belonging to Russia. This despite Stalin’s genocidal suppression of Ukraine during the 1930s resulting in the death of 3.9 million people and the 92% majority of Ukrainians who voted for independence from Russia in 1991.

Likewise, Hamas claims all the territory of Israel “from the river to the sea.” Its 1988 covenant states, “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad (Holy War)” and “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” This despite a Jewish presence in what is now Israel for over 3,000 years, the U.N. recognition of the State of Israel in 1949 and the withdrawal of the Israeli military from Gaza in 2005.

Unfounded charges of Nazism are hallmarks of both Russia’s and Hamas’ mirror propaganda. The authoritarian Putin charges that the democratic Ukraine is a hotbed of “neo-Nazism.” The genocidal Hamas Covenant accuses Israel of “Zionist Nazi activities.”

The Russian military has bombed civilian targets including power plants, schools and hospitals. Russia stands accused of abducting almost 20,000 Ukrainian children. A 2023 U.N. report called out the attacks on civilian women: “During Russian armed forces’ initial control of localities in Ukraine, many of the… rapes, and sexual violence were committed in the context of house-to-house searches.”

In its “narrative” of the Oct. 7 attack, the Hamas Media Office stated, “Avoiding harm to civilians, especially children, women and elderly people is a religious and moral commitment by all the (Hamas) fighters.” Over 1,200 civilians were murdered in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel. A report by Pramila Patten, special representative of the U.N. Secretary-General, described “rape and gang rape” by the attackers. Her investigation “found that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered — mostly women — with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head.”

But too many so-called American “progressives” tilt toward Hamas. I am not certain what is progressive about supporting a gang of murderous, raping terrorists over the Middle East’s only democracy. Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib refused to vote for a resolution condemning “rape and sexual violence committed by Hamas.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accuses Israel of genocide against the Palestinian people. What does she mean? Since 1948, the number of Israeli non-Jews, overwhelmingly Arab, has grown over 16 times. How is that wiping out a people? Arab citizens voluntarily serve in the Israeli defense forces, and Arab judges have sat on the Israeli Supreme Court.

Israel is imperfect for sure, but so was the U.S. in how it waged World War II. The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt vowed, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” If the U.S. could not live with the threat of Imperial Japan 4,000 miles across the Pacific from Hawaii, how can Israel be expected to tolerate Hamas on its very border?

So here we are. Trump and his posse disregard American values in tilting their policy toward a ruthless, authoritarian regime bent on subduing Ukraine, a U.N.-recognized democracy. At the same time, many progressive Americans who claim to stand for democracy and multiethnic diversity and to oppose terrorism and religious prejudice take a narrow-minded position against Israel, the only Middle Eastern state that aspires to stand for those same values.

Shakespeare expressed how I feel best: A plague on both your houses.

— Keith Raffel is a syndicated columnist with Creators.