“The myth of ‘Western values’ died in Gaza. Myths do not die. They are debunked or refuted. They often persist for a long time and are adaped to new contexts; they are part of a belief system. I remember well after Iraq and Afghanistan how people invoked ‘democracy’ and ‘Western values’ in a way not dissimilar from what the Bushes and Blairs and later the Obamas and Bidens articulated them. Recently, a student at the ‘best’ European university in social sciences told me that the myth of sectarianism in the Middle Ast is still being repeated. A white liberal, ‘MeeToo’ English woman what Russia was doing in Ukraine was ‘a Russian thing. It's in their history’. Zelenskyy's recent rise in ‘popularity’ among many is built upon ‘the myth of Western values’ defending Ukraine against an authoritarian Russian regime. Myths are strentghned through amnesia. History is brushed aside and Pavlovian conditioning is enforced. We should remember how the emergence of ISIS was analysed. How ...