During the Cold War evidence was presented to demonstrate that on both sides of the Iron Curtain people were suffering and that equivalent practices and institutions (such as espionage, torture, propaganda, and elitism) had developed. It was therefore argued that morally there was no great difference between them and that indeed they were converging towards greater similarity. Moral equivalence was used as a cover for left-wing tendencies sympathetic to terrorism. It can also mask a sympathy for third world totalitarianism.
In relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the killings perpetrated by extremists on both sides, moral equivalence is used as a shield and a weapon for those who oppose the existence or find a particular Israeli government not to their liking. However any act of repression or violence in the democratic society of Israel cannot be equated with the built-in repression and murder basic to the war of the Arab states against Israel.