'Islamization' of the Palestinian Issue can sadly have a negative effect - it can reduce humanity's support for the issue...
I recall many years ago when Yasser Arafat came to Malaysia and spoke at Stadium Negara. Anwar Ibrahim(already UMNO was apparently in charge of organizing the event] see https://www.tiktok.com/@fahmi.fadzil/video/7293904002876493058 early part only.
There were UMNO Youth in the front of the stage chanting 'JIHAD' and words that give the impression that it is an 'Islamic" issue and struggle.
Then, on the stage comes Yasser Arafat, and he HITS OUT and clarifies saying that the Palestinian Struggle was NOT, and never was an Islamic Issue or Struggle - it was always a Palestinian Struggle highlighting that the Palestinian people are Jews, Christians, Muslims.... it is a struggle for JUSTICE. And Anwar was amongst the UMNO Youth then - sometimes, I wonder whether he LISTENED to what Arafat said...Do not make it a 'religious concern' as it can cause 'reduction' of support from some...
Read an interesting article below...
67 words of destruction: Unravelling Palestine’s century-long struggle
A non-Muslim Malaysian's perspective on the Palestinian cause and the power of solidarity
By Tong Veng Wye
Words matter.
The beginning of the destruction of historical Palestine was marked by just 67 words in the Balfour Declaration of the British government in November 1917:
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
It was diplomatic language. But note that the indigenous Palestinians were not even referred to by name. They were referred to only by what they were not – “the non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. And recognition as a nation is given only to the Jewish people to come – not to the Palestinians who were already there.
I asked myself how I would use 67 words to describe what has happened since.
In place of the Balfour Declaration, this is a What-for Declaration, if you will:
[And I say “What for” partly because the wars, conflicts and separations we create are taking us away from the real crisis that is confronting us: climate change and global warming. We get that wrong and we will really be sorry for the distractions we create for ourselves with our wars.]
The world views with grievous disfavour the consequences of the establishment of the Zionist state of Israel in the homeland of the Palestinian people through the endeavours of extermination, forced transfer, persecution and apartheid amounting to crimes against humanity, it being clearly understood that everything done has prejudiced the life and human rights of the people of historic Palestine, dishonouring the memory and history of Jews everywhere.
For a century, Palestinians have been betrayed, robbed, denied their statehood even as their Arab neighbours got theirs. They have been denied self-determination. They were unrecognised and not consulted even as their homeland was carved up by a UN committee in 1947. Over half their land was given to new Jewish migrants who were in the minority back then.
Through violent, murderous appropriation, their dispossession has continued ever since. They have been cheated of the outcome of democratic elections that were themselves encouraged by the champions of democracy in the style of the US.
They have been blockaded by land, sea and air. Their water and resources have been in the stranglehold of the Israeli government. And yet, they are scorned for not being able to develop Gaza into a Dubai or a Singapore!
And when pent-up anger boiled over into violence, as it did on 7 October 2023, they get labelled as fundamentalist terrorists who hate Jews and must therefore be destroyed for committing violence for no reason other than being anti-Semites who do not recognise Israel’s right to exist.
Israel created hell on earth in Gaza for the millions of Palestinians who became refugees and prisoners – the survivors of the Nakba (the Catastrophe in 1948) and their descendants – in their own land.
Neutrality in this situation is wrongful and misplaced – for there is no equivalence. There is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but there is no equivalent humanitarian crisis in Israel. The death, suffering and starvation you find in Gaza, you will not find in Israel. Where would you find children having limbs amputated without anaesthesia in Israel? Let that sink in.
As my friend Cathie Sanchez often reminds me, whatever it is anyone thinks, there is no justification for the killing and maiming of 10,000-15,000 children. And that is just those who can be recovered.
Yet, it continues – right in front of the eyes of the world, in this day and age. On one side, two-thousand-pound so-called precision bombs, the most sophisticated weaponry and technology. And on the other, wails and tears from civilians, with resistance fighters equipped with primitive rockets and motorcycles.
It is shameful, it is a loss of humanity – and, as so often happens, all this is dressed in a coat and a tie with hollow words from the lips. That’s civilisation for us.
It has been said that Israel is a marketing project. And it is. It needs an incredible narrative and propaganda apparatus to enable the gross deprivations of the last hundred years to continue with the support of key people, governments and large swathes of society. This despite the historical injustices that underlie this sordid chapter of human history.
That is why it is so important to counter the rhetoric and propaganda and to spread a just understanding of what’s going on and to speak and act for the cause of Palestine and its people. And we can all do that.
As a non-Muslim Chinese Malaysian, I am particularly concerned that there is a comparative lack of non-Muslim ethnic minority voices in Malaysia in solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
In fact, there is an opportunity here for leadership in the country to build something in terms of a common cause among the various ethnic groups. This is something we can all join hands on.
Malaysia is a long communalised and ethnically divided society – but we should not project our domestic separateness onto the Palestinian struggle, which screams for the support and action of all.
Besides being a member of Aliran, I am also an engineer by profession, now retired after many years of work that had nothing to do with what we speak about today. But I am also a member of the public with an interest and solidarity in the Palestinian cause.
Where I can, I talk to my bit of social and family circles who rarely talk about the issue, nor display much interest and awareness. Worse, some of them hold ideas that distort the situation.
Yet, I see the talking as an act of support as an individual. It is also an empathetic, vicarious act of resistance against an ongoing historical injustice.
What do I hear when I have those conversations? I will give a few examples and use them, at the same time, to sketch possible counter-narratives.
Example 1: “It is a complicated subject. I have heard a lot of discussion about it. But I have not heard anyone offer possible solutions.”
The fact is, the essential issues are not complicated. There has never been a land without a people. The people who were already in Palestine for centuries if not millennia, were dispossessed of their homes and livelihoods, robbed and killed by subterfuge and violent means.
They were treated like non-entities while decisions affecting them were made by the imperial powers. They were stripped of their dignity by their occupiers. All this continues to this day.
And what have they done in response for over four generations? They have resisted and fought back against the occupiers, even as they have had their leaders, poets, intellectuals assassinated repeatedly for decades. And still, the Palestinian resistance continues to resist.
So, that is not difficult to understand – it is not complicated! They have been dispossessed and they are fighting to regain freedom and dignity.
No solution because it is so complicated? Not true. Injustices suffered by one people cannot be put right by inflicting similar monumental injustices on another people. Injustices suffered by the Jews over millennia cannot be redeemed by inflicting the ongoing injustices on the people of Palestine.
The solution, therefore, has to be a political solution – not a violent, military one. But it must be founded on moral foundations.
- Stop the forced and illegal settlements in the occupied territory (and start reversing them)
- Recognise the Palestinians’ right of return to their homes and property
- Recognise the Palestinians’ right to self-determination
- Equal rights living together in equal dignity in a properly democratic state from the river to the sea
- Above all, ceasefire immediately
Example 2: “We have to be careful. We could be accused of anti-Semitism.”
I say, I am a Southeast Asian in a small corner of the region called Penang. I have no business having a Jewish problem. I have no business being anti-Semitic. If the situation was reversed between Israelis and Palestinians and it was a Palestinian knee on the throat of Israeli Jews, my sensibilities would be equally triggered.
It is far better to honour Jewish history and suffering through justice and compassion than to misuse it by using it against the weak who are now victims.
Combined examples 3 and 4: “These radical Muslims are terrorists. If they come for my family (referring to 7 October), I’m going to go after them. Before 7 October, I had sympathies for the Palestinians. But after the violence Hamas used against women and children, including rapes and beheadings, sorry, I have lost that sympathy.”
First of all, the stories of women being raped and the stories of babies being beheaded or put into ovens are debunked stories that have not been substantiated. The creation and spreading of such false stories feed Islamophobic prejudices in the West – and probably even into the biases among non-Muslims in this country.
Feeding such prejudices against Islam also feeds the convenient trope of terrorism. So they say, Hamas are Islamic radicals, its acts of violence are therefore simply acts of senseless terrorism. Therefore, the solution is to wipe out Hamas – instead of ending the occupation and land theft which are at the root of the problem.
The fact that Hamas is a resistance movement acting in self-defence (no doubt committing transgressions) to regain freedom from settler-colonisers is lost. Also lost is the fact that Hamas was supported and financed by Israel in the past to split and disunite the Palestinians.
As for the violence employed by Hamas, what, from the vantage point of my armchair, do I expect the Palestinian resistance to do?
Do I agree with violence? Principally, no.
But when someone has been bullied to the extreme, robbed and expelled, stripped of dignity, targeted by bombs repeatedly over decades, described as human animals, grasshoppers that can be crushed under your feet, the dog in the manger (a la Winston Churchill) and two-legged beasts – what do I expect that person to do? Especially when that person has many times in the past made compromises and signalled readiness to negotiate a settlement but is instead spurned, played out and still blamed for the absence of peace.
Finally, this lingering settler-colonialist thing called Israel is part of a larger piece that includes disregard for and domination of the weak. It is a part of colonialism, hypocrisy and racism.
Who dominates the narrative? Why don’t we hear nearly as much about the 10 million or so Africans of the Congo who died under the murderous hands of King Leopold II, King of the Belgians, compared to the six million Jews (mostly poor) who died in the Holocaust? Whose catastrophe, whose shoah dominates the space?
I do not downplay the long history of Jewish suffering. But, again, one people’s injustice cannot be redeemed by inflicting a similar monumental injustice on another people who are now their victims. It brutalises the former’s own soul.
I salute the Palestinians who continue to resist and remain unbroken. There is hope. There is change. The history of South African apartheid has shown what is possible. Students protesting on campuses are showing what is possible.
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