Know the Difference– Being Jewish and Being Zionist

January 28, 2019

by Dr. Kua Kia Soong

www,freemalaysiatoday.com

At the outset, let me make it clear that as far as the Palestinian cause is concerned, I am on the same page as Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, although I cannot vouch for his consistency on all the other non-Muslim liberation causes in the rest of the world.

What is disturbing is that through the years, we have witnessed Mahathir’s deliberate refusal to make any distinction between the Jewish people and the ideology of Zionism.

This has huge consequences for how our prime minister stands on racism and racial discrimination in our own country. Those who have followed his political career will note the continuity in his ethos and it was not unexpected that he should once again create a similar rumpus recently on the international stage by conflating Jews with Zionism.

Unashamedly racist paradigm

Mahathir’s first claim to fame (or rather, notoriety) was the publication of his “Malay Dilemma” after the May 13th 1969 racial riots in Kuala Lumpur.

It was banned by the then Tunku–led government when it first appeared and Mahathir was expelled from the ruling UMNO. Apart from being an academic embarrassment because of its unashamedly racist paradigm, it was clearly “seditious” by the definition of the government-of-the-day in its undermining of sacred constitutional provisions:

“…the Malays are the rightful owners of Malaya…immigrants (read non-Malay Malaysians) are guests until properly absorbed…immigrants are not truly absorbed until they have abandoned the language and culture of their past.”–Dr.Mahathir Mohamad

Mahathir’s ‘Malay Dilemma’ was an instant hit among the emergent state capitalists in UMNO who were hungry for power since it provided the instant recipe for them to rally populist support for their bid for power just before May 13, 1969. It was the time-tested recipe for opportunistic politicians to use ‘race’ as the rallying cry for political support just as Hitler’s racist polemic, “Mein Kampf” had provided the model for such a political route.

Since the demise of Hitler and his race-steeped ideology and the price paid in blood by the freedom-loving peoples of the world, racism, racial discrimination and other forms of intolerance have been outlawed in the world community by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights 1948, the International Convention on the Eradication of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) 1965 and the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance (WCAR) in 2001.

Although Malaysia has yet to ratify I-CERD, we are signatories to all these UN treaties.

Glad to be labelled anti-Semitic!

But why is Mahathir so recalcitrant about his blatantly racist attitude towards Jewish people as an ethnic community?

“I am glad to be labelled anti-Semitic,” Mahathir wrote in 2012 on his personal blog. “How can I be otherwise when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness.”

He wrote in his 1970 book “The Malay Dilemma” that “the Jews are not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively.” He was not embarrassed about repeating this recently on international cable TV.

Not all Jews support Zionism

Much of Malaysians’ antipathy towards Israel can be attributed to our government’s longstanding support for the Palestinian cause. But Mahathir’s rancour extends far beyond geopolitics, spanning anti-Semitism of yesteryears including alleging international Jewish conspiracies to blaming the 1997 Asian financial crisis on a Jew, George Soros:

“The Jews rule this world by proxy,” he told the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation summit in 2003.

If Mahathir had studied abroad as I have, he would have come across many Jewish academics, students and politicians who are anti-Zionist activists.

 

One of the most notable anti-Zionists and pro-Palestinian activists is, of course, Noam Chomsky.

One of the most notable anti-Zionists and pro-Palestinian activists is, of course, Noam Chomsky. There is even a Palestinian solidarity group called ‘Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP) based in Britain that advocates for human and civil rights, and economic and political freedom, for the Palestinian people. It opposes the current policy of Israel towards the Palestinian territories, particularly the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and seeks a change in their political status. The membership of JfJfP is primarily made up of British Jews.

“Zionism is itself a racist nationalist movement that has had as its goal the creation and support of a Jewish national state in Palestine. Certainly, not all Jews support Zionism nor do they support Israel’s discriminatory and repressive actions against Palestinians. “–Dr.Kua Kia Soong.

More Jews live outside of Israel and not every inhabitant of Israel is Jewish; there are also many non-Jews living in Israel. Many Jews, both living in Israel and elsewhere support a Palestinian state alongside Israel as a possible solution to the conflict. In other words, not all Jews identify with Zionism and it is mischievous to conflate ‘Jews’ with ‘Israelis’ and ‘Zionists’ just as it is wrong to say that “all ethnic Chinese in Malaysia are rich” or that “all Chinese must be held responsible for the persecution of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, China”.

Likewise, Mahathir’s stereotyping of ethnic Chinese

Much of Mahathir’s portrayal of Chinese Malaysians echoes his stereotypical anti-Semitic slurs. In his ‘Malay Dilemma’, Mahathir describes Malaysia’s Chinese as “predatory immigrants” who exhibit an “unlimited acquisitiveness” that threatens the “complete Sinicization of the economy.” They are mistrusted as disloyal and mercenary, enriching themselves at the expense of the country’s other communities. Has he ever shown remorse and rectified his racist thesis in the “Malay Dilemma”?

Ostensibly to “correct the racial imbalance”, the New Economic Policy has provided a carte blanche for the new Malay ruling class to amass wealth in the name of their “race”. Mahathir has justified this blatantly racist policy thus:

“The best way to keep the shares in bumiputera hands is to hand them over to the bumiputeras most capable of retaining them, which means the well-to-do.”

Today, race has been so deeply institutionalised that it is a key factor determining benefits from government development policies, bids for business contracts, education policy, social policy, cultural policy, entry into educational institutions, discounts for purchasing houses and other official policies. Practically every aspect of Malaysian life is permeated by the so-called “Bumiputera policy” based on Malay-centrism.

No wonder the time is not ripe to ratify I-CERD

In the decades since, Mahathir has continued to resort to racial chauvinism whenever popular support has ebbed, stirring anxiety about Chinese investment and immigration following disappointing electoral showings in 2008 and 2013. He castigated Najib for “giving too much to the Chinese” after the disastrous GE13 results.

The recent anti-ICERD rallies organised by UMNO and PAS have now given the prime minister the excuse to say the country is not yet ready to ratify ICERD. The real question is: Is Mahathir ready to eradicate racism, racial discrimination and related intolerances from his own mental paradigm?

As someone has said, “Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself!”

Kua Kia Soong is the adviser to Suaram.

The views of the writer do not necessarily reflect those of FMT

 

 

The 1600 Penn Avenue and The Barbarian in The Arabian Desert

October 21, 2018

US Mid-East Policy:The 1600 Penn Avenue and The Barbarian in The Arabian Desert

by Dr.Fareed Zakaria

https://fareedzakaria.com/columns/2018/10/18/khashoggis-alleged-murder-says-as-much-about-america-as-saudi-arabia

“The United States’ Middle East policy should be based on its interests and values in the region, and these will never be perfectly aligned with any one country… [I]t is what helped President Jimmy Carter forge the Camp David accords. This is why, from presidents Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the U.S. government has urged even its Arab allies to undertake serious political reforms.

… All of this requires nuance, sophistication and ceaseless high-quality diplomacy. This is the price of being the leader of the free world,  a job that we appear of late to have vacated.”–Dr. Fareed Zakaria

 

The apparent barbaric killing of Jamal Khashoggi tells us something important about Saudi Arabia. But it also tells us something important about the United States.

First, Saudi Arabia. As has been often noted, Khashoggi, a Post contributing columnist, used to be part of the Saudi establishment. Although not a member of the House of Saud, he was well born and well connected. He edited an important Saudi newspaper and worked for senior royals. I first met him 14 years ago; he assisted me when I spent a week in Riyadh and Jiddah.

Khashoggi was working for Prince Turki al-Faisal (pic above), the longtime head of Saudi intelligence who was at that time Ambassador to Britain and later Ambassador to the United States. Turki is one of the sons of King Faisal — in other words, as senior a royal as you can get, other than the monarch.

Khashoggi was, even in those days, a liberal and a reformer but always moderate and incremental in his approach. He worried that too much reform would be disruptive. “I would like to see my government taking harsher measures against [extremist elements],” he told me in 2005 on my PBS show, “Foreign Exchange.” But at the same time, he warned about going too fast. “We do not want to break the society,” he said.

Watching Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s approach, a mix of authoritarianism and real reforms, Khashoggi became more critical but was never a radical. So why was he apparently seen as so threatening? Perhaps because he was respected within the Saudi establishment. Harvard’s Tarek Masoud suggests that the Khashoggi affair might signal that there is greater dissent within the Saudi establishment than we had believed. If so, this is significant. When the scholar Samuel Huntington studied the breakdown of authoritarian regimes in the 1970s and 1980s, he noted that a schism within the ruling elite was almost always the precursor to a broader breakdown of the regime.

Historically, Saudi Arabia has maintained stability because it was really a patronage state, not a police state. The kingdom has typically dealt with its critics and dissenters by buying them off — most importantly in the case of hardline clerics. It employed this strategy again most recently after the Arab Spring, when it massively increased subsidies to citizens and gave bonuses to government employees. It worked. In fact, a lesson of the Arab Spring seems to be that repression doesn’t work as well — consider Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad — as bribery does.

Yet MBS, as the Saudi crown prince is known, appears to be changing the patronage model, bringing it closer to the police-state one. He has mixed economic, social and religious reforms with an ever-tighter grip on power, shaking down businessmen, imprisoning activists, targeting news platforms — and now, it would seem, executing a columnist.

Leaving aside their immorality, ruthless actions such as these tend to produce instability in the long run. Mubarak couldn’t hold on, and Assad’s survival has come at a staggering cost, with his territory diminished and mostly in ruins. Ironically, for someone so ferociously anti-Iranian, MBS resembles no Middle Eastern ruler as much as the shah of Iran, a reformer and also a despot, who was much loved by Western elites.

Mohammed is a complicated figure. He has moved Saudi Arabia forward in some areas while moving it toward greater repression in others. But the larger issue is that U.S. foreign policy should not be based on personalities. President Trump’s worldview seems utterly rooted in his likes and dislikes of other leaders — including Kim Jong Un, Angela Merkel and MBS. In the Middle East, this has led to the blind subcontracting of U.S. foreign policy to Saudi Arabia. Washington has watched and de facto endorsed the kingdom as it ramped up its war in Yemen, blockaded Qatar, quarreled with Turkey and essentially kidnapped the prime minister of Lebanon. All of these moves have, in large measure, failed.

 

The United States’ Middle East policy should be based on its interests and values in the region, and these will never be perfectly aligned with any one country. Historically, this has meant being an honest broker, respected by all major powers. It is what allowed Henry Kissinger to practice shuttle diplomacy and pull Egypt away from the Soviet camp, and it is what helped President Jimmy Carter forge the Camp David accords. This is why, from presidents Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, the U.S. government has urged even its Arab allies to undertake serious political reforms.

All of this requires nuance, sophistication and ceaseless high-quality diplomacy. This is the price of being the leader of the free world, a job that we appear of late to have vacated.

(c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group

 

Foreign Policy: Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, and OIC

July 24, 2018

by Phar Kim Beng@www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT | Malaysia has always been a strong supporter of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) since its very inception in 1967. The late Tunku Abdul Rahman (TAR) was the organisation’s first secretary-general too.

But OIC suffers from a lack of intermural or international collaboration. The 57 countries that formed OIC constitute only five percent of the global gross domestic product.

This is how abysmal and weak the Islamic world has become. Even on economic output alone, it cannot muster anything higher than five percent.

If oil and gas is taken out of its international trade equation, the actual figure is perhaps only two percent.

With or without the concept of a global halal hub, the Muslim world is in a state of serious disrepair. War, climate change, terrorism, sectarian conflicts and hunger are often the sources of their discord.

Indeed, despite spanning from Makassar in Morocco to Mindanao in the Philippines, most of the Muslim countries are trapped in some kind of complex social dynamics. Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey are fortunate to be liberal democracies. The global population of liberal democracies stand at 4.5 percent only.

Be that as it may, Malaysia has never lost its interest to be an active promoter of OIC. Syed Hamid Albar came close to being nominated by the government of former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in 2005 to be the organisation secretary-general.

At the request of Turkey, they wanted their candidate Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu to be the secretary-general of OIC then, Malaysia kindly gave way. Thus, the name of Syed Hamid Albar was never submitted.

Since Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries are against Iran, all of which are members of the OIC, can Malaysia lead OIC to new heights?

There are several reasons why this cannot be done. Malaysia should not even try. First, OIC makes important decisions on the basis of unanimous consensus in the 13-member states decision-making process.

Complex conflicts

As things are, member states like Turkey may not be able to help Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates overcome their opposition to Iran and Qatar. If the quartet cannot achieve such a feat, it is best not to even try.

This is because Malaysia lacks sufficient depth in OIC and the Middle East to affect positive influence any decision-making.

Secondly, Crown Prince Mohammad Salman Al-Saud in Saudi Arabia is bent on pushing Iran out of Yemen and Syria altogether. These are complex conflicts and humanitarian tragedies. These are serious geopolitical cauldrons which Malaysia is not prepared to handle.

Thirdly, Malaysia is now consumed by the issue of national debt. Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Muhamad would be overwhelmed by his attention on China, Japan and South China Sea. There is no reason why he can divert his attention to OIC.

However, doing nothing is not an option. Political parties like Bersatu, PKR, DAP and Amanah should work hard at proving to all Muslim countries that intercultural cooperation is indeed the only way forward.

By making Malaysia a liveable and cosmopolitan country, with a well-diversified and dynamic economy, would OIC begin to see some hopes – without which the Muslim world will be in permanent state of anarchy.

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PHAR KIM BENG is a Harvard/Cambridge Commonwealth Fellow, a former Monbusho scholar at the University of Tokyo and visiting scholar at Waseda University.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

How Will Malaysia’s Najib Razak Fare in 2018?

January 12, 2018

Looming polls will test what is left of the legitimacy of the country’s scandalized premier.

by Luke Hunt

https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/how-will-malaysias-najib-razak-fare-in-2018/

Prime Minister Najib Razak claims to have close ties with US President Donald J Trump

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has been doing the Christmas/New Year rounds, touting his government’s successes while predictably ignoring his crackdown on dissent, the jailing of the country’s more popular opposition leader, religious bigotry fed by Islamic hardliners, and the problematic aspects of his own record.

It’s a festive message typical of Najib’s New Year addresses. But it is also a recipe which bodes badly for a leader who, though widely expected to capitalize on a heavily gerrymandered electoral system and probably win a national poll due within the first half of 2018, is nonetheless badly damaged by scandal and continues to undermine his country’s future prospects.

Rarely has a political leader of any political stripe clung to power in the face of such a breathtaking array of charges and investigations into colossal corruption and even murder. Despite this, Najib has ignored calls for his resignation, which in a real democracy would have been a mere formality.

That’s why his gestures of goodwill — to many an empty vessel of self-promotion – over the festive season are struggling to find any traction, particularly the lectures from his New Year’s address.

Lines like “I believe that the fathers of our independence would be proud to see what their countrymen and women have achieved” were as glib as they were predictable.

“Our economy beat all expectations” was hardly convincing, especially when he added, “because of the efficient, business-friendly environment this Government has been creating.”

This was mixed with some spin-doctoring like, “Malaysia’s leadership was also recognized at the United Nations”; gross annual assumptions like, “for it was a year in which we redoubled our efforts to ensure good governance in all sectors”; and a warning that his government “is cracking down on the crony capitalism culture.” Few Malaysians would find these remarks credible given Najib’s own record.

Another Financial Scandal–FELDA–under Najib Razak’s watch

Then, he took aim at his critics while hinting at a leadership challenge, commenting that “neither is it acceptable for a former leader to attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government in the hope that his ambitions for his son may be realized.”

It was a veiled reference to Malaysia’s longest serving leader Mahathir Mohamad, who has led calls from within Najib’s opponents for the premier to step down. In the process, the former prime minister has won over many of his own political detractors. Meanwhile Mahathir’s son, Mukhriz, has said he harbors no designs on the leadership.

But Najib did not end it there.“In a democracy all that should matter is the wishes of the people as expressed at the ballot box, not the selfish dynastic desires of one man,” he said.

That was an odd line given Najib’s own record, but even more galling for those familiar with Malaysian history, given that Najib’s father also served as Prime Minister.

Stranger still was Najib’s reference to the “wishes of the Malaysian people.” If he truly values popular sentiment, then Najib might consider releasing Anwar Ibrahim from prison and installing him as prime minister, given he won almost 51 percent of the popular vote at elections almost five years ago but lost through gerrymandering.

The trials and tribulations of Najib’s scandalized time at the helm of Malaysian politics have been scrutinized by journalists, the police, and authorities across the world.

As long as Najib and his unpopular first lady Rosmah Mansor remain ensconced, the murder of Mongolian model and translator Shaariibuugiin Altantuyaa as well as their personal records of dealings will remain in the international debate, alongside a French court case into Malaysia’s acquisition of two submarines amid charges of graft.

Beyond this, Najib’s appeasement of Islamic hardliners has badly tarnished Malaysia’s reputation as a secular state and compromised a cornerstone of any democracy: the separation of powers between church and state, and arguably the courts as well.

A blanket ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah” made about as much sense as a police investigation into a teenage boy who “liked” Israel on a Facebook page. It should be noted that such anti-Israel sentiment didn’t stop Najib from reportedly employing an Israeli public relations firm to spruce up his image.

 Foreign Policy–Playing with Saudi Arabia (on Yemen), United States and Israel (Jerusalem) and Palestine–driven by domestic politics.

Najib’s Middle East policy, according to political commentator Din Merican, is muddled and smacks of “sheer hypocrisy.” He opposes U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but maintains close ties with the Israeli government while boasting of his friendship with U.S. President Donald Trump, who is threatening to cut financial aid to the Palestinians.

Najib’s handling of two downed airliners fell short of the mark, as was the case with his handling of the crisis with North Korea, after assassins chose to kill Kim Jong-un’s estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam inside a Malaysian airport.

But on the economic front, the latest scandal has been breathtaking.Authorities in Singapore and in the United States, Switzerland, and Hong Kong are still investigating the disappearance of more than $1 billion from the 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) fund amid allegations it was stolen by people close to Najib.

They believe that money went into his personal bank account, although Najib and officials from 1MDB have denied any wrong doing.

Despite the denials, a string of arrests has followed and sentences meted out by the courts over the past year, which, despite Najib’s feigning of indifference, must have unnerved him.

An election must be called by mid-year. But though Anwar may be released by then, the upholding of his 2014 conviction for sodomy, sharply criticized by civil society groups as being politically motivated, means he won’t be allowed to contest the poll.

The important issue between now and then is whether or not Najib’s own party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), will attempt to limit the political fallout by ousting him before the poll (rather than sometime after) or take their chances on a scandalized leader whose tenure has proven remarkable for the sheer scale of the allegations brought against him.

Selling 1MBD assets to China

Najib’s Christmas cheer and message of hope and stability for the New Year was calculated and timed for a holiday noted for goodwill and cultural celebrations. Whether he is still around to trot out similar disingenuous lines 12 months from now remains to be seen.

Luke Hunt can be followed on Twitter @lukeanthonyhunt

 

Donald Trump’s big-power bullying diplomacy

December 22, 2017

by Dennis Ignatius

http://www.malaysiakini.com

 

COMMENT | The United States Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, warned recently, in what can only be described as the height of arrogance, that the US “will be taking names” during an upcoming vote in the UN General Assembly on the status of Jerusalem. In a letter to dozens of member states, including our own I suppose, she put them on notice that “the President and the US take this vote personally.”

She also warned that she had been instructed to send the names of all countries that vote against the US directly to President Trump, presumably for further action.

In other words, there will be consequences –  retaliation or punishment – if countries do not support the US on this issue.

Trump himself has complained that other countries “take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars [from us], and then they vote against us.” Clearly, Trump intends to link foreign assistance with how countries vote on issues important to the US.

The US aid budget currently amounts to more than US$48 billion annually – US$31 billion in economic assistance and US$17 billion in military assistance. US aid, however, is mostly tied to US agricultural products and US military equipment and training. The five largest recipients of US aid are Israel (US$3.1 billion), Egypt (US$1.5 billion), Afghanistan (US$1.1 billion), Jordan (US$1 billion) and Pakistan (US$933 million). Malaysia receives about US$10 million annually, mostly in military assistance.

The US warning comes after a vote earlier this week on a resolution in the UN Security Council which overwhelmingly condemned Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Fourteen out of the 15 members of the Council voted for the resolution. Although the US vetoed the resolution, the message from the international community was clear enough.

Stung by the vote in the council, Ambassador Haley is now trying to forestall a similar rebuke in the UN General Assembly where the Permanent Five do not enjoy veto powers. The 193-member UN General Assembly will hold a rare emergency special session on Thursday at the request of Arab and Muslim states to discuss the US decision on Jerusalem.

If precedent is anything to go by, the US will very likely suffer a crushing defeat on this issue when the Assembly votes.

Self-appointed class monitor

Whichever way you look at it, Ambassador Haley’s letter is nothing less than big-power bullying. After insisting in the UN Security Council that the US will not be bullied into deciding where to locate its embassy in Israel, she is now proceeding to bully the rest of the world into acquiescing in the US decision.

While big powers often indulge in high-powered lobbying to gain support on critical issues, they rarely resort to such threatening and demeaning language, behaving like some self-appointed class monitor taking names of unruly students to report to the headmaster for punishment.

Even in far more critical situations before – on the eve of the first Iraq War, for example – when the US was desperately trying to obtain international consensus, the US never resorted to threats. I recall a meeting in early 1990 between our then Foreign Minister Abu Hassan Omar and US Secretary of State James Baker in Los Angeles, when the US laid out its case for the invasion of Iraq and the liberation of Kuwait.

Malaysia was on the Security Council that year and Baker appealed for our support. There was never any hint of threats or retaliation, just a sincere plea for support, as it should be between friendly nations. Malaysia eventually voted in favour of the US-led intervention.

Trump and his team now appear to be bringing the proverbial big stick to the table of international diplomacy, hoping to bully and cajole their way in international affairs. If Trump thinks this is the way to enhance US power and prestige, he is going to be disappointed. Threats might work in limited circumstances but it is no substitute for diplomacy and consensus building.

As the continuing standoff with North Korea aptly demonstrates, the US needs international support and consensus to help resolve important security issues.

Besides, as the world returns once again to a more multipolar global architecture, thanks to the rise of China, bullying might just prove to be counterproductive.

As for Jerusalem, whether the US likes it or not, its status is going to have to be decided at some future time as part of a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine. Moving the US embassy might make for popular politics at home but that does not make it the right thing to do for other nations.

I hope the General Assembly will send a resounding message to President Trump that the world will not be bullied this way, and that Malaysia’s name will be on that list that Ambassador Haley sends to the White House. I, for one, will consider it a badge of honour.

 

Najib Razak’s Muddled Mid-East Policy–Sheer Hypocrisy

December 16, 2017

by Mat Sabu@www.malaysiakini.com

 

COMMENT | On December 13, Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, in his own words, dropped everything on his lap, including a meeting with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, to attend the extraordinary summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul, Turkey.

The goal was to register the Muslim world’s urgency and protest against the recognition of Jerusalem as the “eternal capital of Israel.” The OIC meeting was hopeless for several reasons.

First, Najib had already affirmed to the rest of the world, that US President Donald Trump is his golfing buddy and his friend.

In his trip to Washington in September 2017, Najib even boasted that Trump personally sent him to his official car, of all places in the basement of the White House.

The above is not hearsay. It came right from the horse’s mouth: Najib. It was Najib who showcased his tight bond with Trump.

 

 

Secondly, directly or indirectly, this has strengthened Trump’s resolve to gift Jerusalem to Israel. The false step by Najib is no less damning than the mistakes of King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman (MBS) of Saudi Arabia.

Both the father and son praised Trump as a world-class leader when Trump made a trip to Saudi Arabia. Emboldened by his relationship with King Salman and MBS, Trump went one step ahead of the duo.

He immediately flew to Israel, and promised a radical change in the US policy on the Middle East. Such a radical change was, of course, the gift of Jerusalem to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (photo), whose popularity was not only sagging in Israel, but is also widely considered a dishonest and ineffective Israeli leader.

 

Second, Najib flew to Istanbul to join a chorus of leaders to admonish and reprimand Trump. But was that really the case?

The US Ambassador to Malaysia was not summoned to the Prime Minister’s Office nor Wisma Putra for a thorough dressing down. Even when the UMNO Assembly was ongoing, little attention was granted to the injustice of Trump.

Third, in a press release by Wisma Putra, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs merely affirmed that Trump should “reconsider his decision.” Wisma Putra did not express its vehemence against Trump.

Fourth, instead, it was the opposition front that raised a huge outcry on Trump’s utter betrayal to the Palestinians.

To the credit of Lembah Pantai MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, she saw the betrayal as sufficiently serious to call for the possible boycott of US goods and services in Malaysia.

 

Fifth, Pakatan Harapan chairperson Dr Mahathir Mohamad (photo),  together with Amanah and Bersatu, challenged the whole treasonous act of giving Jerusalem to Israel when there are 86 countries, be they Muslim or non-Muslim, that do not agree with Trump. Even Pope Francis of the Vatican Council was against Trump wholesale.

Thus, what is the point of flying to Istanbul to block the proverbial horses that have been let out of the stable? Trump has betrayed the Muslim world not once, but from the very beginning of his presidency. He has passed the Middle East policy to Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, who is a known Zionist.

Sixth, it shocking that UMNO and PAS still support Trump by not voicing out more openly, and by coming up with a series of measures to put a stop to this madness.

Fortunately, the 14th general election is just months away. Christians and Muslims, indeed all groups and races that are anti-Israel, can set things right: by voting out Najib, PAS and, indeed, UMNO, for coddling the Zionist conspiracy.

Malaysian foreign policy has never seen such a disaster until now. It is time to correct it with a new government that is not beholden to US Zionist policy.

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MOHAMAD SABU is president of Amanah. The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.