Heartless on Gaza

I have been having sleepless nights ever since Israel unleashed its annual Ramadan spring-cleaning in Occupied Palestine. Not because I am shocked by the images of cute dead toddlers outside the rubbles of what used to be their living rooms. We the civilised citizens of the world have been desensitised by even that.

But I am shocked by the utter indifference, nay, the heartlessness, displayed by some Malaysians, including readers here, whose reaction has been consumed by a false sense of empathy for the Israelis. And I am also somewhat embarrassed that some of these characters have in the past praised me to the point of flattery in this column for speaking up against racism and silly religious bureaucrats.

I am shocked that we are taking a big step backward when the world, as shown by the sea of humanity in Western capitals, has been left outraged over the killings in Palestine. Some of us have even justified the attacks on the Palestinians, repeating the outdated mantra that Israel was just acting in self-defence, and that it is Hamas and other armed Palestinian “militants” who should be blamed for the civilian deaths and for firing their toy rockets into Israel’s “territory”.

I sometimes wonder at the state of our education, which we all so lament every time the Times Higher Education comes out with its rankings. Can it really be as backward as suggested by our understanding of world history, or even international affairs? In the comments posted to reports on Palestine, it is obvious that many struggle to conceal their contempt for Palestinians. And when some brave readers take on, it is these few who earn the wrath of other readers for challenging the depiction of the conflict as “a war between Israel and Palestine”.

It is even more pathetic that some readers have to be educated on the origins of this most reported of conflicts, of how Israel was illegally carved out of a land where Jews and Muslims and Christians had been living in peace, of how Zionism has grown into a monstrous racist tool to continue the plunder of Palestinian lands and crops.

Some of the reasons given by those justifying Israel’s atrocities show they are either not well versed in history or have racism ingrained in them as a result of having suffered from it themselves in this country. 

I say this because these are the same people who are routinely up in arms over the racism displayed by the goons of Perkasa and Isma, and the established systems in Malaysian public life which are rooted in the myths of “Ketuanan Melayu” (Malay lordship). And yet they cannot see how the Palestinians are suffering from an even more brutal version of the type of discrimination being perpetrated in this country.

In fact, one would have expected the non-Malays and non-Muslims, the same communities who have lived under some form of systematic discrimination in Malaysia, to be the leading spokesman for the rights of the Palestinians. Alas, while some of them condemn Ketuanan Melayu, and rightly so, they fail to do same to its cousin Zionism in Occupied Palestine.

How do we explain the fact that their view on Palestine is as distorted as the views of their bigoted domestic enemies?  Could it be, one wonders, that their take on Palestine be different if the victims there were non-Muslims, rather than being of the same religion as those who have short-changed them in so many ways back home? Perhaps the adage that racism begets racism is true after all.

Consider for example some of the reactions online to the news of our national cyclist’s “Save Gaza” message on his knuckles at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. That simple act earned him applause from many other fair-minded people around the world. At least the Palestinians, denied a voice in the world’s forums (other than the lip service of fully-fed  Arab monarchs and the misplaced anti-Jewish rhetoric of turbaned television personalities) got their suffering highlighted at a world stage for a few short seconds.

But what did we get from some readers who have in the past spoken out against racism?

“Don’t mix sports with politics”, was the gist of their message. Never mind the fact that the whole Commonwealth Games is centred on the very political raison d’etre of the Commonwealth grouping itself, a brotherhood of countries brought together to celebrate their shared experience of subjugation to Britain’s political imperialism. (There will of course be those few who would happily dispute that and boast of how lucky we are that it was the British and not the Dutch that ruled us, a state of mind which the Algerian scholar Malik Bennabi once dubbed their “colonisability”).

Imagine this scenario. If Azizulhasni Awang had displayed the sign “ABU” (Anything But Umno) – the battlecry that voiced the voters’ hatred of Umno in the last general election – instead of “Save Gaza”, would all the same people have been cheering him for his principles? Would all their concerns about mixing sports and politics vanish?

How is it possible that some of us have become so heartless that not even the pictures of children bombed in their sleep can move us? Is it because of the Western media’s pro-Israeli bias, as some suggest? Surely not, for how then could we explain the outpouring of anger in Western capitals, where tens of thousands of people – almost all non-Muslims and non-Arabs, many even Jews and rabbis – have marched against Zionism and called for Israeli leaders to be tried for war crimes?

Perhaps the indifference towards Palestinians of some in Malaysia is down to the principle that “my enemy’s friend must be my enemy”. Perhaps it is because Umno, or Perkasa, or the many suspiciously-funded Muslim groups have taken a pro-Palestine stand, that their enemies and victims feel that they must do the opposite and become spokesmen of the Zionists. Do these gentiles-turned-friends of-Israel not see that Zionism is directly related to the system we have in Malaysia, which denies bright non-Malay students seats in universities, which makes half the population second-class citizens?

Then, there are also those who stay “neutral” or “balanced” in their discourse on Palestine, condemning “both parties” for their “violence” and so implicitly accepting the current balance (or imbalance) of power.

No less a figure than the late Nelson Mandela challenged those who put the Zionist forces and Palestinian fighters on equal footing, when he wrote to the New York Times’ pro-Israeli columnist Thomas Friedman in 2001: “The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not just an issue of military occupation and Israel is not a country that was established ‘normally’ and happened to occupy another country in 1967. Palestinians are not struggling for a ‘state’ but for freedom, liberation and equality, just like we were struggling for freedom in South Africa.”

And, of course, we the few “sane” voices who plead to the Palestinians to seek the path of peace and education instead of violence, as only education, they sermonise, can effectively resist the Israeli occupation. Such arguments would be laughable if the circumstances were not so tragic. Perhaps the Palestinians should be wielding rolled-up school certificates to bat away the US-supplied missiles fired from Israeli fighter aircraft? To say nothing of the mantra, oft repeated by our government ministers in Malaysia, that students should not be involved in politics or street protests and should concentrate on their studies.

Taking the side of oppressed Palestinians is not about getting our priorities wrong. It is not about deflecting attention from the problems at home. It is about taking a stand on the issue that now symbolises the struggle against racism worldwide, whatever form it may take in different parts of the world. We cannot highlight the hypocrisy of some of those taking such a stand if we refuse to take it ourselves –indeed, find ourselves opposing it and siding with the racists in Palestine.

The conflict in Palestine may not have a solution, but the fact is that we ignore the sufferings of the Palestinians at our own peril. Making such a stand on an issue of such global resonance as Palestine will earn more supporters and sympathy in the struggle to rid this nation of our unfair and discriminatory practices.

Mandela said "our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians". To which we might add, our humanity is incomplete if we cannot recognise the humanity of the Palestinians. – August 2, 2014.

*This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.