MALAYSIA is right in prohibiting Israeli ships from docking at Malaysian ports. Solidarity with the Palestinians is the best weapon against Israeli impunity-nurturing policies of the West. Besides, such a move is not without precedent.
When Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24 last year, the West didn't take long to impose such a ban on Russian ships and vessels affiliated with the country. Not only did the ban not stop at ships, but it expanded to cover other Russian assets in Europe, Canada and the United States. Everything that spelt Russian was confiscated.
Russia is not even allowed to participate in international sporting events. Malaysia's prohibition against Israel-flagged ships is just a "light" ban. The Israeli ship owners are even given time to remove the 4,000 containers currently stranded in Port Klang.
To be fair to Malaysia, our prime ministers — from the first to the 10th — have explored every diplomatic effort in the book to end the Zionist regime's slaughter of the Palestinians. Every session of the United Nations General Assembly had witnessed one Malaysian leader after another call on the UN to end the genocide of the Palestinians and bring the Israelis to account.
Yet, some in the UN Security Council are not only not ending the genocide, but urging the Israelis on by supplying weapons of mass slaughter. Since Oct 7, more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children. Most recently, 400 Palestinians were killed in two days of heavy Israeli bombardment that targeted civilians.
Yet, the US refuses to end Israel's war crimes. Nay, it is being complicit in the crimes by repeatedly vetoing UNSC resolutions that could have ended the atrocities. True, the US didn't veto the UNSC resolution on Friday which called for large-scale humanitarian aid.
No ceasefire was demanded, a condition demanded by the US for not exercising its veto. It abstained nevertheless. As many are pointing out, the resolution is meaningless. Without a ceasefire, there will be no humanitarian aid.
It is very clear that the West isn't interested in stopping the Israelis from committing atrocities against the Palestinians nor to hold them to account. Neither will it help create a nation for the Palestinians. Instead, the West, champions at peddling "blonde-hair-and-blue-eyes" human rights, has done everything to not make it happen, though their narratives, echoing those issued from Tel Aviv, blame it on the Palestinians for not wanting one.
Nonsense on stilts, we say. Before and after Oct 7, Benjamin Netanyahu and others have been blatantly clear that there is no such thing as Palestinians or Palestine. This is a holocaust in progress. Genocide, wherever it is committed, must be fought against. Not all nations have the might of the superpowers to end the scourge.
Where the superpowers are unwilling, might must be sought elsewhere. Economics is one. Happily, not all of the 70 Western countries are with genocidal Israel. If these and the remaining 120 or so nations join Malaysia in its economic efforts in ending Israeli atrocities, genocide will be a thing of the past.
