Wednesday, January 14, 2009

malaysiakini SUGGESTS a REASON for the GAZA DEMOS

It all boils down to a lack of a principled approach to diplomacy.
We lack courage to take actions that will affect matters in our own country.
I am referring to this comment in malaysiakini 'Syed Hamid condones killing of Tamils?' wherein our Home Minister allegedly remarked:

‘These people were not demonstrating on the issue of the Palestinians. They were actually demonstrating on the issue of Sri Lanka. The placards showed they were in support of Sri Lanka. Let us not mix the issues.'

Go figure.
On another note, when he was Foreign Minister he made several trips to have talks with the Burmese junta but so far the results are disappointing and Aung San Suu Kyi still endures house arrest. We also have thousands of Burmese refugees in Malaysia.

Maybe the Gaza reactions have to do with the concept of impossible targets. We make a target that we know cannot be achieved and then gain the maximum PR benefits from it. In this case, Malaysia does not recognise Israel and thus cannot exert any diplomatic pressure except rant like some wild animal.

So organising protests against Israel is good for Malaysian leaders. It creates nice headlines with zero results as far as the Hamas-Isreal conflict is concerned.
But Malaysians once again show they have a good heart when it comes to donating for such humanitarian causes.

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