MEDIA STATEMENT
24 April 2018
Palestinian Students in Malaysia Trained for Violence? Lies by a Paranoid And Yet Very Vulnerable Apartheid State
“To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”– Mark Twain
And so it is with today’s apartheid state of Israel. In possession of the most powerful military in the region, it convinces itself that its problems within and beyond its never-declared borders can only be solved by using force and inflicting violence.
It also pervades the Israeli imagination that those who oppose and resist its apartheid policies, particularly the Palestinians, are people with a similar hammer-and-nail mentality and therefore are perpetually looking for a military means as the ultimate solution.
Hence the lies spun by the Zionist propaganda machinery that Palestinian students in Malaysia are undergoing military training and being prepared for violent activities in the West Bank and Gaza.
When the host government’s policy adamantly prohibits any armed and military training for the foreign students on its soil and with tough laws on the private possession of arms and ammunition, a modicum of organised but stealthy military training for Palestinian students, as alleged by Israeli propaganda, is practically an impossibility. The Malaysian government too has categorically denied that any form of military training of Palestinian students has ever taken place on its soil.
Though the motive for the assassination of Dr Fadi Al Batsh, a Palestinian academician, in KL on 21st April has yet to be determined, clearly the lies and falsehood being peddled by Zionist propaganda are with the intent of justifying the crime. If Israel was responsible for that crime, it is but a heinous manifestation of that hammer-and-nail paranoid mentality, a mentality that will in the long term push the apartheid state over the abyss – unless it comes to its senses and recognise that despite superior military strength over its neighbours, Israel paradoxically is the most vulnerable state in the world.
That vulnerability was amply demonstrated in December 2016 when the US decided to withhold its hitherto routine veto on the UN Security Council on a resolution affirming the illegality of Zionist settlements on occupied Palestinian territory. It was enough to send the Israeli prime minister running around like a headless chicken, ranting and raving against the other members of the Security Council. No other state in the world owes its very existence and wellbeing at the leisure of one single superpower protector.
Israel is safe as long as the government and the public of that superpower protector are content to maintain the umbilical cord. But if sentiments and attitudes changed, that cord may just wear thin and finally break and the apartheid state will have to be on its own. Its hammer-and-nail attitude over its 70 years of existence has bred a belligerence that rightly earned it a pariah status, one which can routinely be seen in the voting for UN General Assembly resolutions affecting the apartheid state. Israel cannot stand on its own. That is how vulnerable it is.
When the state with the most powerful military in the region can neither conceal nor diminish its existential vulnerability, it is clear that the ultimate solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be a military one.
The Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) Movement has long recognised this. It advocates civil, non-violent and peaceful means to pressure Israel to end its apartheid and oppressive policies against Palestinians. It is gaining momentum the world over including the United States and Europe. Every Israeli act of brutality against Palestinians has invigorated BDS, gained it new supporters, boosted its momentum, caused more and more Americans to question their government’s policy towards Israel. The effectiveness of BDS is evidenced by the ongoing attempts by the Israeli government to suppress BDS-organised boycott campaigns.
Israel with its man-with-a-hammer myopia, to put it very simply, is on the wrong side of history.
Dr Fadi Al Batsh, Hamas member, brilliant academician, humane and non-violent man, staunch supporter of BDS Malaysia, was on the right side.
May God Almighty bless his soul and those of all the brave martyrs of Palestine.
Prof. Mohd Nazari Ismail
Chairman
BDS Malaysia