KUALA LUMPUR – The opposition of major powers such as the United States and Europe towards Malaysia’s firm stance in defending Palestinians against the siege of the Israeli government will have little or no impact on the Southeast Asian nation as it is merely diplomatic pressure, analysts said.
Geostrategic expert Azmi Hassan believes that this pressure will not adversely affect the country in terms of international relations and trade.
In fact, the senior fellow at the Nusantara Academy for Strategic Research pointed out that the majority of the international community views the actions of the Israeli regime as crossing humanitarian boundaries and has condemned them.
“It is true that Malaysia, especially the prime minister, will step forward in expressing support for Palestine, even communicating directly with the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, openly.
“We don’t have to worry about the negative effects (of this support) because we see the US or the European Union are also divided in their support for Israel or Palestine.
“This is just diplomatic pressure, it does not have a negative impact on our country because even though we are a small country, in terms of geopolitics, we are not heavily dependent on the major powers that may appear to support Israel at the moment,” he told Scoop.
Azmi said this in response to concerns expressed by certain parties about Malaysia’s security when leaders and countries in favour of Israel warned the prime minister not to openly support Palestine.
Earlier, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim revealed that Malaysia had received démarches from the US embassy urging the country to withdraw its stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Anwar noted that the diplomatic requests were issued on October 13, 18 and 30 to the Foreign Ministry.
Azmi explained that those openly supporting Israel’s actions, purportedly in the fight against terrorism, are limited to just two or three world leaders.
“But there are also world leaders who do not want to openly express support for Israel because their own people are against what Israel is doing.
“Even in the US, internal pressure, especially from the public, is so strong that leaders like Joe Biden and congressmen make the right decision in this matter, considering that Americans of Jewish descent themselves say that what Israel is doing exceeds the limits of humanity,” he said.
Meanwhile, Balakrishnan R.K. Suppaiah, an international security and anti-terrorism expert at Universiti Malaya, asserted that Malaysia should not be afraid to express its stance, as opposing war crimes is not a crime.
He emphasised that Malaysia has many friendly countries in Europe and the Asian region, the majority of which also support and collaborate in the struggle to defend the Palestinian people.
Therefore, he stressed that Malaysia does not need to be overly concerned about the threats received from certain superpowers, including those involving trade, since apart from the US and Europe, China is one of the country’s main trading partners.
“Our economy has never been attacked due to our defence of Palestine. We are against war crimes, and we stand by our position.
“Hence, there’s no need to soften our resolve regarding our stance of expressing support for the Palestinian people’s struggle,” he said. – November 5, 2023