‘Stop the killings in Gaza’, how?

Malaysiakini
‘Stop the killings in Gaza’, how?
Helen Ang | Jan 9, 09 12:52pm

A sampling of the reaction to Israel’s offensive in Gaza: Rantings by Dr Mahathir Mohamed – Boycott American products! Umno Youth – Demonstrations is not our culture but we can make an exception for Khairy Jamaluddin since he’s leading foreigners (i.e. Palestinians) to take to the streets.

Malaysia’s mainstream media, as only to be expected, are unequivocally pro-Palestinian. Alternative media is largely pro-Palestinian too. On this issue, there is a great measure of consensus.

Someone who straddles traditional and New Media is Star group-editor Wong Chun Wai who also blogs. Wong’s views expressed in his blog ‘New Malaysia’ takes the ketupat for thought-provoking output.

Wong writes that he watched the interview by CNN with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, and asserted that "No amount of her explanation is going to convince the world" that Israel’s action can be justified. Since "schools, hospitals and homes have been bombed", Wong challenged, "So what is she talking about?"

The title of Wong’s Jan 5 blog posting is Stop the killings in Gaza!

Well, forgive my curiosity as to who it is that Wong is calling upon to bring an end to the killings in Gaza.

We do not host any Israeli ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, so there is no His Excellency to be reading or heeding such a call made in our corner of the world. We do not have an Israel embassy and therefore no Israeli envoys to pass on Wong’s message to that country’s war triumvirate of Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Livni.

Who will listen to us?

Or is it the Americans whom Wong is appealing to, to stop the killings in Gaza? But the Bush administration has not wagged even its little finger at Tel Aviv, and the incoming Obama crew has been conspicuously reticent.

An appeal to the United Nations, then? From the UN’s track record, which country is willing to commit immediate peacekeeping forces to such a mission to stop the killings in Gaza pronto, you think?

Or maybe Wong’s petition is directed at our own government. So Malaysia is supposed to send troops there to stop the killings in Gaza, is it?

Our troops are to confront a country we do not recognise as existing and this country is controlling the border checkpoints into Gaza, not to mention holding the ground? Or do we airdrop Malaysian troops into Gaza just like we once airdropped the Proton car onto the South Pole?

What does Wong wish to convey when he throws up into the air – or into cyberspace, if we care to be precise – a headline such as ‘Stop the killings in Gaza!’? I’d thought a journalist is indeed required to be precise, especially if you’re group-editor of the country’s most profitable paper. Write what you mean, mean what you write.

So, then what?

On Jan 7, in the spirit of mutual outrage, Wong plugs his equally high-circulation competitor. He wrings his hands and laments: "The front page of today’s Utusan Malaysia says it all… Cruel! Cruel! Cruel!"

Utusan’s front page screaming ‘Kejam! Kejam! Kejam!’ is duly reproduced as a graphic on Wong’s blog. The title of Wong’s second posting on the Gaza incursion is How can we let this madness continue?

Is he seriously surprised that his readers, us chaps sitting behind computer screens in suburban homes or city offices, he-you-me in KL, Ipoh, Georgetown seem willing to allow the madness to continue in Gaza?

What does he propose that ‘we’ do so to halt the insanity? He doesn’t say.

Without himself suggesting anything, Wong is merely putting across a rhetorical question. He’s repeating with a slight variation his earlier polemics on his imperative ‘stop the killings!’ Aaah, if one does not have an answer, then ask and ask again. Perhaps inspiration will strike.

Raise standards of local journalism

Is that the purpose of Malaysians writing voluminously on Gaza, gnashing their teeth, beating their chests? Ask and ye shall receive… be granted a revelation as to how to solve the Middle East’s intractable problem and save the Palestinians.

Hopefully such a revelation is an original thought because thus far, I’ve seen too many unoriginal dirges flooding the lopsided Malaysian media landscape.

Malaysia embraces one side of conflict, while turns a blind eye to the other. Chunks and chunks of pro-Palestinian writings are ‘cut’ (copied) by some individuals who do not identify themselves, and prolifically pasted in the comments section of other people’s blogs under the tag ‘Anonymous’.

What do the named/pseudonymous writers and anonymous copy-pasters – after having led the charge of public opinion up the moral high ground – feel they achieved besides whipping up public anger against Israeli Jews, American Jews and Americans?

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim states "Umno is like Israel".

Umno is a race supremacist entity (a Malaysiakini reader Eugene Tan observes that "As far as I know only two countries in the world define race in terms of religion, the Jewish faith for Jews and Islam for Malays") that declared Hindraf illegal, refusing to recognise the movement as a voice for the marginalised. Does Umno’s modus operandi ring a bell; remind us of anyone Malaysia loves to hate?

Methinks it is more productive to channel all that unbridled energy otherwise directed at Jews to cleaning up our own backyard. And raise the standard of local journalism.