REMARKS BY DR. RAIS YATIM FOREIGN MINISTER OF MALAYSIA AT THE GAZA GENOCIDE FORUM & EXHIBITION - LONDON

THE GAZA GENOCIDE: THE WORLD COMMUNITY MUST ACT

WELCOME TO THE GAZA GENOCIDE FORUM

On behalf of the organizers I wish to express appreciation for this opportunity in addressing such a significant gathering – a gathering of noble and caring people for a noble and caring cause. What was conceived and developed for the past two months in Kuala Lumpur has now turned to reality – that is to have a roadshow forum on the Gaza killings here in London where the world meets. This forum and exhibition on the genocide in Gaza is a collaboration between the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalize War (KLFCW) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Malaysia.

Our aim is to prick the world’s conscience on the Gaza catastrophe and sustain international awareness and cooperation in achieving lasting peace while continuing to effect our collective synergy in humanitarian aid. We aim to raise the awareness of the British and European public of the genocide in Gaza and to explore possible solutions for the plight of the Palestinians. Simultaneously we galvanize efforts towards making Israel pay for its acts of killing and maiming civilians in Gaza besides causing destruction to civilian and public amenities. The world has witnessed the killing and the destruction of property and life’s sustenance in Gaza only to be idled by non-intervention and non-action by the free world for crimes perpetrated and for deeds inhuman.

Further, we aim to bring Israel to justice for all of its human rights violations. We are here to ponder on the call for justice vis-à-vis the violations that more than equate crimes against humanity. And on the larger plane, we are here also to campaign that war be deemed to be an international crime.

Further, we aim to bring Israel to justice for all of its human rights violations. We are here to ponder on the call for justice vis-à-vis the violations that more than equate crimes against humanity. And on the larger plane, we are here also to campaign that war be deemed to be an international crime.

Excellencies Ladies and Gentlemen
I hope the figure 1,380 means something to you. For a good number of people that figure means nothing more than a hint of news that spell death in Gaza. To us in Malaysia it means something devastating, something that is brutal and murderous. The figure 1,380 is the number of innocent human beings killed through the process of choice and design by the soldiers of Israel between December 2008 and February this year. That is the number killed by Israel soldiers. Of the 1,380, 33.3% represent women and children. More than 100 are still missing perhaps beneath the heaps of debris and concrete slabs. Or they could be the ones who were rendered disintegrated by powerful American-made weapons. 16 Palestinian medical personnel were killed and 25 injured while performing their duties. Israel reportedly suffered 13 deaths on account of Hamas rocket shots.

Admittedly no radio or TV stations, or newspapers ignored the news about the Gaza annihilation. For a while the whole world was somewhat ablaze about Gaza being attacked and the ensuing destruction and deaths. The question that propped up was how justified were the Zionist attacks inclusive of the aerial and artillery onslaughts on homes, hospitals, UN premises and schools? The general Western media are well poised to a denial syndrome. They depict and maintain that the excessive Israel attacks on the innocent people of Gaza were justified under the name of self preservation. If this be so, then there must be something
wrong with our sense of justice.

Fair-minded witnesses began to describe the incessant attacks on the civilians of Gaza by Israel as “unjustified“ and “disproportionate” while Israel maintained its innocence by countering that the attacks were mere safeguards and not disproportionate vis-à-vis the security of homeland Israel. With almost 1,400 dead in Gaza pursuant to the multi-angle and multi-façade attacks, how does one justify the onslaught?

We reeled back with sadness when we first learnt that the United Nations, the Security Council in particular, was seen to be such a lame entity even in the wake of devastations and deaths inflicted by a neighboring state. The Security Council failed to effect ceasefire and total stoppage of the attacks despite the high-sounding SC Resolution 1860 which was passed on 8 January 2009 with the United States abstaining. The special session of the UNGA that ensued also did not manage to bring solution to the catastrophe. This is the case of a regime killing their immediate neighbour with intent of annihilation without any sense of quid pro quo. What resulted has been an act of genocide. This is what the figure 1,380 stands for.

Realizing that the SC Resolution was insufficient, Malaysia on January 12th initiated a special session of its Parliament to condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza and called for a lasting peace process. Finally, at the instance of Malaysia, Brazil and a few other concerned states petitioned the United Nations to recognize the then endemic human sufferings in Gaza both in` terms of loss of life as well as of property and life sustenance facilities. Not only are the UN Resolutions empty and hollow-sounding, Security Council leaders were also exposing a certain degree of ignorance in respect of the human suffering.

Those ‘unjustified and ‘disproportionate’ attacks by Israel were in reality a testing political ground for the aspirant Israeli prime minister and his cohorts in Tel Aviv on the eve of the Israeli national election. In a way it was a political ploy and show off. It was a ploy to gain political mileage which perhaps was more gainful for Olmert than for Livny; and so it was acceptable to the Zionist regime to attack and violate all known tenets of international law and human rights.

Gaza also became the testing ground of lethal weaponry including the devastating white phosphorous that was strewn and scattered from the sky down to innocent school children and civilians. Among the photographs that you see here at the forum hall are victims of that destructive powder chemical. Rightly, that human-defacing chemical ought to be the substantive matter before the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and
Use of Chemical Weapons and Malaysia is seeking support so as to float the issue at the earliest available opportunity.

Various save-Gaza ativities have been held including the interacting mechanism introduced by the Obama administration. Whilst we appreciate the concern and the slight shift of US foreign policy in respect of Iran, the Middle East and Palestine, we expect more from Mr Obama in terms of lasting solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Palestinians have suffered more than their fair share of human calamity ever since the British-initiated Partition in 1948. Palestinians have been dispossessed of their homeland.

American-aided attacks on its people and possessions have embittered their humanity and coarsened their faith while awaiting for a fair solution. Even within the Hamas-Fatah political misfit, the distrust for the American style in solving the conflict is evident even at long range sights. But if American or European-initiated solution package becomes more just and fair then the world could be convinced of attaining true peace and harmony.

Excellencies Ladies and Gentlemen
Many a road-map for peace have turned into detours of war and killing. At the same time Israel continues to receive armaments from the United States which in turn were used as weapons of mass destruction against the Palestinians. Truly, without such entrenched facility nothing by way of real damage could have happened.

It is now clear that the United Nations initiatives, including the failed 10th Emergency Assembly and the 8th January 2009 Security Council Resolution 1850 have been rendered to be of no effect in terms of making Israel pay for its disproportionate attacks on the people of Gaza. The US specially appointed envoy to the Israel-Palestine peace process too has not proven any positive outcome.

Even the earlier UNSC Resolution such as Resolution 242 and 446 are now mere scrap papers because they have not been observed. Resolution 242 prohibits the taking by force of territories and Resolution 446 determines the illegality of Israel’s settlements on Palestinian territories. Under Resolution 465 deplores Israel’s settlements and bars member states from assisting Israel in that respect. The SC makes resolutions but it has not put in place mechanisms to oversee that they be executed. Thus Israel is now violating the 4th Geneva
Convention. Clearly the UNGA has also vitiated its duty in not making the SC accountable for its lackadaisical disposition in respect of its own resolutions affecting Palestinian rights. Clearly too, there is much to be done within the UN’s own housekeeping mechanism. Somehow the SC is seen to be more powerful than the UNGA itself.

The unprecedented calamities scourged by the Zionist regime has been treated as no more than an event that should be put aside and be forgotten. And no country has thus far initiated any forward move to make Israel accountable for its acts of aggression that spews disaster and deaths in Gaza.

Malaysia had last January resolved by way of parliamentary resolutions that Israel, inter alia, ought to be made accountable for its gross human rights violation pursuant to the Gaza attacks; that it be made answerable for its international criminal law violations and that Israel’s act of genocide be meted out by a special tribunal something that could be done under Article 22 of the UN Charter; that Israel be made accountable for all its international law and human rights violations.

Understandably critics could easily regard the action taken by Malaysia as an isolated move in the vast complicated international arena of UN politics. Even our friends in the Arab League could do no more than whimper through its various deliberations. Excellencies ladies and gentlemen in light of these developments we hope that you will appreciate Malaysia’s small contribution towards making the international community to be more reactive and prompt in its treatment of what is just and fair in the name of positive humanity.

If there be nothing else, Malaysia and like-minded States move that an Israeli War Crimes Tribunal be formed under the UN Charter; that an International Criminal Tribunal for Israel (ICTI) be organized along the lines of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) established by the Security Council. The establishment of ICTI should provide some small degree of justice to the victims of Israel War Crimes against humanity and genocide against the people of Palestine, just as the ICTY had done in the Balkans.

In the interim, we would implore that the Human Rights Commission in Geneva continue to besiege the human rights violations committed by Israel during and after its Gaza attacks. Cutting of water supply, bombing of houses of worship, blatant murders of women and children – these and many more call for true tenacity and pursuit of human justice and fairness.

It has to be said again that belling the cat is always a problem especially during these days of outrageous veto powers at the UNSC. How wil the veto powers react to such a proposition is almost a known outcome bearing in mind previous dispositions of the big powers. But to try and to go on trying we must, even though this is the kind of injustice that small and defense-deficient countries have to face and bear as they inch towards the so-called purview of international justice of the United Nations.

While we move our sights from poster to poster, from photograph to photograph in respect of the Gaza slaughter, let us set free our thoughts on the next set of action to be taken. This is indeed the moment of truth for concerted action in the name of humanity. In previous events, the international community donated money and material each time Palestine was severely mauled by Israel. They attacked and destroyed. We helped and rebuilt. They again attacked and destroyed and we continued to give and rebuild.

Israel presupposes that there is very little that the international community could do in terms of punitive or retributive measures. It knows for sure that the American government shall always shield them, at least from the operatives of the Security Council. Israel also knows that for so long as the SC is controlled under the veto system, nothing much could be done by way of sanction and execution. Now we may say enough is enough. But which authority will actually translate those words into the preventive? The UN can’t even station a peace mission yet on the Israel-Palestinian border areas let alone be in the position to enforce previous resolutions in the name of world peace and co-existence.

It is in this context that the act of war must be re-looked at both from the viewpoint of human rights as well as universal justice. We drag a person to court to be prosecuted for his act of having killed someone. We use the maxim mens rea in determining his murderous intent. But we simply allow a neighbouring state to marauder thousands with guns, air strikers, chemicals and tanks. Then we say since that is an act of war then it’s ok. This is convoluted logic and any language that says that war is acceptable must necessarily be a concoction of the biggest wrong.

Excellencies Ladies and gentlemen
We thank you for your presence and commitment. I thank Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and his gracious wife Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah, two indefatigable icons who jointly and severally endeavour with the goodwill and cooperation of others to make war a crime through the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW). Our thanks also go to the eminent speakers, ambassadors,
officials and samaritan workers who gladly lend their services to make this forum and exhibition a success.

Thank you.