US policy on Israel demands paradigm shift - Johan Jaaffar

KUALA LUMPUR, May 24  -- The United States' policy on Israel demands a paradigm shift as the rights of the Palestinian people have been trampled upon mercilessly for the last seven decades, said prominent journalist Tan Sri Johan Jaaffar.

In the US especially, the sufferings of the Palestinians are largely ignored while the US itself has been championing human rights as if it's their moral compass in policing the world, Johan wrote in his weekly column in The Star newspaper.

"But every American president, Democrat or Republican, has one thing in common: No one ever stood up against Tel Aviv. The Jewish lobby is simply too powerful.

"The US has been the sole voice in the United Nations vetoing or blocking any resolution to condemn the Israelis’ inhuman treatment towards the Palestinians," said Johan.

He pointed out that the Israelis should have seen the parallel of how they were treated in Nazi Germany and how they are treating the Palestinians today.

“Nazi leader Adolf Hitler had his nefarious plan to wipe out the Jews through his Final Solution. Looking  at the atrocities inflicted upon the Palestinians, one can't help but wonder what the Zionist state has in mind,” wrote Johan.

“The world is changing. The US policy on Israel demands a paradigm shift. Zionism is like apartheid, even with the mightiest of might, it can’t stand the trials of time. Israel can’t be a pariah state like what South Africa was before.”

He wrote that while the Israeli army's atrocities were once seen on the news with delayed timings, people are now watching killings and destruction of infrastructure, thanks to social media and 24-hour reporting.

"They are watching humanity under siege. It is about a powerful army attacking the defenceless. The powerless and helpless are being massacred real time.”

Johan also referred to the recent joint statement by nine senior members of the Malaysian media who urged their Israeli counterparts to act as the conscience of the nation.

The Malaysian journalists condemned the attacks on offices of media organisations in Gaza, saying it was unthinkable that in this era, an army could target offices of media practitioners.

Meanwhile, the New Staits Times in an editorial today, said Israel, with the fourth largest army in the world and armed with at least 100 nuclear warheads, says its "security" is threatened by the Palestinians, who use no more than pebbles and stones against the merciless Israeli soldiers when maimed and massacred.

It criticised several reputable US and British media organisations that have made it their project "to make us silently watch the massacre of the Palestinians as many did during the last 10 May days."

The newspaper said even the investigation into Israel's war crimes by the International Criminal Court is labelled as anti-semitism.

"Anti-semitism, in a word, licenses the Zionists to get away with bloody murder,” it said.

-- BERNAMA