TR EMERITUS

While several countries pulled out their ambassadors from Israel soon after it carried out genocidal acts against the Palestinians, Singapore decided to show its warmest affection for the country. On December 19, 2023, Singapore appointed Mr Ian Mak as its first ambassador to Israel.

For more than half a century, Singapore did not find the need to appoint an ambassador to Israel. But it chose to do so while Palestinians are being ruthlessly slaughtered and their land and properties subjected to intensive and indiscriminate bombings. Was that a show of comradery or was it an act of folly? Was it meant to tell the world that Singapore will forever be Israel’s friend because it owes an enormous debt for training our young men to fight our imagined enemies after we left Malaysia?

I don’t know the quantity of armaments Singapore sent to Israel since October 7. This government should tell us.

As if the appointment of our first ambassador to Israel was not sufficient indication to the world that it is a diehard friend and supporter of Israel, it continues to try and fool Singaporeans by its occasional utterances that Israel “have gone too far”.

On 26 January, the ICJ ruled in the case filed by South Africa that “Israel must take all possible measures to prevent genocidal acts as outlined in Article 2 of the 1948 Genocide Convention”, a convention which was the direct outcome of the death of 6 million Jews committed by the Germans. What did Singapore do to stop the ongoing genocide? It did nothing. Instead, it was left to a group of young people to stage a peaceful protest on 2 February. They held umbrellas painted with the symbol of Palestine, the watermelon and several of them walked to the Istana to present over a hundred letters to our prime minister.

If Singapore leaders were sincere in wanting to end the massacre of Palestinians, they should have welcomed the minuscule peaceful protest. After all, in many countries, protesters against the genocide have numbered in the thousands. Can 70 people cause any harm to peaceful Singapore? Singaporeans have long been depoliticised and are not capable of violence. So I really cannot understand the actions of the police. Not long after, at least nine young people were summoned to the Tanglin and Bedok police stations for interrogations about the “protest”. Some were even threatened by the appearance of plain clothes police officers at their homes.

The whole exercise was probably to frighten the young people from attempting to “disrupt” the Singapore Airshow that was held a few days later where Israel would tout its latest weaponry and spyware which have already been tested on Palestinians. I don’t know how many of these weapons and equipment have been purchased by Singapore. But we can assume that a lot of money would be spent on these equipment as we have a defence budget of at least 3%. Spyware would certainly be useful to track Singaporeans!

Singapore seems to be mesmerized with Israel. Since December, we have something to do with Israel almost every month. This March, our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan led a delegation of parliamentarians to Israel to meet with all these cold blooded murderers. I don’t know how they feel having to face them in person, knowing that they were responsible for the slaughter of 32,000 Palestinians and more under the rubbles. Could they picture the many orphaned and starving little children? Could they visualise the starving Palestinians? How about the injured in the hospitals and the executions that are taking place daily on hospital grounds?

I don’t understand all these regular dos with Israel. Why take a delegation of parliamentarians to meet cold blooded murderers. Is the minister trying to teach them how to treat Singaporeans when there is a political crisis?

Teo Soh Lung

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