By: Toh Han Shih
Singapore, often called a Chinese island in a Malay Muslim sea because of its far bigger neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia, is playing a delicate activist role when it comes to the inflammatory issue of Israel’s all-out war on the Palestinian residents of Gaza, condemning an inflammatory Facebook post by the Israeli Embassy in Singapore and ordering it taken down as “an astonishing attempt to re-write history,” while engineering air drops of food and other supplies by Singapore Air Force planes to starving and besieged citizens in the Gaza enclave.
As an example of the touchiness of the issue, McDonald’s has been boycotted in Indonesia and Malaysia because the US fast food chain said last October that it had donated free meals to the Israeli military. Indonesia is maintaining a hospital in the Gaza enclave and Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has condemned the Israeli onslaught. In January, Indonesia filed a lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague over the Israeli army’s alleged violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Singapore boasts a population of 936,000 Muslims, most of them Malays and many with Indonesian and Malaysian family ties, that make up 15.6 percent of the country’s citizens. Malays constitute the island’s second largest ethnic group. The Singapore government has long sought carefully to cater to the minority’s needs. In addition, the government, headed by prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, is determined to maintain good relationships with Arab nations, whose rich citizens have offered major amounts of capital to Singapore as a growing financial center, while maintaining significant military and economic ties with Israel.
Trade between Singapore and the Middle East has grown substantially in recent years, reaching S$57.5 billion (US$42.7 billion) in 2019, according to a press release by the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Minister for Foreign Affairs Vivian Balakrishnan recently visited the Middle East with Balakrishnan stopping in the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to cement ties. In Israel, Balakrishnan on March 19 and 20 conveyed to Israeli leaders that “Israel’s military response in Gaza has gone too far” and reiterated Singapore’s call for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, Balakrishnan said on his Facebook page.
As an example of the delicate line between another country’s sovereignty and that country’s impact on Singaporean social harmony, the government told the Israeli embassy to remove a social media post that Shanmugam said was likely to anger Muslims and thus endanger the Jewish community, which numbers perhaps 2,500, fewer than 0.1 percent of the population, according to the website of the Jewish Community of Singapore, although there has long been a vibrant Jewish community in the city. David Marshall (1908–1995), was the city’s first chief minister in 1955, serving for 14 months while being leader of the Labour Front.
The Embassy Facebook post said, “Israel is mentioned 43 times in the Quran. On the other hand, Palestine is not mentioned even once. Each and every archaeological evidence – maps, documents, coins, link the land of Israel to the Jewish people as the indigenous people of the land.” The post has since been taken down.
Often, Shanmugam told the media in Singapore, “Embassies say and put out posts, statements, which we may disagree with. But we generally don’t intervene. Because they represent sovereign countries and they have autonomy. But where it affects the safety and security of people in Singapore, the peace and harmony that we enjoy, we do, and we will, intervene.”
But, he said, “Posts like these can, however, inflame tensions and can put the Jewish community here at risk. The anger from the post can potentially spill over into the physical realm.”
Masagos Zulkifli, Singapore Minister in charge of Muslim Affairs, said on his Facebook page on March 25 that the post “touched on a sensitive matter to Singaporeans and Muslims. Nobody should make interpretations that are offensive to another people’s faith, especially selectively using their sacred texts, to make political points.”
“Whether one is a Singaporean or foreigner in Singapore, we must not do or say anything that disrupts the social harmony that is so precious to us in Singapore,” said Masagos, a Malay Muslim who is also Minister for Social and Family Development.
In an interview with Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan by reporters on March 25, Balakrishnan said, “Last night, I read it, it was wrong. We communicated to them (that it was) highly inappropriate to make references to sacred texts in order to score political points.”
Meanwhile, on March 20, according to local media, a Singapore 3rd Armed Forces Transport Battalion C-130 completed its first humanitarian airdrop to deliver emergency supplies to people in the war-stricken Palestinian enclave of Gaza. The humanitarian package – Singapore’s third tranche of aid to Gaza – comprised meal packs, food items, and other emergency relief items.
“Every little bit counts; we hope these airdrop missions will bring some relief to the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” RSAF said. The humanitarian package was put together in close consultation with Jordan, based on the needs on the ground in Gaza, said Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and Ministry of Defense in a joint statement on March 17.
Other countries that have also delivered much needed supplies by plane include the United States, Jordan, Egypt, and Germany. Singapore’s first tranche of aid to Gaza, consisting of supplies and funds raised, was delivered to the Egyptian Red Crescent in early November 2023. The second tranche of aid, which included medicine, sanitation items, and water filters, was delivered to the Egyptian Red Crescent later that month.
The Singapore foreign minister commented on the Gaza war, saying, “I am still pessimistic in the short term. Because as I said, every conflict eventually ends at the negotiating table. Every conflict. Whether there is victory or defeat, or a ceasefire or an armistice, everything always ends at a table. As a diplomat, what I feel more sorry about is that oftentimes, in order to secure more leverage, conflicts are prolonged. When conflicts are prolonged, more innocent people suffer, lose their lives.”
After a ceasefire takes effect in Gaza, the situation will be “complicated and that was the subject of a lot of our discussions with our Arab partners,” Balakrishnan explained. “Gaza will need some governing structure, some people with both moral and political authority. They will need a functioning civil service or at least municipal services, food, healthcare, education, to keep the lights going, to keep water supplies going. There will have to be a lot of emergency rebuilding, as well as longer term planning for the infrastructure, which two million people will need. This will be a complicated thing which the Palestinian Authority has readily told me they will need help externally.”
In a statement on February 15, the Singapore Police said, ‘Given the heightened tensions as a result of the conflict, there are particular public safety and security concerns with assemblies and processions which are organized in relation to the conflict. They could lead to tensions and disharmony in our society, as different communities in Singapore hold different views on the matter. We will therefore not approve applications to hold events related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, regardless of which side the support is for.”
source : asiasentinel