Caucus For The Improvement of Malaysia-Israel Relations (CIMIR)

Malaysian Senator: We are not helping Palestinians if we don't talk and walk with Israel 

By Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim, Senator for Penang, 17 April 2010. Read from the source here, or download as a PDF document.

Malaysiakini: PAS opposition party has evidence of Malaysia-Israel relations 

By Malaysiakini, 24 April 2010. Read from the source (in Malay) here.

The following article has been translated from Malay.

PAS expressed its disappointment towards the Malaysian government, whom it alleged to be promoting Israel and its trade products through the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI).

According to PAS's Director of Information, Idris Ahmad, the party had obtained information and several pieces of graphical evidence relating to the MITI Library, which had prepared a special section for reading materials, magazines and trade information on Israel.

"The library on the eleventh floor is open not only to staff but also to the public - especially Malaysian traders - for their reference. Hence, MITI's conduct must be regarded as an effort towards promoting Israeli trade and industry in Malaysia", he told Malaysiakini via email. 

According to Idris, among the materials that can be found in the library include the Israel-Asia Trade magazine, the Israel Review, the book Advantage Israel, the Trade Policies Review (Israel), Advance Technology From Israel, Opportunity Israel, The Economics of Israel, Douanes (Israeli tariff codes guide) and several more. 

"This militates against the government's policy which before this has not recognized Israel".

"Yet, the Ministry of the Interior's guidelines state that any advertisement or product from Israel is forbidden in this country, including in the form of magazines or books", he added. 

Idris said that his party were surprised as to how the reading materiel had managed to enter Malaysia, given that the Minister of Trade and Industry had asserted in Parliament that MITI has absolutely no relations with the Jewish regime. 

"MPs had repeatedly raised the question of Malaysia-Israel trade relations, but MITI kept denying its existence in Parliament". 

Idris said that the existence of a special rack for the Israeli reading materiel revealed the public's long-held distrust towards the government who in 1994 had passed the Imports Restrictions Act (Amendment Bil. 7), which had rescinded importation blocks on Israeli goods. 

"It is also PAS's understanding that MITI had in fact covertly permitted exports to and imports from Israel and each import/export application had to be submitted directly to the Import-Export Control Section for evaluation by a special committee", he added.

According to Idris, this had been confirmed by the Israeli Ministry of Trade and Industry in the March 2006 edition of the Israel-Asia Trade journal.

The relevant Jewish minister was also reported to have been delighted with the proposal of then-Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his minister, Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz, expressing interest in initiating trade relations with the Israeli regime. 

"It appears that to this day the BN government of Malaysia continues to flirt with Israel behind the nation's back. If Mahathir had paid millions of ringgit to a Jewish corporation, Saatchi & Saatchi, to help develop an electoral strategy for him during the 1986 general elections, today Najib is using Apco Worldwide's services to help him prepare for the 13th general elections.

"And Mukhriz on the other hand has been placed in MITI as a deputy minister in order to safeguard the secrets of his father's administration, the latter having relied heavily on Israeli expertise", he said. 

According to Idris, PAS is certain that a lot more secret information relating to Malaysia-Israel trade relations as well as surreptitious visits by both countries' leaders are being concealed by he government. 

Foreign Policy: Meet the new, less anti-Semitic Malaysia 

By Blake Hounshell (Foreign Policy), 12 April 2010. Read it here. 

Mohammed Najib Abdul Razak, the prime minister of Malaysia, is in town this week for Barack Obama's nuclear summit, and this afternoon the two leaders met to discuss nonproliferation and a host of other topics.

A State Department readout of the meeting was nothing but gumdrops and lollipops. Sample:

"Prime Minister Najib conveyed his support of President Obama's aspiration to start a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, as reflected in his speech in Cairo in June 2009, and offered Malaysia's assistance to cooperate with the United States to engage the Muslim world."

Najib also informed Obama of his country's willingness to help in Afghanistan, and agreed on the need to maintain a unified front on Iran's nuclear program. 

It's a far cry from the fireworks that Mahathir Mohamad, a long-serving previous Malaysian prime minister, set off in October 2003 when he characterized the Iraq war as a Jewish plot against Muslims and said that "the Jews rule the world by proxy".

Mahathir has yet to comment on Najib's visit on his blog, but he did recently dismiss aerial photographs of ethnic cleansing in Darfur as "obviously Israeli propaganda" because they were published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

CIMIR Spring 2010 Periodical Paper: The Politics of Engagement

Read h

Free Malaysia Today: Time to face the Israel question 

By Free Malaysia Today, 14 April 2010. Read from the source here.

All publicity is good says an old adage among press agents. That adage is being put severely to the test in the matter of the federal government's publicity consultants Apco Worldwide.

At last count, six institutions and seven members of the ruling establishment have become embroiled in a fast-escalating row that threw up questions of national security and Israeli influence. It is a row that has now gone up to the very top – to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Yet it had seemed innocent enough when Anwar Ibrahim questioned Apco's role in the 1Malaysia campaign of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, and linked it to Apco's relationship with Israel. Inevitably the Z word and the J word came into play.

At first glance Anwar's question was just a political stunt to repay Barisan Nasional administration leaders in the same coin, for having been tarred by them over many years with the taunt of being an agent of Jews and Jewish interests. It looked like payback time.

But there are more serious questions to answer – about Apco's relations with Israeli intelligence, Israeli links to the federal police through a Singapore company, and the implications these have on national security. Answers have been few.

One answer given shows that Apco's deal with the government, at RM77 million, will cost the taxpayer at least three times more than was originally believed.

As the prime minister basks in the Washington spring sunshine and the warm limelight of an association with the world's favourite US president, the taxpayer will wonder exactly what – and who – that RM77 million has bought on their behalf.

Memories will be stirred of another Malaysian PM, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, another US president, George W Bush, and another lobbyist from K Street, Jack Abramoff, now serving a five-year jail term for fraud and corruption offences.

It must be said those offences had nothing to do, as far as we know, with the US$1.2 million fee that Mahathir later said Abramoff was paid for arranging his meeting with Bush in 2002. That meeting helped to raise Mahathir's profile after being severely criticised by the previous Clinton administration – for anti-Semiticism, and for Anwar's jailing.

That Anwar is again at the centre is not surprising. Neither is the government's response about Apco and the Israelis. (In typical shoot-the-messenger style, it is Anwar that is to be investigated by four government agencies, including the National Security Council.)

But the fundamental questions go unanswered.

Did the Home Minister at the time receive a briefing from senior police officers about Israeli links to a billion-ringgit computerisation project at Bukit Aman? (The pathetic partial response, that he couldn't really remember, is no answer.)

Do Apco the worldwide publicity agents and lobbyists have Israeli links, and do these pose any danger to Malaysian security? Do Apco have any relationship to APCO P25 the computerised police response system, or is this in truth just a coincidence of names? Do the companies involved in APCO P25 have Israeli links, and are these a threat to national security?

Did the Inspector-General of Police have any links to the companies associated with this project? How were the companies chosen? Were thorough background checks carried out? How were they given security clearance?

Were the Israelis associated with the Singapore end given access to Bukit Aman? Do the Singapore partners have any continuing association with the Israelis?

Is Israel an enemy? Is there a security threat in dealing with Israeli people?

Does Anwar Ibrahim have genuine copies of official documents? Are those images genuinely of official documents posted by Raja Petra Kamarudin? Will the government explain the damaging revelations contained in them?

Fanciful notions of Mossad or Shin Bet having penetrated Bukit Aman are not the point. It would beggar belief to accept that Shin Bet was openly allowed into Bukit Aman under only the flimsy pretext of being software installers. But if they did, we are entitled to ask why – not because they are Israeli or Jewish or Shin Bet – and to know how secure is the headquarters of our internal security organisation.

These matters are what relate to Malaysia's national security, not Anwar's antics, nor his access to information, nor the religious faith of certain Middle Easterners.

Rising above the noisy hubbub of Apco, Zionism, and Jewishness – and recognising that these are essentially red herrings – there remains the larger question about Israel that Malaysia cannot avoid.

Is Malaysia to be the last holdout in Asia, when five of Israel's Arab neighbours have already established ties, and many in the Gulf carry on private lucrative trade with putative enemies?

As Najib and his delegation enjoy cherry blossom time in the one western capital that could loosely be called Tel Aviv West, it is a pertinent time to pose this question.

It is not the Jewish question. That one is merely for schoolyard taunting. It is the Israel question that must be answered, and a mature Malaysia to answer it. With chutzpah, even.

AP/Yedioth: Malaysian opposition alleges Police infiltrated by Israeli spies 

By the Associated Press/Yedioth Ahronot, 11 April 2010. Read from the source here.  

Malaysia's opposition called for an independent investigation Sunday into claims that Israeli spies had infiltrated the national police headquarters.

 

Government and police authorities have denied the allegation, which was made by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in parliament last week in an attempt to cast doubt on the credibility of the ruling party in this Muslim-majority country.

 

Malaysia is a staunch supporter of the Palestinians and has no diplomatic ties with Israel.

 

Anwar claimed he had obtained police documents indicating that two former Israeli military intelligence officers entered the federal police headquarters in 2008 and had access to the police communications system while working secretly for a technology company. He did not say what their intentions might have been.

 

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein on Friday dismissed Anwar's claim of a security breach as "baseless," and ordered police and government investigators to compile evidence to disprove it.

 

Lim Kit Siang, a top leader in the opposition Democratic Action Party, on Sunday urged the government to instead set up a high-level independent panel to look into the accusation.

 

"It is not something which could be dismissed summarily as baseless rumors from thin air," Lim said in a statement, adding that he will request a debate in Parliament next week on whether to set up such a panel.

 

In recent weeks, Anwar has repeatedly tried to link the ruling National Front coalition to Israeli interests. He has also alleged that the government's widely publicized "1Malaysia" racial unity slogan was modeled on the "One Israel" political alliance set up by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 1999.

Anwar claimed there were indications that Israelis were trying to get involved in the country's administration.

 

Government leaders have rejected Anwar's statements as an effort to erode public support for Prime Minister Najib Razak's coalition, especially among the ethnic Malay Muslim majority ahead of a closely watched special election later this month for a state legislative seat.

Chabad-Lubavitch 'Mitzvah Tank' in central Kuala Lumpur
 

1 March, 2010

While passing the Ampang Park shopping mall in Kuala Lumpur's central Ampang district today, I caught a glimpse of one of Malaysia's very few, and equally discreet, Mitzvah Tanks, bearing the decals of Chabad Lubavitch and, even more curiously, the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department (emblazoned across the front door). 

Chabad Malaysia - http://jewishnews.net.au/2009/07/17/life-in-jewish-malaysia/6105

Malaysian and Israeli Defense Ministers meet in Paris

In the highest-level physical encounter between a Malaysian and Israeli government official in a decade (the most recent being in 1999 between Foreign Ministers Syed Hamid Albar and David Levy in New York), Malaysia's Defense Minister Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi met with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, at the Paris Air Show in June this year. The notion of Malaysian-Israeli intergovernmental communication itself being a source of controversy in Malaysia, the Zahid-Barak meeting garnered particular attention in Malaysia due to a variation in the reported identities of the participants. The initial report of the meeting by the Malaysian national news agency Bernama (view the report here) indicated that Dr. Zahid had met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was visiting Paris to launch Israel's pavilion at the Air Show. According to the report, released on the 18th July while Dr. Zahid was in Lebanon to accompany a newly-dispatched Malaysian UNIFIL peacekeeping battalion, the former indicated that the meeting had been the brainchild of Mr. Netanyahu, who correspondingly acquiesced to Dr. Zahid's preconditions that the Prime Minister "should not bring along any Israeli aide or photographer and (he) should not indulge in double standards". According to the report, the encounter, which has not been reported by the Israeli press, lasted some 35 minutes and covered issues

Despite the inevitable controversy arising out of such high-profile encounters and irrespective of the erring  , the Zahid-Barak meeting demonstrates that    . Whilst the actual substance of the meeting is expected to remain shrouded in secrecy, a number of possible subject areas    , such as the Iranian post-election unrest  , Kuala Lumpur's deployment of the Malcon West 2 battalion to Lebanon later in July, and the arms modernization agreement signed between the Malaysian and Lebanese governments. Whist