‘Murderous rampage’: Malaysian PM attacks Western leaders over hypocrisy on Israel, Ukraine

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has accused Western nations of hypocritically railing against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while overlooking alleged Israeli human rights abuses, as he revealed he personally lobbied Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to urgently restart funding for the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees.

The Canadian government is reportedly poised to resume funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), paving the way for Australia to potentially do the same given that Canada, Australia and New Zealand have taken a unified approach on the war in Gaza in recent months.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Western leaders could not selectively apply international law. Credit: Joe Armao

Anwar said it was crucial that world leaders not selectively apply international law as nations such as the United States, Australia and the Philippines demand China complies with global maritime rules in the South China Sea.

“Unfortunately, the gut-wrenching tragedy that continues to unfold in the Gaza Strip has laid bare the self-serving nature of the much vaunted rules-based order,” Anwar said in a speech at the Australian National University in Canberra on Thursday.

“The differing responses by the West to human suffering defy reasoning.

“Why, for example, has the West been so vociferous, vehement and unequivocal in the condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine while remaining utterly silent on the relentless bloodletting inflicted on innocent men, women and children of Gaza?”

Anwar, who leads a Muslim-majority nation of 34 million people, continued: “The fact is that much of the Western world has given the Israeli occupation forces, for more than six decades, a carte blanche in the murderous rampage on the Palestinians.”

He said it was a “fool’s errand” to believe that other countries, including in the Indo-Pacific, would not notice inconsistencies in the application of international law.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said: “Anwar Ibrahim seems to forget that it is Hamas which is the aggressor in the current war with Israel.

“It was Hamas which broke a two-year ceasefire and attacked Israel and butchered, mutilated, raped and kidnapped its civilians on October 7 last year, and has threatened to repeat these crimes.

“It is therefore Hamas which is to be likened to Russia, as the aggressor in the war with Ukraine. Ukraine and Israel are each fighting a war for their national existence, and each is fighting the same enemy, the Iran-Russia axis.”

Anwar told this masthead in an interview this week that he found it “mind-boggling” the United States had been unable to forcefully advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza, adding he believed a focus on the shock Hamas attacks of October 7 ignored “the entire history of colonisation and dispossession” in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Anwar said he had urged Albanese to restore funding to UNRWA when they met on the sidelines of the Australia-ASEAN special summit in Melbourne on Monday.

Anwar said funding to the agency, the main provider of humanitarian relief in the Palestinian territories, should not be suspended while investigations take place into whether UNRWA employees took part in the October 7 massacres in Israel.

Australia, Canada, Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, the Netherlands and other nations suspended funding to UNRWA earlier this year after the agency launched an investigation into allegations that 12 staff members participated in the October 7 attacks.

Anwar said Albanese had “listened very attentively and allowed me to present my case very strongly on the issue of Gaza”.

“Hopefully, he will respond,” he said.

Albanese said on Wednesday that the government “will make an assessment at an appropriate time” on UNRWA funding, adding: “This is a dire and catastrophic circumstance that we see and we want people to have access to appropriate support and just the essentials of life.”

Anwar praised Australia for voting in favour of an immediate humanitarian ceasefire resolution at the United Nations General Assembly and toughening its criticism of Israel in recent months.

Israel has insisted it seeks to minimise civilian casualties and that the task is made difficult because Hamas is embedded in civilian populations in Gaza.

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has risen to over 30,700 since the beginning of the war, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations, James Larsen, this week called for Israel to provide evidence for its claims that UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 attacks and said the government wanted to restore funding to the agency.

“We have consistently called on Israel to provide all available evidence so that these serious allegations can be properly assessed and appropriate safeguards put in place,” he said.

“The humanitarian crisis is dire. We seek the urgent assurance that will allow us to restore funding.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong announced in late January that the government was suspending a $6 million humanitarian aid package for UNRWA she had announced during her trip to the Middle East earlier in the month.

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said in February he had fired nine agency staff members accused of involvement in the attacks, adding that he had not yet determined whether they had done so.

As discussion of the great power rivalry between the US and China dominated the ASEAN-Australia summit, Anwar said earlier this week that Malaysia was “fiercely independent” and did not want to pick sides between the two superpowers.

“If they have problems with China, they should not impose it upon us,” he said.

Albanese and Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh upgraded the Australia-Vietnam relationship to a comprehensive strategic partnership during a meeting in Canberra on Thursday, while launching a new annual ministerial dialogue on energy and minerals.

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