HYPOCRISY

Note from Maung Zarni –

Dr Mahathir Mohammad, former prime minister of Malaysia, condemns the United States of America for its continuing direct involvement in, and profiting from, Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and settlerist violence in all the Occupied Territories of Palestine.

A very high percentage of the billions of US taxpayers’ $, annually and additionally given to the world’s most blatantly genocidal state, in effect, fill the coffers of the American arms industry.

Meanwhile, the official death toll of Palestinian children, men and women in Gaza has reached the 40,000 mark – all mass-murdered by Israel, largely with the American weapons, in the last 300-plus days. According to Lancet, one of the world’s most influential and credible medical journals, the combined estimates of “direct and indirect deaths” of Gazans are around 186,000. The UN has estimated Israel’s intentional physical destruction of Gaza has resulted in 20 million tons of rubble. These staggering numbers have shocked the conscience of the world, and triggered the worldwide “End Genocide” protest movement reminiscent of the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Within the inter-state system, the UN’s principal judicial organ, the International Court of Justice, has, repeatedly, issued both binding provisional measures orders to stop Israel’s genocidal destruction, and advisory legal opinions to end Israel’s occupation of UN-mandated Palestinian land. Protected by the USA, Israel has simply thumbed its nose and carried on with its business of physical destruction of Gaza.

Despite the overwhelming moral consensus – including many segments of the Jewish diaspora – of the world’s streets and the ICJ’s authoritative judicial rulings with respect to Israel’s ongoing and egregious crimes against the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza, the United States, both the Biden-Blinken Administration and Congress, have doubled down on their financial, military, political and diplomatic support for, and direct involvement in, Israel’s textbook Lemkinian genocide in Palestine.

A lifelong anti-imperialist par excellence, Dr Mahathir in his 100th year as a statesman redefines “the American Way” as the genocidal land grab, accumulation wealth via wars, organised violence, arms exports and self-un-aware hypocrisy. His contemporary Professor Noam Chomsky calls USA, with its “supreme hypocrisy”, “Number One Rogue State” in today’s world.

For those millions of Americans – and Americophiles globally- who have been schooled in the Pavlovian tradition of “America, the beautiful”, likened to “the (biblical) city upon the hill”, by the early settler-pastor John Winthrop, Dr Mahathir’s words here will definitely sound “radical”. And they are right. Dr Mahathir concerns himself with the root cause of today’s Zionist genocide, unfolding 24/7: the USA acting as the Imperialist Patron of its client state of Israel, being let loose like a hell hound at large.

More from Dr Mahathir Mohamad

Distinguished Guest: Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former two-times Prime Minister of Malaysia (1981-2003 & 2018-2020), author, and physician.
Host: Dr Maung Zarni, Scholar Activist and Co-founder, FORSEA

In his hour-long dialogue on FORSEA YouTube Channel, former two-times Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr Mahathir Mohamad (98) shared his no-hold-barred reflections on the sordid state of the world, still in the grip of the Euro-American powers. Born on 10 July 1925, the unapologetically anti-imperialist statesman looked back at the formation and modes of operation of the British colonial state in Malaya founded solely to advance Britain’s economic interests, Britain’s propaganda disguised as “education” for the subject peoples, the racist divide and rule, and policies of large-scale importation of foreign labour into the British Malaya. Looking ahead, he offers some thoughts to remedy the legacies of centuries of European colonialisms including de-colonizing education in the former colonial world. Finally, Dr Mahathir advocates a new world body of nations that can effectively tackle the common existential crisis of the contemporary world, namely the Climate Change.

Acknowledgments

The interview was recorded by the production team at Kuala Lumpur-based Olive Studio. FORSEA would like to thank the following team members:

Camera: Firdaus Sidek
Sound: Ms Chin Pei
Post-production edits: Nasrulhisham

Special thanks to Malaysian director, stand-up comedian and activist Hishamuddin Rais, also a FORSEA co-founder who served as the adviser in this production, and  also to Dr Mahathir’s team at the Perdana Leadership Foundation.