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NST Leader: Time to suspend Israel

MALAYSIA has spoken out against Israel's barbarism again. This time at the Extraordinary Arab and Islamic Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In a national statement delivered at the summit on Monday, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim called on the international community to either suspend or expel Israel from the United Nations.

World leaders don't need a reason to do so. For over a century, the Zionists have been committing genocide against the Palestinians. And for the last 13 months, it has gotten worse.

To quote Saudi media, Israel has slaughtered 50,000 and wounded 90,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

If this isn't enough, the Zionist regime led by Benjamin Netanyahu is on an expanded genocidal mission in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

Anwar put it best: "Israel no longer belongs within the civilised community of nations, and its barbarism demands nothing less than decisive action to safeguard not just the Middle East, but the entire global order."

The United States, Britain and France are likely to veto Israel's expulsion or even its suspension. But they will do well to pay heed to the UN Charter, which prohibits the acquisition of territory by force.

Notwithstanding this, should any of the three veto the resolution seeking the expulsion or suspension of Israel, then they will stand on the wrong side of history.

There is a way out of the veto, though. The UN General Assembly must do what it did 50 years ago to the apartheid government of South Africa: deny Israel a seat there.

This month is a good time for the UNGA to repeat the feat. It can't be denied that Israel is violating international conventions.

The 1948 Genocide Convention is one. On Jan 31, in a genocide case brought by South Africa, the International Court of Justice found it plausible that Israel's atrocities against the Palestinians in Gaza could amount to genocide.

Yet Tel Aviv is defying the ICJ ruling to prevent genocide by blocking humanitarian aid from reaching Palestinians in Gaza.

Which civilised nation does this? Even a rogue state like Myanmar allows humanitarian aid after some international pressure.

The latest display of Netanyahu's barbarism is the barring of the UN Relief And Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees from operating in Gaza.

The intent is clear: cut off the basic means of Palestinian survival. Genocidal intent can't be clearer than this.

Again, which civilised nation does this? Britain, the US, France and many European Union countries helped create the barbaric monster of a state that Israel is today.

They have a responsibility to unmake it. They can begin by not coming to the defence of the Zionist regime with their cliched shell of a phrase: "Israel has a right to defend itself".

What about the right of the unarmed Palestinians to defend them selves against the weaponised occupier of their land? The UN Charter clearly prohibits the forceful acquisition of territory.

The Additional Protocol 1 to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 goes a step further: as an occupied people, Palestinians have the right to resist, even by arming themselves.

If the UN is to be treated as the conscience of the world, it must suspend or expel Israel followed by imposing sanctions and embargoes on the Zionist regime.

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