Tuesday 16 September 2014

Malaysia favours Palestinians but buys from Israel

Originally published on The Times of Israel

In the winter of 2013, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak stepped across the Egyptian border at Rafah and made a rare visit by a head of government to Hamas-ruled Gaza. Razak, whose country does not have diplomatic relations with Israel, told reporters: “We believe in the struggle of the Palestinian people. They have been suppressed and oppressed for so long.”
It was crystal clear which side he was on. Yet all that time, his country was importing more and more Israeli products — but not talking about it much, certainly not in Gaza.

Official data published by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) tells of a booming, but very discreet, trade relationship that is blossoming between the two countries, despite a hawkish prime minister in Jerusalem and Razak’s Islamist and proudly pro-Palestinian government in Kuala Lumpur.
Read the full story here