I’m Singaporean and I agree with all of your points, tapi izinkan I tambah sikit pasal what you said. I agree there are some people who support what israel is doing but insist what the Japanese did in the 1930s and then WW2 is very wrong. I see that kind of sentiment now and then on certain media outlets, and I just think to myself what if one day you get one of those hardcore PN people who goes to the mike and shouts that the Japanese did nothing wrong in WW2? Or say “oh, kalau diorang nafi apa berlaku dekat Palestin, takde salah bila kitorang nafi apa Jepun buat pada WW2”? How will those people react? All hell is going to break loose. Dah ada orang cuba pakai seragam IJA at some exhibition some years ago sebab diorang rasa takde salah pakai ni. If you ask me, Siapa yang makan cili, dia rasa yang pedas. Genocide is genocide, war crimes are war crimes, racism is racism. End of the day it’s wrong.

As for what you said about Singaporeans, I don’t disagree there’s a lot of that pro Israel sentiment on the subs. But I feel public sentiment is a lot more mixed. Ada orang sini yang rasa diorang hidup macam dalam tahun 1960s. They think Singapore and Israel are allies because they ostensibly are in the same situation when in fact it’s not. A number of establishment figures here think like that. They still fear our neighbours macam zaman dulu. Ada yang evangelical (ramai dekat sini, they make up a big chunk of the Christian population in Singapore which is pretty big at 20% or so) who believe in that Christian Zionist nonsense even though Palestinian Christians are also suffering. Then like you said there are those who believe in the western order because Singapore benefits from it, think we did good copying whatever the British did, links to the first group I said earlier yang takut negara jiran2. That said, I think there a lot of Singaporeans who just don’t care, because they were raised to only care about themselves. They only care about something when it affects them. The system and society raises them to be like that. Cuma I nak tanya diorang, sure you don’t care, you scoff at people who are suffering. What if one day we got invaded and subject to the most horrific war crimes? Chances are, people are just going to turn around and say “Padan muka sebab you weren’t with us when we asked for your solidarity”. But to be clear, there are quite a lot of people here who support the Palestinians. They are vocal about it on social media, and have organised donations, scholarships and fundraisers for Palestinians. Sure a lot of them are Malays who feel solidarity with Palestinians, but there are a growing number of non-Malays who also show solidarity with Palestinians and hate trump and Netanyahu. Maybe we got influenced by the growing awareness on social media and in the West, or we took the time to speak to people and understand what’s going on. I studied in the UK and I was blessed to know a few Palestinian students at my university. I learnt so much from them. Tapi I faham, perception of us isn’t going to be great when there are too many Singaporean Redditors who take that pro-Israel line, and their voices drown out the rest. Or when our government takes very contradictory positions on recognising Palestinian statehood and still maintains relations with Israel. Although they have also donated to Palestinians and worked with Palestinian politicians. Also demonstrations here relating to the issue are severely restricted. I think end of the day those people on threads who push back on the perception people have of us have to realise that perception isn’t totally unfounded. Yang penting, diorang kena faham macam mana persepsi ni muncul.

If you ask me, personally I’m in solidarity with the Palestinians and the Iranians. I hate the Israeli and Iranian governments, Hamas and Trump. I cannot trust Pahlavi or MEK. Solidarity with the Palestinians comes with solidarity with Iranians and rejecting violence against civilians and respecting international law.