Opinion: Gaza Solidarity or Just Plain Stupidity?
4 Oct 2025 • 12:30 PM MYT
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Fa Abdul
FA ABDUL is a former columnist of Malaysiakini & Free Malaysia Today (FMT)
Image credit: Astro Awani
Recently, a group of Malaysians under the banner of Sumud Nusantara decided it was a good idea to hop on a flotilla headed straight for Gaza - one of the most militarised blockades in the world, guarded by Israel, a state that has shown time and again it has no patience for “symbolic missions.”
Now let’s be clear: these are not trained commandos or hardened journalists. These are ordinary Malaysians - activists, artists, NGO reps, even celebrities - people with huge hearts, but hardly the kind of folks you send to stare down a navy. And yet, off they went, recording pre-prepared “in case we get detained” videos as though this was a TikTok challenge instead of a war zone.
And now? They get caught, they get detained, and suddenly Putrajaya has to scramble for diplomatic solutions. As if our government doesn’t already have a full plate, now we’re expected to negotiate with Israel because some Malaysians thought it would be cute to play frontline hero.
Here’s the part that really gets me: What did they actually hope to achieve in Gaza? Aid delivery? Please. No ragtag flotilla is about to out-logistics the UN or Red Cross, both of which are already struggling. Raising awareness? Sorry, but Gaza doesn’t need more “awareness.” It’s livestreamed to our phones 24/7 - the whole world is already watching.
Then along comes the MADANI Government spokesperson, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil, saying this was a “peaceful initiative” to deliver a message of solidarity. Really? Like, seriously?
If the plan was just to send a message, I’ve got bad news: we invented email, social media, and global campaigns for exactly that. Solidarity today doesn’t require a boat and a detention cell - it requires strategy, diplomacy, and actual aid routes. What did we think a shaky hostage-style video was going to achieve? “Hi Gaza, we came, we filmed, we got detained - love from Malaysia”?
But wait, it gets better. Fahmi also mentioned that the aim wasn’t just “solidarity” - it was to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Really? Break a blockade guarded by a navy, in the middle of a war zone, with a flotilla of volunteers and influencers? That’s not strategy - that’s a hashtag with suicidal logistics. The Mavi Marmara incident back in 2010 already proved exactly how these things end: naval commandos storm your ship, people get hurt, and governments spend months cleaning up the mess.
So, if your plan for opening a humanitarian corridor is “bring a boat and hope the navy’s in a mood to be sympathetic,” maybe it’s time for a new career in fantasy filmmaking - because please lah, we all knew it ain't gonna happen. These stunts don’t “deliver messages,” they just deliver more paperwork to Putrajaya and another headline our diplomats now have to fix.
Did we really need Malaysians turning themselves into accidental war-tourism vloggers to prove a point? The answer is a big fat NO. This isn’t Eat, Pray, Love - it’s Record, Upload, Get Detained.
At best, this was a stunt. At worst, it’s reckless self-promotion wrapped in the language of humanitarianism. Yes, the cause is noble. Yes, standing with Palestinians matters. But solidarity doesn’t mean shipping untrained civilians into danger so they can later beg the government to save them.
If we truly want to help, there are smarter ways: lobbying international bodies, rebuilding efforts when the guns fall silent. Symbolism is powerful, but not when it costs us resources, credibility, and time that could’ve been spent on actual impact.
Let’s call it what it is: sending a bunch of Malaysians into a war zone, knowing they’d be detained, was not heroic. It was stupid.
Everbody has an opinion, even an unknown mf has one...what more the shadow in the cave...lagi bigger opinion.
ReplyDeletePlease audit the RM100 million
ReplyDeleteIt was plain stupidity to wage war for 2 years and kill 70,000 of your own people.
ReplyDeleteOooop… dont forget to yell that to yr Ukrainian comedian president.
DeleteIsaac is so kind to return all stoopid Bolehlanders without charge, we must return any Isaac prisoners now in jail.
ReplyDeleteWakakakaka… should have been returning u to the zionist state.
DeleteThe WORST colonizers/occupiers EVER in history. Read all about it, from a Palestinian:
ReplyDeleteI’m tired of the lies we tell ourselves. Our leaders cry every day about “the occupation” as if history began in 1948, as if Israel is some unique monster in human history. But let me remind you of something that no one dares to speak out loud: we Arabs are the children of the biggest and longest occupation the Middle East and Africa have ever seen.
In the 7th and 8th centuries, Arab tribes burst out of the Arabian Peninsula. Within just a few decades, they crushed the Byzantine Empire in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. They destroyed the Persian Empire. They swept across North Africa, reaching all the way to Morocco, Spain, and even southern France. At its height, the Arab Caliphate ruled 13 million square kilometers - larger than Rome ever dreamed of. Millions of Persians, Berbers, Copts, Arameans, Jews, Greeks, and others suddenly found themselves under Arab rule. Their languages and faiths were pushed aside. Coptic faded in Egypt. Aramaic nearly died out. Even Persian was nearly erased until poets like Ferdowsi fought to keep it alive. Arabic became the dominant tongue, Islam the dominant faith. That was not liberation - it was occupation on a scale that reshaped entire continents.
The Mongols came and went in about a century.
The Romans ruled for centuries, but Latin disappeared from the Middle East.
The British Empire held sway for 200 years, then collapsed.
The Arab-Muslim conquests? It changed the identity of entire nations forever.
Think about it: Egypt was Christian and Coptic-speaking for 600 years before the Arabs came. Today it is Arab and Muslim. North Africa was Berber and Roman. Today it is Arab and Muslim. The Levant spoke Greek and Aramaic. Today it speaks Arabic. Even Spain lived under Arab rule for 700 years. That is not just an “occupation” - that is a civilizational overhaul.
And yet, in 2025, our leaders - who are themselves the product of this massive Arab occupation, weep about Israel, a sliver of land the size of New Jersey, calling it “the worst occupation.” Really? Compared to what the Arabs did to North Africa, Persia, and the Levant? Compared to the centuries-long Arab rule that erased identities, forced conversions, and remade entire regions?
If we, Palestinians, want honesty, we must stop pretending that Israel invented occupation. The truth is bitter: we live in the shadow of the largest and longest Arab occupation in history. Blaming only Israel while worshiping our corrupt leaders who exploit this narrative is not justice, it’s cowardice.
History matters. And if we don’t face it, we will remain slaves not to Israel, but to our own hypocrisy.