The Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) released a statement on July 11 protesting the invitation extended by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to United States President Donald Trump to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-US summit to be held in Malaysia, in October.
The PSM said: “Such a gesture is a blatant betrayal of all the efforts of solidarity with Palestine against US-backed genocide in Gaza by the murderous Israeli Zionist regime.”
The invitation was made by Anwar to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his recent visit to the country.
PSM said it was shameful for the Malaysian government to host Rubio and other top US officials, given the US has recently imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, “over her documentation of Israel’s genocidal crime against Palestinians in Gaza and her call for action to end Israel’s human rights violations”.
“The murderous Israeli Zionist regime is able to continue its crime against humanity with impunity because of the strong backing from the US government all this while. The Trump administration has shown its unwavering support for Israel’s expansionism and recently joined Israel’s war against Iran,” the statement said.
“A top government leader who enabled and supported genocide, like Donald Trump, should be treated as persona non grata rather than invited as a guest for a money-wasting diplomatic show.”
The PSM said it is “sheer hypocrisy” for the Malaysian government “to express solidarity with the Palestinian people while posing friendly gestures to the accomplice of the genocidal crime against the Palestinian people”.
The PSM is urging the government “to retract the invitation to Donald Trump” and is calling on the government — which chairs the ASEAN this year — to cancel the summit “as a symbolic protest against the US complicity in the genocide against Palestinian people”, and said there can be “no business as usual with the US administration until the world has put an end to the genocide”.