To Israel and the West, Hamas are terrorists. But for Malaysia?

Built a decade ago with US$1.3 million in donations from Malaysian Muslims, the Muhammad al-Amin mosque in Gaza now lies in ruins, destroyed by an Israeli bombardment.

Videos circulated by the Gaza-based Muslim Care Malaysia Society aid group of the obliterated religious site have stirred up an outpouring of support in the Southeast Asian nation for a cause thousands of miles away.

"Don't worry, we will contribute more [and build] a bigger mosque," said a Malaysian user of social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

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More tellingly, backing for the militant group Hamas - which led the assault on Israel last weekend that killed hundreds of mostly civilians - is so far undiluted.

Malaysia has over the years welcomed Hamas leaders who are denounced as terrorists by Israel and the West and been accused of hosting an unofficial Hamas embassy packaged up as a cultural office, an accusation it denies.

In apparent response, a Hamas member working at a Kuala Lumpur university was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2018 and another Palestinian was kidnapped last year, allegedly by Israeli intelligence agency Mossad.

"Malaysia does not see Hamas as a terrorist organisation, rather it considers Hamas as fighting for the freedom of Palestine," said political analyst Tunku Mohar Mokhtar of the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur.

"Malaysia is sympathetic to Palestine in general, and does not really distinguish whether it is Hamas or the Palestine Liberation Organisation," he added, referring to the umbrella group that is internationally recognised as the official representative for Palestinians globally.

In a press conference on Thursday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Hamas to the Islamic State group, saying "no leader should meet them, no country should harbour them and those that do should be sanctioned."

While neighbouring Singapore backs Israel, with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong calling Hamas' attack an act of terrorism in a letter to Netanyahu, signs of solidarity with the Palestinians are abundant in Malaysia.

Palestinian flags flutter within sight of the Petronas Twin Towers in downtown Kuala Lumpur and at parliament on Thursday, Islamist party PAS cast aside its animosity towards the Chinese-majority DAP party to join a photo call in which their leaders pledged 1 million ringgit (US$212,000) to the cause through the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to Malaysia, Walid Abu Ali.

Malaysia has also long welcomed Hamas with open arms - and it is not coy about doing so, either.

At the Kuala Lumpur Summit in 2019 that brought together leaders of the Muslim world, Malaysia invited Hamas, represented by former leader Khaled Meshaal.

Meshaal was also a frequent guest of then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a supporter of the Palestinian cause notorious for his anti-Semitic tirades.

"Standing up for Palestine is a moral obligation and Malaysia will continue to condemn Israel for its aggression and cruelties on Palestinians," Mahathir said in 2019 after breaking fast with members of the Palestinian community in the country during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Hamas' current leader Ismail Haniyeh met Mahathir in Malaysia in 2020. When Anwar Ibrahim became the country's 10th prime minister in November, Haniyeh was among the first to congratulate him.

Of Malaysia's 180,000 registered refugees and asylum seekers, 580 are Palestinian, according to the UN. Malaysian government statistics meanwhile recorded 2,254 Palestinian arrivals this year, although no breakdown of their status is available.

Malaysia's staunch support for the Palestinian cause saw the country stripped of its rights to host a Paralympic championship in 2019 after it banned Israeli swimmers from competing.

And as recently as 2018, Mahathir stood by comments he had made in his 1970 book The Malay Dilemma, in which he called Jews "hook-nosed".

In the past, Malaysia had hosted a small community of Jews but their numbers have dwindled since the 1970s as the government bolstered its anti-Israel stance. Jalan Yahudi - "Jew Road" - in Penang, where much of the community had been based, has since been renamed, erasing evidence of their existence.

Support for the Palestinians cuts across Malaysia's political factions.

In 2011, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Saifuddin Nasution - long-time rivals who serve as the current deputy prime minister and home minister, respectively, in Anwar's unity government - co-founded the Palestinian Cultural Organisation Malaysia (PCOM) as a vehicle to spread awareness about the Palestinian cause among Malaysians.

PCOM has been accused of being affiliated with Hamas, despite its claims of being an apolitical cultural organisation.

Its leaders have shared a platform with Hamas leaders and they have been seen propagating the group's messages.

"Given the close relationship that PCOM has maintained with Malaysian politicians and Hamas, some voices in Kuala Lumpur have argued that [the organisation] constitutes the unofficial embassy of Hamas in Malaysia," said analyst Maren Koss in a report that was published by the National University of Singapore's Middle East Institute.

In April, Saifuddin, whose ministry is in charge of internal security and immigration, affirmed Malaysia's consensus when it comes to the Palestinian cause.

"Even though we have different opinions on politics ... when it comes to the Palestine struggle, we are united," he told reporters after a PCOM event in Kuala Lumpur.

Speaking to This Week in Asia, PCOM's former CEO Muslim Imran said Malaysia should do more to advance the Palestinian cause beyond issuing statements of support.

"The situation in Gaza this time is very tense and Palestinians expect a stronger tone and more tangible effort in support of their struggle," Muslim said, urging Anwar to pressure the international community to end Israeli attacks as well as to launch a massive fundraising campaign.

Hundreds of civilians have died in Gaza, as Israeli jets and artillery have launched brutal reprisals ostensibly aimed at Hamas militants in the narrow enclave in which 2.3 million people, half of them children, are trapped - as the drum beat for a ground offensive grows ever louder.

Malaysia's media response to the carnage in Israel and Gaza has been heavily pro-Palestinian, focusing on the hardships of the Palestinian people in the face of Israel's response to the Hamas attack.

Malaysia's pro-Palestinian stance could exacerbate tensions with Israel, which were already high following a spate of incidents in recent years.

In 2018, Palestinian engineer and Hamas member Fadi al-Batsh was gunned down outside his Kuala Lumpur home, allegedly by Mossad agents who managed to escape Malaysian authorities and evaded justice to this day.

Israel's then-Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman, while denying any Israeli links with the killing, described al-Batsh as "no saint" and claimed that he was engaged in producing rockets.

Several Malaysians were also arrested last year over the botched kidnapping of two Palestinian men in Kuala Lumpur, which was reportedly commissioned by Mossad. Officers apprehended the suspects at a remote chalet on the outskirts of the city where the men were being tortured.

Nazari Ismail, a Malaysian advocate for the Palestinian cause and director of a movement calling for a boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, speculated that more incidents may follow owing to the large number of Palestinians in Malaysia - and Mossad having an operational foothold in the country.

"We can assume that Mossad will continue to hire Malaysian citizens to commit murders, abductions, torture and other heinous crimes here to weaken the Palestinian resistance," Nazari said.

Since Israel declared its independence in 1948, its security services have faced accusations of carrying out a number of extraterritorial - and extrajudicial - killings.

Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2006, has also faced accusations from the likes of Amnesty International of carrying out extrajudicial killings within the territory it controls.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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