Trump doesn’t care about public opinion
MUSLIM countries and American allies are shocked and dismayed that US President Trump has defied their advice and gone ahead to implement his campaign pledge to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US Embassy there. As Jerusalem is a Holy City to Muslims just as it is to Jews and Christians, Trump’s decision will have a destabilising effect on the already volatile region, making the Palestinian peace process an even more difficult task to achieve. By his stubborn behaviour of acting to please his electoral base, he has effectively destroyed whatever confidence the Palestinians and Arab nations had on the sincerity and reliability of the US as an honest peace broker for the two state solution of creating an independent state of Palestine existing alongside the state of Israel.
Trump’s decision will reverberate across the Muslim world and raise anxiety even in SouthEast Asia as to whether this will give the militant Islamic extremists a propaganda tool to legitimise their random jihadist attacks on innocent citizens in retaliation for what they see as US injustice to Muslims and their Holy City. The prospects are it will embolden the extremists and make our security situation much more difficult for the police to handle.
The majority public opinion in America is that the US recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli state capital at this juncture is not in the best interest of their country because it will throw a spanner into the peace process, prolong Muslim anger over the Israeli occupation and make Americans more at risk abroad.
It’s clear that President Trump does not care about American public opinion too.
Having seen how Trump behaves to honour his campaign promises, and keep himself popular with the extreme right of the political landscape, we hope that Americans will now realise that their military chiefs should not trust him with the nuclear button because he may suddenly wake up one morning in an angry mood and decide to fulfil another of his wishes – destroy Iran and North Korea and show leaders in other countries who insult him what he can do to them.
Trump is clearly a menace to world peace and only the American people can teach him to change his vengeful mentality.
I hope that with the recent outburst of public outrage over the widespread occurrence of sexual harassment of women by the men who had control over their career, making the women submit to humiliation for fear of losing their jobs, Americans will realise the need to make their president accountable for the allegations that several women have made against him for touching and grabbing them in an indecent manner.
The president and his close family members are also under suspicion from the FBI investigations into their links with Russians during the last elections.
As we understand it, when it comes to Russia, all Americans from the left to the right, will put their country first, no matter what they feel about their president.
We hope that when the investigations prove that Trump has conducted himself in a disgraceful manner in his sexual advances on women and has compromised the security of his country by his secret dealings with the Russians, all Americans will rise to demand that the US Congress take the appropriate steps to censure their president and put him out to pasture. With a new president in office, we hope that the Palestinians will then have a new chance to return to the negotiating table to work out a lasting peace with the state of Israel.
With peace in the Middle East, Malaysia too will have a stronger hand in dealing with militant Islamic extremism. TAN SRI MOHD SHERIFF MOHD KASSIM Kuala Lumpur