Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauff Hakeem, MP, has lambasted the National People’s Power (NPP) government’s stand on the US-backed Israel military campaign against the Palestinians.Attorney-at-Law Hakeem declared that the recent statement issued by the Foreign Ministry, on behalf of the NPP, on the Israeli attack aimed at Hamas political leadership, was nothing but a disgrace.

Israel carried out the attack on Hamas leadership last Tuesday (09).

The following is the text of statement issued by the SLMC leader: “At the time of Israel’s recent attack on Qatar, I was in Tehran, Iran, attending the World Islamic Solidarity Conference on Palestine, which was attended by representatives from more than 50 countries.

While returning from there, that I came across a statement issued by the Sri Lankan Ministry of Foreign Affairs following Israel’s attack on Qatar.

Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry has demonstrated once again not just how incapable it is or distinguish between an Occupier and the Occupied, or between an air attack and incident, or even worse, between a mercenary behaviour and solidarity with victims.

It has also exposed the depths of a culture of tomfoolery, recklessness and vicarious criminality in which it remains ensnared when it comes to unconscionable and abominable breaches by the Netanyahu government, of all norms of humanity and decency, principles of international law, and sovereignty of other countries.

Sadly, this is the government which has come to power on a pledge to create culture of accountable and responsible governance. It often claims so vociferously that the “Clean Sri Lanka” project it has launched since it assumed office, is aimed to place the country on a governance footing that is eithically and morally sound.

The government fails on all these criteria so miserably, when it comes to one single entity, that is Israel. The entire world watches with bleeding hearts, discourage, abhor, and condemn unequivocally the Netanyahu government’s genocidal activities, violent, aggressive, and catastrophic conduct of war, and its breach of peace in the region and in the world. The government appears to be in a tactical or strategic collusion with Netanyahu and his ruling cabal not just with regard to crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially Gaza, but now far beyond, extending to Iran last June and now, more dangerously in Qatar.

All the statements or official remarks that this government has issued, including in particular the latest one on Qatar, expose the government and the Foreign Ministry for their chronic inability to extend those ethical and moral parameters to Israel and to reject its aggressive behaviour, prolonged occupation and challenges to regional stability. Any reasonable-minded reading the Foreign Ministry’s statement yesterday would conclude that it is nothing but a Israeli hand in the Foreign Ministry or in the government that drafts such statements. An average Sri Lankan citizen would never be so insensitive, illogical, and scornful as to even attempt at drafting such a deliberately apathetic, one-sided, distorted statement as that has been released yesterday.

We need Qatar for labour migration, investment, trade, and tourism, which alongside similar contributions from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain, bring much-needed foreign exchange to the country. We need Gulf Cooperation Council to speak in Sri Lanka’s favour during the Human Rights Council session. Hon. Minister Bimal Rathnayake has just returned after a visit to Saudi Arabia where he appealed for financial support for specific projects in Sri Lanka. But it is a poignant reality that when one of those countries comes under aggression with targeted air attacks, the government of Sri Lanka has no audacity to name the aggressor, or even talk about how it shared the sentiments of the government and the people of the country whose sovereignty was so blatantly violated.

By calling serious breaches by Israel just incidents or strikes, not naming the perpetrator even as the world, and the perpetrator itself, so bolds claims it was carried by Israel, what prevents the government and the Foreign Ministry from doing so? Sri Lanka’s foreign policy apparatus is not just becoming a pack of jokers, but they are actively making Sri Lanka a STRIKINGLY “INCIDENTAL” state.”