BY Umyra Ahmad
If you do a quick Google search, you would find a Malaysia that espouses unwavering solidarity with Palestine. Since October 7, Malaysia has persistently called for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide by Israel at the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council. It was one of the first few countries to support South Africa’s case at the ICJ and subsequently formed the Hague group with Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa. Malaysia also participated in the ICJ’s public hearing. Hundreds of Malaysians have taken to the streets, calling for the end of the genocide. But scratch the surface, and the veneer quickly shatters: Malaysia and Malaysians are only willing to extend solidarity with conditions.
Around a year ago, 127 Palestinians were flown in by the Royal Malaysian Air Force for medical treatment. In what looked like a military photo op, state media focused on the defence minister’s press statement at the airport, proudly declaring the action a “pure act of solidarity” by Malaysia. Several months later, a video circulated on social media showing some of the Palestinians —frustrated and yelling at local authorities—being kept in what was essentially a “holding facility.”
Forget that the number of Palestinians supported was so small, or that they were fleeing genocide by a thread, only to be held in what could be described as a detention center. Public response quickly abandoned support or any trace of humanity, focusing instead on the supposed “ingratitude” of Palestinians towards Malaysia as a “benevolent host.” The outrage grew so strong that the Palestinian ambassador to Malaysia was forced to release a statement urging the Palestinians seeking treatment to be thankful —or risk being sent back.
This quick flip from solidarity to hostility is part of a broader continuum of violence rooted in Malaysia’s racist and nationalist policies. Amplified by state propaganda against asylum seekers, refugees, and migrant workers in precarious sectors, these attacks have only intensified in the past 10 years. Because Malaysia refuses to sign the 1951 Refugee Convention, it denies refugees access to healthcare, education or the right to work. This is the same reason the Palestinians who arrived in Malaysia in August 2024 were placed in a holding facility and not allowed to leave. They did not have the ‘right’ documents.
As proposals emerged for legal reform so Palestinians could seek safety in Malaysia with dignity and autonomy, ethno-nationalist sentiments of “Malaysia for Malaysians” (specifically Malays) surfaced quickly, with the same xenophobic arguments used against the Rohingya community, who have been systematically targeted by the state and public in the past decade. In addition to being blamed for taking up all of the country’s “limited resources” by claiming asylum in Malaysia, the conversation moved quickly to that of a “demographic takeover.”
The Rohingya are indigenous people to Arakan (now Rakhine State, Myanmar) who have been systematically denied citizenship in Myanmar since 1982, leading them to endure decades of statelessness, forced displacement, violence, and severe discrimination. Starting in 2016, with an escalation in 2017, Myanmar’s junta launched a violent ethnic cleansing in Rakhine the State, with over 800,000 Rohingya forced to flee their homes to escape mass killings, sexual violence, and destruction of entire villages. Today, more than 1.3 million Rohingya remain trapped in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps in Bangladesh and they continue to face targeted violence and surveillance by the Junta, and across Southeast Asia.
In Malaysia, Rohingya asylum seekers fleeing genocide are often detained on arrival, subjected to corporal punishment and imprisonment. During the COVID‑19 pandemic, over 700 refugees—including the Rohingya—were detained under lockdown enforcement measures. As a result, a National Task Force, consisting of the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF), Royal Malaysian Police (RMP), and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), was established to “strengthen border security against COVID”. In early 2025, Malaysia increased its MMEA patrols to intercept boats carrying Rohingya asylum seekers, detaining nearly 200 people off the island of Langkawi. As Malaysia ramps up its securitisation efforts against refugees and migrants, any headline concerning the Rohingya community is often accompanied by xenophobic media campaigns pushed by the state, followed by violent vitriol from the public online.
Earlier this year, Malaysia proudly announced its role as the chair of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for 2025, positioning itself as the broker of ‘peace’ in response to war crimes by Myanmar’s junta. A month ahead of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in April, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim met with Min Aung Hlaing, the junta’s military head and architect of the genocide against the Rohingya people. Since the 2021 coup, no ASEAN Chair has met the junta leader as a move to deny the regime’s legitimacy, a precedent Anwar has now broken.
The world continues to turn its back on Gaza, and Malaysia is no exception. Linking the Palestinian struggle with the Rohingya struggle reveals that Malaysian solidarity with Palestine is still fundamentally shallow and performative. I have attended rallies in Kuala Lumpur where organisers prevented Palestinian refugees from speaking. As the government and police routinely arrest and harass pro-Palestinian protesters, it is clear that any solidarity expressed for Palestine must fall within the state’s party line and interest.
At the same time, mobilisation led by young activists in Malaysia—such as GEGAR (Gerakan Gabungan Anti-Imperialis)—has been crucial in pressuring the government through direct actions, campaigns, and a politics that insists we not lose sight of the links between ongoing genocides, colonisation, militarisation, and environmental destruction in Southeast Asia: from Borneo to Myanmar to Palestine. For example, GEGAR and its allies have recently protested in front of PNB, Malaysia’s government-owned investment company, which is the largest shareholder in a palm oil plantation and manufacturer that distributes Caterpillar machinery across the Asia-Pacific region. Not only is Caterpillar complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, it is a major contributor to deforestation in Southeast Asia, servicing corrupt timber-logging companies such as Samling, which has destroyed the Indigenous lands of Penan peoples and other Indigenous communities in Sarawak and Borneo. Over the past decade, the Penan people of Sarawak have been severely impoverished as their traditional lands have been cleared for commercial logging and plantations, making their environment unlivable.
These movements show us that solidarity is not only about what is said on international stages, but what is practiced on the ground. The struggles of Palestinians and Rohingya — and of all communities resisting dispossession — show us that solidarity cannot be conditional or performative. It must be rooted in a feminist resistance that refuses borders, racism, militarism, and that recognizes how our struggles are intertwined. True solidarity demands more than words in international forums; it calls for building connections that center care, dignity, and justice across communities. Feminist resistance reminds us that survival is collective, and that liberation, anywhere, depends on refusing to abandon those most marginalized.