I should preface this letter by noting that I am far from being an Israel aficionado, a Zionist or whatever else you may wish to call me. I have no religious persuasion, yet have spent time in the Middle East, studied Arabic and Islam and had the pleasure of visiting the West Bank where I still have friends.

I was in Ramallah during the funeral of Yasser Arafat. Whilst I was in Israel, at the height of the intifada , I was stripped to my boxer shorts and had guns put to my head by the Israeli Defence Forces.

Malaysian responses to the current Israeli pummeling of the Gaza Strip have been interesting. Malaysians tend to view the crisis as a clear-cut attack on the ummah as a whole, a ‘clash of civilisations’ as some might call it.

Given the timely death this week of Samuel P Huntington the eminent scholar (he was 91) famous for coining the notion of there being a post-Cold War stand off between the West and the Islamic world, it is important to recognise that the wider Muslim world must intervene to stop Hamas' feckless government from bringing more misery upon their own people who have already suffered enough.

This conflict is not quite as black and white as the Malaysian (and Indonesian, for that matter) press have made it to be. Like many, I find the Israeli action in Gaza totally abhorrent. Nevertheless, some may argue that the actions of Israel (as disproportionate as it is - akin to the brief war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006) were merited as a strong response from a sovereign state responding to terrorist attacks on their territory by a neighbouring territory.

However, at the crux of this intractable conflict is not Israel. It is Hamas. When we repeatedly see Hamas firing rockets into Israel and in the process shunning the Egyptian-brokered cease fire, one has to question the motives of Hamas, who are, of course, the democratically-elected Palestinian Authority. With democracy comes responsibility.

Hamas' whole cause de guerre is far too radical and has arguably won them few friends in a region where they need as much help as they can get. The Palestinian people deserve a homeland, rightly so as many Malaysian friends have told me over the last week or so. I couldn't agree more. Hamas (in Arabic 'Islamist Resistance Movement'), who project themselves as this, are not the party to make that peace happen.

Let's just remind ourselves - Hamas' didn't even have an election manifesto when they swept to power in 2005 and four years on it appears as though they do not have a plan to get themselves (and their people) out of this terrible mess. Under their watch, we have seen infighting with Fatah, rampant corruption, not to mention the odd hijacking of a BBC journalist or scores of Katyusha rockets being fired towards Israel.

This offers us the same salient message- Hamas do not want peace. A few years ago whilst in the West Bank myself, I witnessed young Palestinian men no older than myself (I am 23) firing machine-gun rounds in the air around the Muqatta, formerly Yasser Arafat's compound in downtown Ramallah. I asked the men, surely this wasn't the message they wanted the world to see? Kalashnikov fire aimed skywards that would only rain back down?

That would never happen here in Malaysia, because the people know it's not the right thing to do. Successful moderate Muslim states like Malaysia can be doing a lot more to help the plight of the people they seem to care about so much.

Perhaps when the dust has settled in a few days time, the wider Muslim world can start to stand up for the Palestinian people. Who has told Hamas that rupturing a cease-fire is not how to play ball with a neighbor with a penchant for excessive retaliation? It appears as though that while the quartet led by former British prime minister Tony Blair is unable to reach Hamas, maybe other Muslim states - like Malaysia - will be able to do so.

The recent unofficial 'boycott' of US products like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s (who both, incidentally, employ a vast Muslim Malay workforce) does not send a good message to those suffering in Gaza. These boycotts largely damage the local economy, putting predominantly Malay Muslims at risk. Coca-Cola Malaysia employs 1,700 Malaysians - 60 percent of whom are Malay.

What would be far more pro-active would be for moderate Muslim states like Malaysia, who have a good standing in the Arab world, to engage more directly with Hamas and other Arab governments in the region. But of course, for that to happen, they'd have to, at least, open a diplomatic representation there and recognise Israel as a sovereign state.