He said the post was “insensitive”, “inappropriate” and “completely unacceptable” because it risked undermining security and harmony in Singapore.
“I was very upset when they told me about it,” he told reporters on Monday. “And the Ministry of Interior spoke to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday and said that the embassy must close down this facility immediately, and so it was removed.”
On Sunday, a now-deleted Facebook post from the Israeli embassy in Singapore stated: “Israel is mentioned 43 times in the Quran. On the other hand, Palestine was never mentioned.”
“This post is an astonishing attempt to rewrite history,” Shanmugam said. “The author of the post should look at UN resolutions and check whether Israel’s actions over the past few decades have been consistent with international law before trying to rewrite history.”
‘Serious crime’: Singapore jails man for threatening PM Lee on Facebook
‘Serious crime’: Singapore jails man for threatening PM Lee on Facebook
Calling the fast “fallacious on many levels”, Shanmugam said it had the potential to inflame tensions because the anger generated by the fast could spill over into the physical realm and endanger the Jewish community in Singapore.
While he said his ministry doesn’t often intervene in online posts by embassies out of respect for his or her sovereignty, he told the Israeli embassy to remove the post after discussions with the foreign ministry resulting from the “potential consequences” for the community in Singapore.
He added that the post was “selective [pointed] to religious texts” to present a political perspective, and “even worse” that the post used the Quran for this purpose.
“Embassies often make and publish statements that we may not agree with, but generally we do not intervene because they represent sovereign countries, they have autonomy, but where it affects the safety and security of the people of Singapore, the peace and harmony that we enjoy , that’s what we do and we will intervene,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan made an identical comment concerning the Israeli embassy’s position, stating: “It is very inappropriate to check with sacred texts to lift political issues. We explained this to the embassy and so they deleted the e-mail.”
He spoke on his way back from a visit to the Middle East, where he visited Israel and the Palestinian territories. He was accompanied by a delegation that included five members of parliament: Alex Yam, Nadia Ahmad Samdin, Rachel Ong, Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim and Gerald Giam of the Workers’ Party.
