I refer to the letter Our foreign policy religiously-biased . I wish to appreciate the writer Low Leng Hua's concerns in the perceived religiously-biased Malaysian foreign policy. It is imperative for us to study the underlying contexts of those allegedly biased foreign policies before any common ground of 'religious-bias' measurement can be construed.

Any country's foreign policy naturally adheres to the very universal principles endeared by the majority of the country's constituents. The US, for example, has a large number of evangelical followers from the Christian faith that blindly supports Israeli's illegal occupation of Palestine under the pretext of the second coming of Jesus and Armageddon.

A third of all charities in the US are for exclusively religious purposes, and it is not surprising to say that the US has the largest religious-based charity per capita in this world with most of the charity dollars going to entities that support the systemic destruction of both the Palestinian people and the third most holy mosque in Islam.

In almost all American towns and cities, the evangelist channel, which is accessible from any household that owns coaxial cable connection, calls for hatred-based judgments towards Islam (such as calling our beloved Prophet a terrorist, and then labeling peace-loving Muslims as disgustful gung-ho mobsters) and a distortion of facts to justify the biblical right of return of the Jews to establish their Solomon temple (Haykal, which can't be erected without first destroying the Al-Aqsa mosque, God forbid).

Then there is the charity drive to help pro-Zionist Jews from communist and Third World countries to take over Palestinian land in Israel.

I would like to invite Low to take a different perspective and look at a much bigger picture. Sure, Angelina Jolie's pose with an African child as an 'embodiment of the new celebrity charity wave' may move you to tears, but it is not too hard for us to realise that the Hollywood community is one of the stingiest people who ever lived.

Ditto, the US gave assistance to Africa and other disaster-struck areas (like Aceh), but the monetary figures directed to such constructive aid are eclipsed by the huge amount of funds directed to the small occupying population of the land of Zion which is focused on the destruction of both the Palestinian people and the sacred site revered by billions of Muslims.

Not to mention other oppressing and unfair trade policies that are biased towards American farmers and warhead manufacturers at the expense of poor people in famine-ridden Third World countries.

There are a few that still hold on to the alleged 'over-rated-ness' of current anti-Zion sentiments in Malaysia and their purported insignificance since nearly one million deaths of Hutus and Tutsis or genocides in other parts of the worlds go by with no international or local uproars.

But it is important to note the difference of the impacts of these conflicts that translates into our day-in and day-out consciousness. Conflicts in Georgia and Haiti are no less terrible, but the impact of the Middle East crisis has on our external environment is too great to be ignored.

The spillover effect of Al-Aqsa Mosqus occupation by Zionists has resulted in various wars and hundreds of thousands of deaths. It also puts all faithful believers of Islam to utter shame due to the absence of any united resistance to counter the arrogance and disrespect of the Zionists and their supporters.

Unfortunately, this international-scale religious bias has never resulted in America being labeled as a Christian state or Israel as a Judaistic state (since Christianity and Judaism never condone any act of oppression), reminding us of the bias of the label of 'Islamic state' by the Western media whenever any incident of religious bias occurs.

As for the NEP, although it can be proven to be as unfair to the non-Malays (which are mostly non-Muslims) it is unfair for Low to assume all Muslims are privileged at the expense of the non-Muslims. Discrimination happens both ways, and it is essential for us to repel dominant and socially-constructed prejudices in order to dissect the problem into a meaningful solutions for all of us.

On the tsunami emergency aid bias, Aceh deserves higher attention not because of religious selectiveness, but because they are geographically nearer (and thus the burden of providing more effective aid falls on its neighbouring countries) and the number of deaths and casualties are terribly higher than other affected areas.

And contrary to Low's earlier assumptions of our country's selectiveness in providing tsunami aid, Malaysian emergency teams (including Muslims) indeed have provided emergency support to non-Muslim tsunami victims in the hard hit Buddhist areas.