Malaysian Urges Muslims to Unite Vs. Jews

By ROHAN SULLIVAN, Associated Press Writer, October 16, 2003

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Thursday told a summit of Islamic leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy" and the world's 1.3 billion Muslims should unite, using nonviolent means for a "final victory."

His speech at the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit, [PAC Comment: and the subsequent confirmation, just in case you didn't understand that he really meant what he said] which he was hosting, drew criticism from Jewish leaders, who warned it could spark more violence against Jews.

Mahathir — known for his outspoken, anti-Western rhetoric — criticized what he described as Jewish domination of the world and Muslim nations' inability to adequately respond to it.

"The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy," Mahathir said, opening the meeting of Islamic leaders from 57 nations. "They get others to fight and die for them."

Malaysia, a democratic nation that has a large non-Muslim population and does not enforce strict Islamic law, has long been a critic of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories and of U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the war in Iraq  and Washington's strong backing of the Jewish state.

Mahathir, 77, who is retiring Oct. 31, has used almost every international podium to lambaste the West for two decades, winning a reputation as an outspoken champion of Third World causes.

"For well over half a century, we have fought over Palestine. What have we achieved? Nothing. We are worse off than before," he said. "If we had paused to think, then we could have devised a plan, a strategy that can win us final victory."

The prime minister, who has turned his country into the world's 17th-ranked trading nation during his 22 years in power, said Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy" to avoid persecution and gain control of the most powerful countries.

Mahathir added that "1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews," but he suggested using political and economic tactics instead of violence.

He told the audience of sheiks, emirs, kings and presidents that Muslims had the richest civilization in the world during Europe's Dark Ages, but disputes over dogma — instead of embracing technology and science — had left them weak and divided.

"Because we are discouraged from learning of science and mathematics as giving us no merit for the afterlife, today we have no capacity to produce our own weapons for our defense. We have to buy our weapons from our detractors and enemies," he said.

The leaders gave Mahathir a standing ovation afterward.

"I think it was a shrewd and very deep assessment of the situation," said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, without commenting on the remarks about the Jews. "I think he elaborated a program of action that is wide and very important. I hope the Islamic countries will be able to follow this very important road map."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled expressed disappointment in the remarks but said he wasn't surprised.

"It is not new that in such forums there is always an attempt to reach the lowest common denominator, which is Israel bashing," he said in Jerusalem. "But obviously we'd like to see more moderate and responsible kind of declarations coming out of such summits."

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, said Mahathir has used anti-Israel statements in the past to prove he's tough on the West. But, he said, Thursday's speech was still worrisome.

"What is profoundly shocking and worrying is the venue of the speech, the audience and coming in the time we're living in," Cooper said during a visit to Jerusalem. "Mahathir's speech today is an absolute invitation for more hate crimes and terrorism against Jews. That's serious."

U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia Marie Huhtala declined to comment on Mahathir's speech. [PAC Comment: But, later,  State Department spokesman Adam Ereli called Mahathir's remarks offensive and inflammatory.  This, coinciding with President Bush's Asian trip, the President also condemned the remarks in person.  Condoleezza Rice described Mahathir's comments as "hateful, they are outrageous." But "I don't think they are emblematic of the Muslim world."  If only she were right about that. ]. Washington was angered over a speech he made in February, as host of the Non-Aligned Movement of 117 countries, in which he described the looming war against Iraq as racist.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai, while not addressing Mahathir's comments on the Jews, said he supported his analysis, which also included steps for how Muslim nations can develop economically and socially.

"It is great to hear Prime Minister Mahathir speak so eloquently on the problems of the ummah (Muslim world) and ways to remedy them," Karzai said. "His speech was an eye-opener to a lot of us and that is what the Islamic world should do."

The summit is the first since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks reshaped global politics and comes at a time when many Muslims — even U.S. allies — feel the war on terrorism has become a war against them.

"It is well known that the Islamic community is being targeted today more than at any other time before in its creed, culture and social and political orientation," said Qatar's ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, who hosted the U.S. headquarters in the Iraq war.

The status of Iraq also proved a divisive issue. Malaysia resisted inviting the U.S.-picked Iraqi Governing Council, describing it as a puppet of American occupation. But Arab countries that have recognized the interim body prevailed and council representatives were attending the summit.

U.N. Secretary-general Kofi Annan, in a statement from U.N. headquarters, urged the leaders to reject suicide bombings against Israel and help transform Iraq into a peaceful democracy.

Annan described the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory as harsh, with "disproportionate military force, destruction of houses and crops, unjust expropriation and closures, illegal settlements, and a fence being built on land that does not belong to the builders."

But he said suicide bombings damaged even the most legitimate cause and "must be condemned, and must be stopped."

Leaders attending the summit included Jordan's King Abullah, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Morocco's King Mohammed VI, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo are attending as special observers because of their large Muslim minorities

Click here to return to our home page.

Islamic Anti-Semitism

New York Times Editorial, October 18, 2003

It is hard to know what is more alarming — a toxic statement of hatred of Jews by the Malaysian prime minister at an Islamic summit meeting this week or the unanimous applause it engendered from the kings, presidents and emirs in the audience. The words uttered by the prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, in a speech to the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference on Thursday were sadly familiar: Jews, he asserted, may be few in number, but they seek to run the world.

"The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy," he said. "They get others to fight and die for them." Muslims are "up against a people who think," he said, adding that the Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others."

When Israeli officials noted that such talk brought Hitler to mind, the assembled leaders were mystified. Yemen's foreign minister said he agreed entirely with his Malaysian colleague, adding, "Israelis and Jews control most of the economy and the media in the world." The Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Maher, called the speech "a very, very wise assessment." Even the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, said the speech was "very correct."

Perhaps the saddest element is just how impotent the representatives of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims feel. When Syed Hamid Albar, Malaysia's foreign minister, sought to contain the controversy, he explained that because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Muslims feel "sidelined or marginalized," so please understand why they complain about the power of a tiny competing group like the Jews.

Sympathy for the Muslims' plight must not be confused with the acceptance of racism. Most Muslims have indeed been shoddily treated — by their own leaders, who gather at feckless summit meetings instead of offering their people what they most need: human rights, education and democracy.

The European Union was asked to include a condemnation of Mr. Mahathir's speech in its statement yesterday ending its own summit. It chose not to, adding a worry that displays of anti-Semitism are being met with inexcusable nonchalance.  [PAC Comment:  It's not only "European nonchalance" that's the problem.  On the other side of the Times' editorial page, Paul Krugman's blinding hatred of President Bush -- just possibly combined with having been bought-off by Mahathir -- has led him into being an apologist  for anti Semitism.]

Click here to return to our home page.

Thanks to Wahabist/Saudi Arabian indoctrination, anti-Semitism has been inculcated in Indonesia, a country without Jews

THE LONGEST STRUGGLE
By RALPH PETERS, New York Post, October, 19, 2003

BETTER-ARMED and better-trained, a Western army "liberates" Arab territory. Divided among themselves, some Arabs cut deals with the invader, while hardliners resist the occupation. Assassins from a terrorist organization haunt - and hunt - local leaders.

Sunnis and Shi'as compete for advantage. Long-suffering minorities wonder whether to welcome their liberators or distrust them. Divided between new powers and old, the Westerners squabble over issues of international law, political authority and trading privileges. Favored parties win economic concessions from the victors.

Having failed to block the advance of the invading army, the Turks meddle in Arab affairs. And a portion of the soldiers in the conquering army feel they've done what they came to do and want to come home.

Iraq, 2003?

No. The Middle East at the close of the 11th century, in the wake of the First Crusade.

The point is not to play clever games with history, but to stress that the dilemmas of our own day are not exceptional or new. On the contrary, our worthy destruction of Saddam's regime can be seen as part of history's longest war: the battle for hegemony between Middle Eastern and Western civilization.

We don't have to like the idea of such an endless conflict before admitting its existence. Well-meant denials help no one, while hindering understanding. The historical record shows that the conflict between Islam and the (Judeo-) Christian West began in the middle of the seventh century, as Muslim armies burst from the Arabian peninsula, energized by a new vision, destroying or subjugating the Christian and Jewish populations of the eastern Mediterranean.

The war never really stopped.

When Arabs complain of their victimization by the West, inevitably citing the interlude of the Crusades, they neglect to mention that, within a century of the birth of Islam, Muslim armies had swept across North Africa, through Spain, and deep into France. In the process, Christian communities that had shaped the faith were devoured.

To the north, the Arabs relentlessly pushed back the Orthodox Christian empire of the Byzantines. Turkic tribes thrust westward, across the Russian steppes and through the Balkans, establishing Islam's frontiers in today's Hungary and Romania.

The combat hardly paused. And the tide slowly turned. Long weakened by the West's internal rivalries, Byzantium fell in the middle of the 15th century. But by the end of that century, the Moors had been expelled from Spain. After a thousand years of defeats, the West's march to dominance began.

Even so, a Turkish army besieged Vienna as late as 1683 - until defeated by the valor of a Polish king. Russia fought fanatical Islamic warriors throughout the 19th century - as Russia does again today. And the Balkan wars that finally expelled the Turks in the early 20th century were vastly more horrific than those of our own time.

The struggle did not stop. It only moved. With the age of European imperialism, the conquests shifted in the other direction. The Islamic world of the greater Middle East, proud of its tradition of conquest, found its methods and values could not compete with modern, mechanized, liberal societies. The Mahdi's horsemen fell to Maxim guns.

The new debate in the Muslim world, begun 200 years ago and still underway, is between those who seek to emulate the processes of the West and those who advocate a return to religious rigor. Tragically, the fanatics appear to be winning the tactical debate, which leads, inevitably, to strategic defeat and further humiliation.

Now we face something unique in history: the collapse, before our eyes, of the competitiveness and competence of a vast civilization, that of Middle Eastern Islam. None of its cherished values - the subjugation of women, religious intolerance, economic organization based on blood ties - works anymore. The people of the Middle East simply can't compete on their own terms. And the Arab world appears close to hitting bottom.

A decade ago, that rarest of creatures, a courageous academic - Samuel P. Huntington - advanced his theory of a "clash of civilizations." His honesty met outrage from those for whom emotion and prejudice trump facts. Yet all that Huntington really did was to note that the emperor of political correctness wore no clothes.

Still, even Huntington fell short by suggesting that this clash of civilizations was something new. Clashing is what civilizations do. Especially monotheist civilizations, with their one-God, one-path-to-the-truth, our-way-is-best convictions.

We should not be surprised at the current clash of civilizations. It would be far more surprising if it were not occurring. Such conflict is the rule, not the exception.

Of course, we would be fools to celebrate this clash, despite our own triumphs. It would be better for all if the Middle East could regain its moral and economic health. Cooperation is better than warfare. Peace should be our ultimate goal.

But not peace at any price. And cooperation doesn't work unilaterally.

Our soldiers in Iraq aren't engaged in a religious crusade. But ours is, undeniably, a cultural crusade, based upon our belief that the values of our civilization, from human rights to popular sovereignty, are superior to archaic forms of oppression. It's an old, old struggle, fought on post-modern terms.

Today's Middle East has become a citadel of tyranny. And tyranny must be fought without compromise. If that's a crusade, there's no reason to deny it.

Ralph Peters' new book is "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."

Click here to return to our home page.

A harsh new reality for the Middle East

By Wesley Pruden, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, October 17, 2003

    George W. Bush is getting a lesson this weekend in the meaning of peace, as in, "Islam is the religion of peace." Most Muslims are as mild as Mennonites and as peaceful as Methodists. But a lot of them aren't.

    The president leaves today on an Asian trip with a stop in Manila, where, according to the New York Times, the Secret Service will not "permit" him to stay overnight in the Philippines, which is wracked with a Muslim insurgency in the far south. This trip, says one White House aide, is "the trip from al Qaeda hell."

    Indeed, it's the president's dear Saudi friends who finance al Qaeda hell through the venomous Wahhabi version of Islam, and they're determined to spread their poison throughout the world. But it may be finally soaking into the brains of the devoutly slow-witted, the stubbornly obtuse and the terminally naive exactly what the stakes in the war, so-called, against terrorism really are.

    The Wahhabi fanaticism runs deep, particularly in Asia. In an interview with an Indonesian newspaper, President Bush described the gallant terrorists who delight in killing the innocent, particularly the women and children who can't fight back, as "hate-filled people." Who would argue with such a mild description? A high-ranking Wahhabi divine in Jakarta rebuked the president and demanded a retraction and an apology, as if killing innocents is an obligation of faith, like deep-water baptism, Holy Communion or circumcision, and is therefore above even respectful discussion.

    So pervasive has Wahhabi Islam become that most of the millions of tolerant Muslims are terrified of telling the fanatics to knock it off and shut up, as Jews and Christians regularly tell the occasional crackpots and bigots of their own (none of whom, however, has flown an airliner into an office building). There is no parallel to Wahhabi Islam in the religions or political movements in the West, nor could Wahhabism thrive in the Islamic world but for the patronage of the Saudi royals so beloved in certain American precincts.

    Mahathir Mohamad, the prime minister of Malaysia, which borders on Indonesia, chipped in with a bit of hateful rhetoric yesterday. "Jews rule the world by proxy," he said, and "get others" — this is code for "Americans" — "to fight and die for them." The mumbled rumbling from Southeast Asia followed the car-bombing in the Gaza Strip that killed three Americans, [PAC Comment: See Leftist Anti-Semitism Kills Americans In Gaza]  the first time that Palestinian goonsters have targeted Americans. Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which usually compete to take "credit" for killing Jewish children, didn't want "credit" this time. The explosion directly engages the United States for the first time. Paraphrasing the (insincere) French promise on September 11, "all Americans are Jews now."

    Hardly anyone on the bloody ground gives much credence to the notion that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorists were ignorant of the attack on the Americans; the "Popular Resistance Committees," which took "credit" for the killings, is merely a useful figment of the terrorist vision, a device used by the IRA in Northern Ireland to designate surrogates when it didn't want its handprints on a particularly grisly atrocity.

    The timid voices of the usual patsies will be raised in Washington, the usual hands will be wrung, the usual appeals will be made for "peace" in behalf of dread, diffidence and dismay. But it's too late for a strategy of irresolution.

    "American investigators will be asking themselves: Who hates America?" writes Anton LaGuardia, the diplomatic correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph. "This offers a long list of suspects, chief among them Islamist movements of various shades that make up 'global terrorism.' Some Israeli experts [blame] an 'ideological convergence' between Palestinian groups and networks such as al-Qaeda."

    What would we do without "experts"? Of course there's a convergence, of ideology, of religious fervor and of opportunity. The timid and the fearful want to imagine that if somehow Israel could be made to go away America's troubles in the Middle East would dissolve and our friends would be their friends and their friends would be our friends and we would all be friends together. The timid and the fearful are fools.

    
    Wesley Pruden is editor in chief of The Times.
 

Click here to return to our home page.

THE LOSER'S RANT

By RALPH PETERS, New York Post, October 17, 2003

YESTERDAY, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia explained the world's problems to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (aka, the "Global Losers' Club").

According to Mahathir, Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy . . . The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today Jews rule the world by proxy . . . They get others to fight and die for them . . . "

Never one to back down from a fight when there's no one present to hit back, the prime minister added bravely, "1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews!"

Wrong on all counts, of course. Not least, the last one.

Anti-Semitism Mahathir-style grows more bizarre each time he opens his mouth. It's piggish enough to accuse Jews of designing socialism and communism to further the secret aims of the Elders of Zion, but why should it be an insult to charge Jews - or anyone else - with inventing human rights and democracy?

One suspects that Mahathir isn't wild about either concept.

Except for a convention of European intellectuals, the only place on earth where you could draw applause by damning Jews for their alleged "invention" of human rights and democracy is the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a collection of miserably failed states represented largely by aging dictators.

They're hardly in a position to condemn human rights and democracy, since they've never tried either one.

Nor are these vicious, cowardly men in any position to criticize Jews. Or the AARP, the Rosicrucians or emperor penguins. Muslim leaders have stolen the oil wealth and squandered the human capital of their people. They couldn't talk straight if they rubbed their tongues with Viagra. No matter what goes wrong at home, they blame Israel and the United States.

And they, not the Jews, "get others to fight and die for them." You won't see Mahathir, Bashar Assad, Mo' Kaddafi or any of the pot-bellied perverts of Saudi Arabia leading bayonet charges against the Israeli army.

The truth is that a few million Jews can defeat 1.3 billion Muslims. They've done it repeatedly. And they'll keep on doing it, if necessary.

It doesn't take courage to shoot off your mouth in the presence of like-minded bigots. Rhetoric is the opium of the Islamic elite. They speak madly, then wallow in failure. Their entire civilization has a "born to lose" tattoo.

The saddest part of all this is that Mahathir could've been a contender. Even in his latest Jew-baiting speech - which might have been drafted by the czarist Okhrana - he criticized his fellow Muslims, too, for embracing dogma instead of science and progress. In the past, he's accused his fellow Malays of laziness compared to their Chinese neighbors. And he led his country to an impressive, if faltering level of economic success by doing real business, not just by living off petrodollars.

Mahathir understands that education, hard work, sound laws and real opportunity for all citizens are the keys to success in the 21st century. On a good day, he might even admit to the importance of democracy and human rights, as long he gets to call time-out when election results or dissidents make him unhappy.

But he's old and frustrated with setbacks at home - caused not least by Islamic social distortions. He's bitter about the insuperable weakness of the Muslim world. He knows where the problems really lie. But he still can't stop himself from blaming Jews.

All right. Let's frame Mahathir's climactic charge a bit differently: How can a few million Jews so dramatically outperform 1.3 billion Muslims?

Maybe the Muslim world just needs a few more of those notorious Jewish inventions. Like human rights and democracy.

Sound kosher to you?

Click here to return to our home page.

Mahathir's pack of lies

Amir Taheri, National Post,  Tuesday, October 21, 2003

This was to be his political swan song, and he had spent weeks composing it.

And yet, when Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, who will retire as Malaysia's Prime Minister next month, addressed the 10th Islamic summit in Kuala Lumpur last week, he offered a re-heated hotchpotch of the bizarre fare he has dished out over a 40-year career.

The speech was structured around Mahathir's view of history as a series of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies.

The part of the speech that received most attention consists of a few sentences in which Mahathir reiterated his theory that the modern world is made and controlled by Jews.

He first developed that theory sometime around 1990. He gave this writer, and four other journalists, an exposé of it during a dinner at a restaurant in Davos, Switzerland, in 1998. When I met him in London last July, however, he seemed to have modified his position somewhat, insisting that what he had said about Jews was a reflection of what "religious scholars feel in Malaysia."

Not surprisingly, many people have seen Mahathir's speech as an insult to Jews. A closer reading would show that he was insulting Muslims and Christians more than Jews.

Here is part of what Mahathir said: "The Europeans killed six million out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy."

What does this mean?

It means that all Europeans, not just Nazis, were involved in the Holocaust. It also means that the Europeans, being mass-murderers, are not intelligent enough to prevent a small Jewish community from ruling them.

Mahathir presents the Jews as "a people who think," unlike Christians and Muslims who he regards as too dumb to use their heads.

He says that the "thinking people" have also managed to get "others to fight and die for them."

He adds: "Israelis and Jews control most of the economy and the media in the world."

As the world enjoys a level of prosperity not dreamed of even a generation ago, plus unprecedented access to information, Mahathir's claim, if true, would amount to a compliment to "Israelis and Jews."

The Malaysian leader gives Jews credit for having created the modern world single-handedly.

He says that Jews "invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so that they can enjoy equal rights with others." In other words, the idea that all human beings have inalienable rights and that people should be free to choose their governments are "Jewish tricks."

Mahathir levels grave charges against Christians. In a speech at his party's conference last June, he claimed that "European culture" had become "a menace for mankind.

"The Europeans are determined to impose a global culture that includes the practice of free sex, especially sodomy. Marriage between male and male, female and female are officially recognized by them. They no longer regard incest as a sin."

He is harder on what he calls "the Anglo-Saxons." He says they "invent false allegations to go to war to kill children, old people and sick people."

So much for the West's boast about its Greco-Roman heritage.

If the goal of Jews is to impose human rights and democracy throughout the world, the goal of Christians is to spread sodomy and incest.

What about Muslims?

They were the main target of Mahathir's vitriolic verbiage.

Inflating the number of Muslims to 1.3 billion, he lamented that they fail to "deal with" a few million Jews, whatever that means.

He claimed that Muslims, though holding assets worth three-trillion dollars, play virtually no role in global decision-making.

Because Mahathir did not say why Muslims were powerless, one must assume that he believes Muslims lack the "intelligence" of the Jews.

Mahathir received a standing ovation from the leaders of the 57 countries present at the Muslim summit. They did not notice that the doctor was, in fact, insulting Muslims, and lined up to praise him for what Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher called "a very, very wise analysis."

By claiming that the Jews were ruling the world, the good doctor was offering a new version of the old delusion that what has gone wrong with Muslims is the fault of others.

By presenting Christians as sodomites and lesbians engaged in incest, he flatters the vanity of Muslims who, hushing family secrets, can boast about their pious lifestyle.

Mahathir is not the first to play this game. In the 1950s and 1960s, Muslim leftists blamed everything on Western imperialism. From the 1970s, the Islamists chose the left as their punching bag. The finger of blame has been pointed at colonialists, multinational companies, missionaries, communists, liberals, religious and/or ethnic minorities, middle classes and even poor Orientalists.

By blaming others, Mahathir and his predecessors in this game absolve Muslim leaders of responsibility. They also divest Muslims of their humanity, turning them into witless pawns in a game played by others.

With his speech Mahathir did great harm to the cause of those who believe that, as an existential reality, Islam needs to be subjected to serious critical re-examination.

Mahathir's "us-and-them" dialectics belong to a tribal mentality that has no place in the modern world.

His assumption that all Jews and all Muslims and all Christians think exactly alike and have exactly the same interests and aspirations belongs to the discredited "essentialist" school of sociology in which "the alter-ego" is typecast as the antithesis of the self.

He forgets that the Iran-Iraq war, in which a million people died, was not an "us-and-them" conflict. Nor was it "the other" who tried to wipe Kuwait off the map in 1990.

Are Jews raiding Algerian villages at night to massacre entire families, including babies?

Are Jews murdering thousands of Muslim women each year in the name of "honour-killing"?

Are Jews throwing acid at girls who do not wear the hijab?

Is it "the other" who has arranged for Muslim countries to have almost half of all political prisoners in the world?

And who is carrying out those thousands of executions, sometimes by chopping people's heads in public or stoning to death?

Are Jews preventing Muslims from choosing their governments in free elections? Are they arranging those elections in which government candidates always win with 99.99% of the votes?

Are Jews controlling the economies of the Muslim nations or should we look to our own ruling elites whose greed knows no bound? People often talk of the need for the separation of mosque and state in Muslim countries. A more urgent need is the separation of business from government.

Mahathir says Jews have persuaded others to fight and die for them.

Who does he mean by "others"?

If he means the West, let us not forget that Americans and Europeans fought and died to save the Muslim peoples of Bosnia and Kosovo from extermination. Not a single Muslim state provided any help.

Mahathir presented Palestine as a religious conflict.

Yet he did not apply the same logic to Chechnya, Kashmir, Mindanao, Burma, Cyprus, and East Turkestan, among the many places where Muslims are in conflict with non-Muslims.

The logic of Mahathir's position is that Muslim Cypriots, Chechens, Kashmiris, Burmans, Mindanaoans and East Turkestanis are not as worthy as Palestinians. And yet the number of Muslims killed in those conflicts is many times higher than the total victims of all Arab-Israeli wars.

The question is not what others have done to us in the past, but what we are doing to ourselves right now. And what we are doing to ourselves includes the pack of lies and prejudices that Mahathir is presenting as a world vision fit for Muslims in the 21st century.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian journalist and author.; amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com

Click here to return to our home page.

Rousing Muslim bigotry

By Jeff Jacoby, The Boston Globe, 10/23/2003

FOR MONTHS following the atrocities of 9/11, US officials from President Bush on down repeatedly declared that Islam is a religion of peace and that no American should think ill of Muslims or their religion because of the terrorist attacks. In fact, Bush said, any Americans who would lash out at Muslims or attempt to intimidate them "represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior."

The president had occasion to return to the subject of religious bigotry this week, but it was Muslim hatred -- not hatred of Muslims -- that decency required him to condemn. At a gathering in Thailand, Bush made a point of telling Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad that he had been "wrong and divisive" when he uncorked a toxic rant against the world's Jews last week.

Bush's conversations with foreign leaders are not usually publicized, but this time the White House spokesman related the president's words: "It stands squarely against what I believe in."

Mahathir delivered his diatribe at an Islamic summit meeting on Oct. 16. His theme was the anti-Semite's timeless plaint: The Jews are few but crafty, and the world is in their grip.

"The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy," Mahathir told the leaders of 57 Muslim nations. "They get others to fight and die for them." He lamented that Jews are an enemy "who think. They survived 2,000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented . . . socialism, communism, human rights, and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong -- so they may enjoy equal rights with others. With these they have now gained control of the most powerful countries."

And how should the world's Muslims deal with the Jews? Mahathir urged them to learn from Mohammed's example -- to buy time by making "strategic retreats" and signing peace accords, then building up their strength until they are ready to launch a "counterattack" that will lead to "final victory."

Mahathir's Judeophobia is an old story. More than 30 years ago he wrote: "The Jews . . . are not merely hook-nosed but understand money instinctively." He has blasted Jews as "monsters"; in 1994 his government banned the movie "Schindler's List" for being too pro-Jewish. When the Malaysian currency collapsed in 1997, Mahathir blamed it on George Soros, an American investor. "We do not want to say that this is a plot by the Jews," he thundered at a rally, "but in reality it is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge -- and coincidentally Soros is a Jew."

The Bush administration tried to cast Mahathir's latest screed as simply the invective of a lone bigot. "The comments were hateful," Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told reporters, adding "I do not think they are emblematic of the Muslim world."

Would that were true. Unfortunately, while many in the West voiced outrage at Mahathir's poisonous remarks, the Muslim world's official reaction ranged from utter indifference to hearty approval.

The audience to whom Mahathir spoke -- the presidents, kings, and emirs of the nations that make up the Organization of the Islamic Conference -- rewarded him with a standing ovation. The applauders included not only the Muslim world's dictatorial fanatics but also its reputed moderates, including President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, and Jordan's King Abdullah.

Even America's Muslim allies and clients admired Mahathir's views. The foreign minister of Egypt -- a country that receives $2 billion a year in US aid -- pronounced the speech "a very, very wise assessment." Hamid Karzai, the US-installed president of Afghanistan, praised it as "an eye-opener to a lot of us and . . . what the Islamic world should do."

Mahathir's speech raised no storm of controversy among most Muslims because the Muslim world by and large has no problem with anti-Semitism. Even in the United States there was little shocked repudiation of Mahathir's venom by American Muslim leaders. A Nexis search turns up just one mild quibble: When CNN invited the head of CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, to comment, he said only that he doesn't believe Jews run the world, "so I see that statement as a misguided opinion."

On Tuesday I asked six American Muslim organizations -- CAIR, the American Muslim Association, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Institute, the Islamic Society of North America, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council -- whether they had any reaction to Mahathir's words. Three never replied; two replied by saying they had no comment. Only MPAC condemned Mahathir for his "extremely offensive, anti-Semitic comments."

The Muslim world suffers from many problems, but none is more crippling than its culture of intolerance. Rampant anti-semitism anywhere is always a sign of grave moral sickness. Until more Muslims are prepared to confront and conquer that sickness in their midst, the Muslim world will remain the benighted backwater that so many Muslims deplore.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com.

Hyperlinks and emphasis added by PAC

Click here to return to our home page.