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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad delivers his speech as chairman of the 10th Session of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
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| By Ellis Shuman October 17, 2003 |
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The government of Malaysia apologized for remarks made on Thursday by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad at the opening of the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit, which he was hosting. Mohamad told international Islamic leaders that "Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them." Jewish leaders said the speech was "an absolute invitation for more hate crimes and terrorism against Jews."
"I'm sorry that they have misunderstood the whole thing," Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid told the Associated Press on Friday. "The intention is not to create controversy. His intention is to show that if you ponder and sit down to think, you can be very powerful."
Hamid added, "The ones who are facing all the problems at present are the Muslims. There are no feelings against any Jews. Why should we have feelings based on ethnicity?"
Mahathir, 77, who is known for his outspoken, anti-Western rhetoric, is leader of a democratic nation which has a large non-Muslim population and does not enforce strict Islamic law. Mahathir told the Islamic Conference that Muslims had achieved "nothing" in more than 50 years of fighting Israel.
"The 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews," Mahathir said. "There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strengths, to plan, to strategize and then to counter-attack...
"We are actually very strong - 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today, the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them...
"Over the past 50 years of fighting in Palestine, we have not achieved any result. We have in fact worsened our situation," Mahathir said.
"They survived 2,000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking. They invented and successfully promoted 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 they, this tiny community, have become a world power. We cannot fight them through brawn alone. We must use our brains also," Mahathir said.
Mahathir's speech drew a standing ovation from the assembled leaders, who included Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdullah, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf and Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
Invitation to more hate crimes
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Jonathan Peled expressed disappointment in the Malaysian prime minister's remarks but said he wasn't surprised. "It is not new that in such forums there is always an attempt to reach of the lowest common denominator which is Israel bashing. But obviously we'd like to see more moderate and responsible kind of declarations coming out of such summits."
Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League, said in response, "Prime Minister Mahathir has made what amounts to a call for global war against the Jewish people by 1.3 billion Muslims. This is nothing more than a call to Holy War against Jews. It is grotesque anti-Semitism on an international scale. Mahathir's speech needs to be condemned by responsible leaders of the civilized world as an unacceptable outrage and an affront to civilized society."
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. "Mahathir's speech today is an absolute invitation for more hate crimes and terrorism against Jews. That's serious."
"It's not the first time we've seen comments like this from that official," U.S. Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said. "Let's be clear: the remarks were offensive, they are inflammatory, and we view them with the contempt and derision they deserve."
The German Foreign Ministry denounced Mahathir's comments as "totally unacceptable" and said it called in Malaysia's charge d'affaires in Berlin to protest. "It was made clear to (him) that repeating such prejudices and combining them with the tragic chapter of European and German history, the Holocaust, is irresponsible," the ministry said in a statement.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that Mahathir "used expressions that were gravely offensive, very strongly anti-Semitic and ... strongly counter to principles of tolerance, dialogue and understanding between the Western world and the Islamic world."
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