Mahathir tells Muslims to unite against Jews
International Herald Tribune
October 17, 2003
Wayne Arnold

Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad of Malaysia lashed out Thursday against what he described as the Jewish subjugation of Muslims, urging a gathering of Muslim leaders to help harness the Islamic world's collective brainpower to turn the tide.

"1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews," he said in an address opening the two-day summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia's newly built administrative capital, Putrajaya.

Among the Islamic leaders attending the meeting were President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia. President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines were also attending to represent their nations' sizable Muslim minorities.

The Islamic summit talks are held every three years, and this year's meeting is the first since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The subsequent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have put much of the Islamic world on the defensive, with many Muslims accusing the United States of turning its war on terrorism into a war on Islam.

Mahathir, 78, who is retiring in just over two weeks after 22 years in office, blamed what he said was the oppression and humiliation of Muslims on Jewish influence in the West.

"The Europeans killed 6 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."

Weaving a theme of Islamic unity and self-improvement into his diatribe, Mahathir lamented the generally poor economic and technological progress the Muslim world has made. He called on Muslims to reject the notion, espoused by fundamentalists, that modern education, technology and progress are anathema to Islam.

Malaysia has flourished economically under Mahathir's secular leadership. But in recent years, Mahathir and his political party have been losing ground to the country's conservative Islamic party as Malaysians turn increasingly to religion and reject the governing party, which has a reputation for corruption.

Mahathir's government has been cooperating in the international hunt for members of Al Qaeda and its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah. On Thursday it ordered the Malaysian wife of the suspected Jemaah Islamiyah operations chief, Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, to be detained for two years under the nation's Internal Security Act.

Even while lashing out at global Jewry's influence in his address Thursday, Mahathir urged Muslims to emulate the Jewish respect for education and intellect. "They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back but by thinking," Mahathir said.

Mahathir has long been a strong supporter of Palestine and a staunch critic of U.S. policy in the Middle East and its support for Israel. Mahathir is also well known for his criticism of globalization and of U.S. efforts to persuade Asian economies to remove restrictions on capital flows.

The Malaysian leader will have the opportunity to revisit that theme next week when he and President George W. Bush meet with fellow members of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit meeting in Bangkok.

Roughly three months ago, Mahathir used his party's annual meeting as an opportunity to rail against the West and the war in Iraq, decrying what he said was a European penchant for violence and accusing the West of trying to take over the world.

In his speech Thursday, however, he seemed to take the attitude that the Western governments were only puppets of the Jewish community, which he said had become "a world power."

By uniting, Mahathir suggested, the Muslim world could better muster its size and oil wealth to exploit Israeli mistakes and achieve ultimate victory. "We cannot fight them through brawn alone," he said. "We must use our brains as well."

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