Malaysia's unrepentant PM maintains Jews rule the world

By The Associated Press
www.haaretzdaily.com

BANGKOK, Thailand -

Despite a barrage of international criticism over his allegedly anti-Semitic remarks, an unrepentant Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad maintains that Jews are arrogant and insists they do control the world.

Among an array of world leaders, U.S. President George W. Bush personally condemned Mahathir's statements and pulled him aside at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting to say the remarks were "wrong and divisive," a White House spokesman said.

But Mahathir, who retires at month's end after 22 years as the leader of mainly Muslim Malaysia, said the global reaction "shows that (Jews) do control the world," the Bangkok Post Tuesday quoted him as saying.

"Israel is a small country. There are not many Jews in the world. But they are so arrogant that they defy the whole world. Even if the United Nations say no, they go ahead. Why? Because they have the backing of all these people," said Mahathir, who often makes acerbic speeches against globalization and U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Mahathir triggered an uproar last week at a summit of Islamic countries by stating that "Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."

The issue trailed him to the APEC summit, which was to close Tuesday, where leaders ranging from Australia to the United States continued to criticize Asia's senior statesman.

Shortly before Bush and Mahathir sat down together in the same room with 19 other APEC leaders Monday, U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice said the American president "thinks those remarks were reprehensible. I do not think they are emblematic of the Muslim world."

Later White House press secretary Scott McClellan quoted Bush as telling the Malaysian leader face to face that , "It stands squarely against what I believe in."

The thrust of Mahathir's address, made at the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Kuala Lumpur, was that the world's 1.3 billion Muslims had been outmaneuvered by "a few million Jews" and needed to give up violence and think hard about greater unity and improved education to defend their interests peacefully.

Mahathir said in the Bangkok Post interview that his remarks had been taken out of context, noting that in his speech he had urged Israelis and Arabs to stop killing one another.

"In my speech I condemned all violence, even the suicide bombings and I told the Muslims it's about time we stopped all these things and paused to think and do something that is much more productive," he said. "That was the whole tone of my speech, but they picked up one sentence where I said that the Jews control the world."

- posted by Izak @ 3:51 AM