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EDITORIAL: Mahathir’s plain-speak

Dr Mahathir Mohammad’s speech at the OIC summit has created a bit of a furore in the West, especially in the United States, inviting charges of anti-Semitism against him. Unfortunately, however, most commentators, in the wake of growing polarisation between the Muslim world and the rest, have chosen to take Dr Mohammad’s remarks out of the current geo-political context and cast them in a civilisational mould — “Islam’s vision is irreconcilable with what others stand for”. This is not only a poor reading of Dr Mohammad’s comments, it is also a convenient effort to shift blame by employing simplistic categories.

Dr Mohammad’s speech has 4223 words and 59 paragraphs. Out of these, his direct or indirect references to the Jewish people, the Palestinian problem, Israel, Zionism and Western policies only make up 373 words. And these 373 words include the line: “Even among the Jews there are many who do not approve of what the Israelis are doing”. This sentence alone should make clear to anyone accusing Dr Mohammad of anti-Semitism of the absurdity of the charge since he makes a clear distinction between the Jewish people and the state of Israel.

The bulk of Dr Mohammad’s speech relates to the condition of Muslims around the world. He makes clear that Muslims are divided on denominational lines; they want to recreate a city-state, which is not possible; they are angry but their anger is impotent; they are devoid of patience; they are only concerned about the hereafter rather than the here and now; they need to close ranks, acquire education, streamline their economies, learn to take joint stands on at least the major challenges facing all of them, etc. But most importantly, they must abjure violence since it has led to nothing but more humiliation.

We fail to see why anyone in the West should quibble with what Dr Mohammad has said. Clearly, what has caused the uproar are his remarks about the Jewish ‘control of the world’. And pray, how is he wrong on that count? Is it any secret that there is a very powerful Jewish lobby in the United States that all but controls that country’s political system? Is it a secret that without the unstinting support of the United States, Israel could not have survived and gone from strength to strength? Is it any secret that the Nixon administration resorted to the biggest airlift in Oct 1973 since the crisis over Berlin after the then Israeli premier Golda Meir rushed to Washington in the face of advancing Egyptian armour? Is it any secret that the United States has killed (or compelled members to water down) every single resolution the United Nations Security Council has tried to bring against Israel? Is it any secret that the United States has multiple joint weapons development programmes with Israel? Is it any secret that scores of American politicians have seen their political careers come to an end at the hands of the Jewish lobby and Jewish money? Is it any secret that a sizeable number of Washington’s neo-cons are Jews? Is it also any secret that they pushed the United States into a war with Iraq and the reshaping of the Middle East, an enterprise for which they had prepared a blueprint back in 1995, much before the events of September 11, 2001?

“Every few years, the Jewish lobby ‘eliminates’ an American politician who does not support the Israeli government unconditionally. This is not done secretly, behind the scenes, but as a public ‘execution’.” These words are not Dr Mohammad’s; they are Uri Avnery’s, a Jewish Israeli peace activist. Mr Avnery says “Israel manufactures and exports the anti-Semitism that threatens Jews around the world”. Surely, Mr Avnery cannot be accused of anti-Semitism; nor can he, like Noam Chomsky, be dismissed as a ‘self-hating Jew’. But that does not solve the problem; neither is this the end of the story.

Much of what is happening at the strategic-political level is underpinned by Christian Evangelism, a creed as anti-Semitic as anything can get. The Evangelists have an embassy in Jerusalem which began functioning in 1984. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) brings together two extremes: fundamentalist Christians believing in Biblical inerrancy and Zionists who claim a Biblical right as the ‘chosen people’. The ICEJ has a worldwide net to promote its belief, “based on the word of the Biblical prophet Zecariah, that Zionism is part of God’s design for the days preceding the Second Coming of Christ”. At which point, he (Jesus Christ) will apparently turn all the Jews into Christians. The state of Israel of course finds support from these Evangelists very welcome. For Tel Aviv, such support in the wake of 9/11 has great strategic significance; meanwhile, the Biblical myth can take care of itself.

Dr Mohammad’s only fault is his plain-speak. The cruelties perpetrated by the Christian world on the Jewish people, the anti-Semitic ideas contained in classical Western literature and philosophy have created a guilt factor which holds together the West’s new theology of political correctness. But the days of the Holocaust are over. From an oppressed people, the Zionist state of Israel has become an oppressor. As Mr Avnery says, David has morphed into a Goliath. Today, the oppressive state of Israel cannot be allowed to keep everyone hostage on the basis of historical wrongs perpetrated on the Jews by the Christian world. No such guilt informs Muslim conduct. The Jews who lived under Muslim rule led much safer lives than those living in Europe. Indeed, if the Muslim world had remained in the ascendant, the Jews would have sided with the Muslims against the Christians. That is the dilemma of a miniscule minority with a siege mentality. As Mr Avnery says, “you can get a Jew out of the ghetto, but you can’t get the ghetto out of a Jew”. This is what Ariel Sharon’s Wall is all about. The West would do well to not take the easy way and put the onus on Dr Mohammad. *

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