This is a cross-post from the CST
In 2003, then Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad caused an international storm when he told an international Islamic conference that “the Jews rule this world by proxy“:
1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategise and then to counter attack. As Muslims we must seek guidance from the Al-Quran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. Surely the 23 years’ struggle of the Prophet can provide us with some guidance as to what we can and should do.
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We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.
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But the defence of the ummah, the counter attack need not start only after we have put our houses in order. Even today we have sufficient assets to deploy against our detractors. It remains for us to identify them and to work out how to make use of them to stop the carnage caused by the enemy. This is entirely possible if we stop to think, to plan, to strategise and to take the first few critical steps. Even these few steps can yield positive results. …
The enemy will probably welcome these proposals and we will conclude that the promoters are working for the enemy. But think. We are up against a people who think. They survived 2000 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 is no longer Prime Minister of Malaysia, but he has become something of a celebrity on the ‘anti-Imperialist’ circuit. His Perdana Global Peace Organisation is listed as the Malaysian website of Viva Palestina. He has spoken at conferences organised by the Ramadhan Foundation in London and in Kuala Lumpur. His Foundation to Criminalise War holds events in different countries and continents, and attracts high-profile speakers. Last week, at a conference in Malaysia, Mahathir returned to the subject of the Jews and in particular the Holocaust. It doesn’t make for pretty reading:
One of the greatest injustices done was to take Palestinian land to give to the Jews to create the state of Israel. It was so easy to take what belongs to others in order to give to people who had been giving you problems in your own country. The Palestinians must be sacrificed to save the Europeans from the depradations of the Jews.
The Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole Governments to ransom. Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world. The Holocaust failed as a final solution. Creating a state for them was thought to be a better solution. It could be if some European territory had been alllocated to make a permanent ghetto for the Jews. But of course if this was done the affected European state would rise in arms and kill all the Jews the way they had been doing before. So the debate was about creating an Israeli state in Uganda, Africa, or somewhere in Latin America or Palestine of course. It was so easy to decide on Palestine, a British mandated territory.
This view, that the Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves by their behaviour, is something that you normally hear from neo-Nazis.
Mahathir also updated Mohammed Naseem’s ‘dancing cows’ theory to question what really happened on 9/11:
In September 2001, the World Trade Centre was attacked allegedly by terrorists. I am not sure now that Muslim terrorists carried out these attacks. There are strong evidences that the attacks were staged. If they can make Avatar, they can make anything. Killing innocent people to provide an excuse for war is not new to the US.
Mahathir’s comments should be no surprise to anyone. His 2003 speech was not out of character, and nor is his latest offering. It is up to those people and organisations who work with Mahathir to decide whether his views about Jews and the Holocaust are welcome within their campaigns.
