I may be wrong, but it looks like no one's been discussing this here:

The Speech

Aussie PM John Howard's response

'Malaysia's' response

I'm intersted to know what others are thinking about this...

Just an old man, prior to his retirement; trying to draw some attention to himself.

Nevertheless, I got this feeling that the old man has some serious issues with the Israelis. After all, Malaysian citizens are allowed to travel to all other countries EXCEPT Israel.

[ 10-19-2003, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

Maybe trying to put himself into position for a future international job?

- in a muslim organisation that is.

It isn't the first time he's come forward with such statements.

Leonis,
The speech that you linked to was actually delivered in June of this year.

The actual speech in question can be found here.


The man has taken serious issue with the way that Europeans and Israel have treated muslim nations both in the past and present.

God only knows what he meant by "But today, the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."
Presumabley, he was echoing the widely held belief that US middle-eastern policy is shaped and controlled by the state of Israel and the US Jewish lobby - a belief that is the result of the uneven-handed approach to the Palestine question.

The part about getting others to fight and die for them is probably a reference to Iraq war - it is another widely held belief that the war was prompted at the behest of the US Jewish lobby - rather than for non-existent WMD's.

These two lines which repeat 'the man in the street opinion' marred an otherwise excellent speech and analysis of the current problems facing muslim society and countries today.

Rather a shame.

Hehe, thankee for the Internet. ;) Some of my best online pals are from Israel.

I referenced this in the other thread without knowing Leonis had posted this.

Mahathir has been a prickly character for years. I mentioned his mobilisation of the Malaysian army near the border with Singapre, after the Singaporean leader made comments praising Singaporean Malays (Over Malaysian Malays)

His relationship with Australia has been terrible. We reached a new low in Asian relations when the oh-so diplomatic (read moronic) Australian Prime Minister PAUL KEATING decided to call Mahathir "recalcitrant". Mahathir continually used his influence in Asia to keep Australia out of Asia. I'm afraid it is where it is. You can't move the Island down to Antarctica... ;)

Just heard Mahathir's comments at the APEC summit:

"We are ready to be exploited; but we would like to be fairly exploited..."

He has a sardonic sense of humour! :D

Imagine what we have to go through everyday. [img]tongue.gif[/img] There's enough "comedy" for everybody. What with the reclaimation/lighthouse/railway/water(shudder)/etc... issues being beaten like a dead horse over and over and over and over and over... ...

Being a small and rich nation, Singapore seems to be an ideal neighbour to be picked on by the Malaysian government. [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img]

The way I see it, the only one worth fighting over is the water issue since the Malaysian goverment looses money by suppling water to Singapore. If I am a businessman, I would have backed away from such a shoddy deal long time ago. It goes without saying that the majority of the Malays aren't very bright indeed.

[ 10-21-2003, 05:40 AM: Message edited by: Paladin2000 ]

Woah, hold your horses there fella. While I find the whole water issue ludricious, I would exercise caution in so casually describing the majority of Malays as stupid. ;) It is just tactless and only serves to add fuel to the fire. Not to mention that I am Malaysian (Singaporean PR only) so I tend to feel aggravated by such remarks. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The water issue is not so much about economics, but politics. Yes, the price is absurd when seen in today's terms, but bear in mind that this was set in a treaty written in the 60s.

People often talk about the selling price of the raw water (which I assure you, no sane civilised man will want to drink from), but fail to remember that we sell it back at a discounted price as well. The price that Malaysia pays to buy back the treated water is cheaper than if it had treated the water themselves.

Not to say that the Singapore government is totally uncaring though. There has been offers of a raise for the cost of the raw water, but naturally, the Malaysian government wants a higher price.

This is, in summary, the water issue.

I thought that current deal was going to expire relatively soon anyway?

He he... my remarks are indeed based upon my personal experience. I am closer to you than you think... ;)

At the summit last week of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia, Mr Mahathir said: "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."

He said 1.3 billion Muslims could not be defeated by a few million Jews.

Mr Mahathir's remarks drew worldwide condemnation, but Malaysia said that Western nations over-reacted to the speech and took it out of context, and the comments were aimed at rallying the Muslim world.


Yeah makes me laugh with comments like these...NOT :(

The "out-of-context" argument is so overused in this day and age.

What else could he have meant? What possible context makes those remarks acceptable? As usual these days, when this type of defense is offered, no elaboration is made as to what was meant.

The media do have much to answer for when they do take a persons words out of context, but in a case like this, with words like this, when no context is described, it reeks of "stock-standardness".

Was anyone else aware, that the "out of context" autodefense, was highly ludicrous considering people like Leonis posted THE WHOLE SPEECH!!! What more context is there? We can read the whole thing. Doesn't make it any better. Actually makes it worse.

At the summit last week of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia, Mr Mahathir said: "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."

He said 1.3 billion Muslims could not be defeated by a few million Jews.

Mr Mahathir's remarks drew worldwide condemnation, but Malaysia said that Western nations over-reacted to the speech and took it out of context, and the comments were aimed at rallying the Muslim world.


Yeah makes me laugh with comments like these...NOT :( </font>[/QUOTE]As I said, those comments marred an otherwise excellent speech. There were genunine issues raised in this speech and indeed the comment made at the Apec summit is indicative of those issues which should be getting equal attention.

I know what you means Skunk [img]smile.gif[/img] he does make good points, overall he has been good for Malyasia and i can shake off the constant bitchy comments about Australia some of which may be valid. But this IS a genunine issue. It's downright inflamatory at its best and at worse it's a signal to unify muslims into action against Isreal.

[ 10-23-2003, 08:01 AM: Message edited by: wellard ]

You'll get no arguments with me there.

Mahathir stated in his speech that:<font color="#C4C1CA">
"Our only reaction is to become more and more angry. Angry people cannot think properly. And so we find some of our people reacting irrationally. They launch their own attacks, killing just about anybody including fellow Muslims to vent their anger and frustration." </font>
Seems to me that this picture fits him rather well - his insensitive comment was a classic example of an angry person who is clearly not thinking properly.

Quote:

Seems to me that this picture fits him rather well - his insensitive comment was a classic example of an angry person who is clearly not thinking properly.

Perhaps but it would be wise if he would remember that alot of people died fighting the japanese in his country, then he might treat the rest of us with a little bit of respect instead of stirring the pot.

[ 10-23-2003, 10:27 AM: Message edited by: dragon_lord ]

What bothers me is France's respond. It did not condemn the antisemithic part of the speech (in the beginning, anyway. correct me if i am wrong), and did it only after a pressure.
Maybe chirac is his brother. :(
grrrr...

"Chirac, backed by the prime minister of Greece, Costas Simitis, stopped the EU from ending a summit meeting Friday with a harshly worded statement deploring Mahathir's speech, which also included suggestions that Jews get "others to fight and die for them."...

A French diplomat, who asked not to be identified, said that while Chirac disagreed with Mahathir's strident views, he had argued that an EU summit declaration "would not have been appropriate."

On Sunday, Chirac sent a frank letter to Mahathir criticizing his remarks.

"Your remarks on the rule of Jews gave rise to very strong disapproval in France and in the world," said the letter. It added that "these remarks can only be condemned by all who preserve the memory of the Holocaust."
http://www.iht.com/articles/114347.html

<font color="#C4C1CA">Chirac is a little too much of a statesman to agree to such a declaration by the EU. He didn't want to make an issue of the remarks of an outgoing president sour the relations between the EU and a post-Mahathir Malaysia. Instead, he made a personal letter from <u>himself</u> to Mahathir - which not only avoided insulting Malaysia for the comments of its president, but also avoided souring relations with the OIC over the opening speech.

Chirac has always championed jewish rights - to the point that Le Pen, (in 1997) accused him of being "in the pay of Jewish organizations."
The following year, Chirac finally opened the Musee d'art et d'histoire du judiaisme whose existence was due to not only to his conception but also to his energetic political rallying and championing whilst Mayor of Paris.

In light of this and his opening speech (in english) of that museum, I feel sure that you will agree with me that labeling Chirac as anti-semitic is rather unkind.</font>

[ 10-23-2003, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: Skunk ]

Hmm, i did point out that i could be wrong.
than it is our undear rightwinged russian press all over again. it completely dropped out these facts. pfui.
well, thanks for saying it. maybe the situation is just a bit brighter then i thought. ;)

<font color="#C4C1CA"> I took the time to make the detailed response because I knew that you were open-minded over the issue and was seeking clarification [img]smile.gif[/img]

Chirac is an old-style politician not given to 'knee-jerk' reactions - he also adopts a policy of 'isolating' extremists, denying them publicity by entering into a public boxing match and prefering to avoid giving them any chance to promote themselves as battling a respectable institution.

Of course, you would have to know a lot about Chirac to be aware of this - and it would be unreasonable to expect everyone to know the details, history and mind-set of every world politician - especially when those politicans are not even located in the same continent as you.

If you look at how he dealt with his 'arch-enemy' Le Pen, you can see the consistency of his approach:</font>
"A claim by Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right French politician, that Jews have 'control' over President Jacques Chirac met studied disdain in most of the French political establishment on Monday.
Mr. Le Pen's remarks surfaced in weekend news accounts of comments he made to the authors of a forthcoming book about Mr. Chirac. In the comments, Mr. Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, said that Mr. Chirac's hostility to him was so strong that it could be explained only by the grip of international Jewish organizations that had provided the French president with 'enormous sums and exceptional political support.'

Mr. Le Pen was quoted as saying that Jewish groups had 'control' over Mr. Chirac, a Gaullist, and were forcing him to shun any alliance with the National Front, even if it meant depriving the Gaullists and other conservative parties of the margin they needed to defeat the Socialists.

Mr. Chirac did not respond directly to the claim in a previously scheduled meeting Sunday with leaders of France's Jewish organizations...

On Monday, Socialist leaders called on Mr. Chirac to sue Mr. Le Pen, but conservative leaders, including Simone Veil, the former health minister, defended Mr. Chirac's policy of keeping the presidency aloof from unsubstantiated allegations. Newspaper editorials and Jewish leaders supported that approach...
International Herald and Tribune

<font color="#C4C1CA">Co-incidently, Austrialia took exactly the same approach to dealing with Mahathir, prefering to simply isolate and write him off:</font>
"The Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, last night snubbed Malaysia's Foreign Minister, Syed Hamid Albar, declining to invite him to a dinner to discuss Islam and the fight against terrorism at the Australian ambassador's residence in Bangkok.

Indonesia's Hassan Wirayuda attended, along with the foreign ministers of New Zealand, Canada, Singapore and Japan and a US undersecretary of state, Alan Larson.

"We will be exploring the issue of how to support moderate Islam and moderate Islamic leadership," Mr Downer said before the dinner.

"We didn't invite everybody to it. Malaysia is going through a political transition. In two weeks' time, Dr Mahathir retires," he said, hailing his successor, Abdullah Badawi, as a "good and moderate and sensible man".

He said Dr Mahathir's remarks had not been discussed by foreign ministers gathered in Bangkok, neither had President George Bush's description of Australia as a sheriff."
Sydney Morning Herald

<font color="#C4C1CA">Let's hope that Downer's assessment of Abdullah Badawi proves to be correct. [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img] </font>