Mahathir

[Skunk]

Originally posted by Black Baron: 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

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 himself 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.

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

[Black Baron]

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.

[Skunk]

Originally posted by Black Baron: 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.

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:
"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

Co-incidently, Austrialia took exactly the same approach to dealing with Mahathir, prefering to simply isolate and write him off:
"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

Let's hope that Downer's assessment of Abdullah Badawi proves to be correct. [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]