Mahatir Muhammad, Osama Bin Laden
and the Jewish Problem
Shaul Shay
In the inaugural speech given by
the Malaysan president Mahatir Muhammad to the Islamic conference convening in
his country, Mahatir made the following statements: “The Europeans killed six
million Jews out of twelve million, but today the Jews rule this world by proxy.
They get others to fight and die for them. 1.3 billion Muslims cannot be
defeated by a few million Jews.”1
Mahatir continued:
We face a nation of thinkers. They survived two thousand years of pogroms, not
by retaliating but by thinking. They (the Jews) invented Socialism, Communism,
Human Rights and Democracy to save themselves from persecution… In this way this
tiny nation became a super power.
Mahatir’s anti-Semitic remarks
were applauded by the representatives of the 57 Islamic countries in the
auditorium, and many of the participants expressed their solidarity with his
remarks.
Mahatir’s anti-Semitic outburst
should not have surprised the global community, since the Malaysian president
has a long enough record of statements in a similar vein.
In 1981, he was quoted as saying:
“The people attempting to divide the Muslim community in this country are all
Jews.”
In 1986, Malaysia prevented the
New York Philharmonic Choir from visiting their country because they were
planning to play “Solomon” which was composed by Ernest Bloch (a Jewish
composer).
In 1997, Mahatir accused the
Jewish billionaire, George Soros, of causing the economic crisis in his country
and throughout all of East Asia.2
In spite of his negative attitude
towards Judaism and Israel, Mahatir is considered moderate and pragmatic. He is
open to the West and is heavy handed towards the radical Islamic elements in his
country.
Mahatir’s statement, received so
enthusiastically at the Islamic conference, was vehemently condemned all over
the world, and he and his advisors were forced to revise it somewhat. Mahatir,
however, refused to recant his statement. In an interview that was conducted at
the Asian Nations conference in Bangkok on October 21, 2003, he explained, “My
speech was very clear, all the world stands behind the Jews – to such an extent
that they can ignore the United Nations; they have become an international super
power.”3
In the same interview, Mahatir
alluded to the superiority complex of Western culture towards other cultures and
claimed that the assumption of most journalists was that, “The Asians with their
brown skin do not understand justice or fair-play. Even if they do act correctly,
it has got to be for the wrong reasons.”
Two days after Mahatir’s speech,
the Al-Jezeerah network aired a new bin Laden tape, in which he threatened to
continue terrorist attacks against America and its allies, and called upon
America to leave Iraq immediately. In this same tape, bin Laden alluded to the
Palestinian issue, to Israel and to Judaism.4
Bin Laden called the Abu Mazen
government, “a traitorous government of spies”. “The road map” according to bin
Laden is part of a plan to terminate “the blessed Palestinian intifada”.
Bin Laden addressed the citizens
of the United States and claimed,
The Jews are leading you astray under the illusion of democracy, to attack our
religion at the expense of our blood and our countries...you have fallen victim
to money and assets and to those who control the media, among them Jews, who
push you to fight us at your expense and at ours in a conflict that does not
concern you.
Bush acts at the behest of the Zionist lobby who put him into the White House,
and is interested in the military destruction of Iraq and in its oil.
Bin Laden then warned the Bush
administration: “We will continue with the suicide attacks in the United States
and elsewhere until you change your ways.”
The contents of bin Laden’s most recent tape are
not any different from their predecessors. Already in 1998, bin Laden had
declared war against the “Jewish-Crusader” axis. According to bin Laden, a
conglomerate including the Jews, Israel, and the United States is Islam’s enemy.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, the
United States and its allies have invested significant effort in emphasizing the
differences between bin Laden and Islamic radicals – who use terrorism to
achieve their goals – and moderate Islam. A distinguishing eye will discern,
however, that the conclusions that one may draw from Mahatir’s moderate rhetoric
and from bin Laden’s radicalism are in many respects strikingly similar.
Their “diagnosis” of the problem is identical:
Israel and Judaism are the source of the threat to Islam and Muslims and their
standing in the world, the only difference between the two is the antidote or
solution they offer. The solution offered by bin Laden is clear cut – a Jihad
against the Jews, Israel, the United States and all their allies. Mahatir limits
himself to the presentation of the problem and the statement that the Islamic
world must find a solution to the Jewish problem.
Bin Laden defines the conflict between the Islam
and its enemies as a cultural conflict; Mahatir limits himself to hints, albeit
very blunt and obvious.
In his well known book, The Clash of
Civilizations, Huntington wrote:
Some Westerners, including President Bill Clinton, have argued that the West
does not have problems with Islam but only with violent Islamist extremists.
Fourteen hundred years of history demonstrate otherwise. The relations between
Islam and Christianity, both Orthodox and Western, have often been stormy. Each
has been the other’s Other. The twentieth century conflict between liberal
democracy and Marxist-Leninism is only a fleeting and superficial historical
phenomenon compared to the continuing and deeply conflictual relation between
Islam and Christianity. At times peaceful co-existence has prevailed; more often
the relation has been one of intense rivalry and varying degrees of hot war.5
The causes of the renewed conflict between Islam and the West thus lie in
fundamental questions of power and culture. Kto? Kovo? Who is to rule?
Who is to be ruled? The central issue of politics defined by Lenin is the root
of the contest between Islam and the West. There is, however, the additional
conflict, which Lenin would have considered meaningless, between two different
versions of what is right and what is wrong and, as a consequence, who is right
and who is wrong. So long as Islam remains Islam (which it will) and the West
remains the West (which is more dubious), this fundamental conflict between two
great civilizations and ways of life will continue to define their relations in
the future as it has defined them for the past fourteen centuries.6
Huntington describes today’s
reality as a conflict between Islam and the West and ignores the Jewish
component of the issue. Bin Laden, however, who also describes the conflict in
terms of a collision between cultures, emphasizes the conflict with Judaism or
the Jewish-Crusader axis.
Any attempt to reduce the problem
to its terrorist component misses the mark. This is best expressed in the work
of Bernard Lewis who wrote:
It should be clear now that we are facing a mood and a movement far transcending
the level of issues and policies and the governments that pursue them. This is
no less than a clash of civilizations – that perhaps irrational but surely
historic reaction of an ancient rival against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our
secular present, and the worldwide expansion of both. It is crucially important
that we on our side should not be provoked into an equally historic but also
equally irrational reaction against our rival.”7
Mahatir Muhammad and Osama bin
Laden are two sides of the same coin. This must be understood, and should be the
starting point of any attempt to counter this threat to Israel and the Jewish
world.
Endnotes
|
1 |
The Star, October 16, 2003; The
Straits Times, October 16, 2003. |
|
2 |
Amiram Barkat, Yoav Stern, Ben Aluf,
“The Malaysian Prime Minister’s Remarks are Anti-Semitic”,
Ha’aretz, October 22, 2003. |
|
3 |
Itay Katz, “The Prime Minister of
Malaysia Does Not Recant; the Jews are a World Power”,
Ha’aretz, October 22, 2003. |
|
4 |
Al-Jazeerah Television, October 18,
2003; Ha’aretz, October 19, 2003; <ynet.co.il>,
October 18, 2003. |
|
5 |
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, Simon and Schuster,
New York, 1996, p. 278. |
|
6 |
Ibid, p. 282. |
|
7 |
Bernard Lewis, as quoted in Huntington’s
Clash of Civilizations, ibid., p. 283. |
