For an interesting perspective on Mahathir’s anti-Semitic comments, see Dan Gillmor’s recent post. The comments below are fun, too, if a bit of a food fight.
One of the commenters there led me to yet another piece on the Mahathir farewell speech, with a whole new perspective, namely that Mahathir’s remarks can be interpreted as being insulting to Muslims and Christians and highly complimentary to the Jews. The writer makes some great points along the way:
Are Jews preventing Muslims from choosing their governments in free elections? Are they arranging those elections in which government candidates always win with 99.99 percent of the votes?
Are Jews controlling the economies of the Muslim nations – or should we look to our own ruling elites, whose greed knows no bound? People often talk of the need for the separation of mosque and state in Muslim countries. A more urgent need is the separation of business from government.
Mahathir says Jews have persuaded others to fight and die for them. Who does he mean by “others”? If he means the West, let us not forget that Americans and Europeans fought and died to save the Muslim peoples of Bosnia and Kosovo from extermination. Not a single Muslim state provided any help.
Update: Forgot to mention the Gillmor link came via Jeremy.
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By jeremy
geez, no credit?
October 24, 2003 @ 6:45 am | Comment
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By water :: andrésgentry
Exegesis
Some of the dust has settled from Mahathir Mohamad’s speech to the 10th Summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and good commentary on it can be had at Conrad’s Gweilo Diaries and Daniel Drezner (here and here).
October 24, 2003 @ 11:26 am | Comment