Forward: The anti-Zionism of
Mahathir Muhammad
The speech of Mahathir Muhammad is an excellent short course in
the fundamentals of anti-Semitism and "anti-Zionism." It a relatively brief
speech, it contains in it most of the modern anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic
mythology of both the Western and Arab-Muslim world, strongly reminiscent of
Nazi views of "Jewish Power" and contempt for human rights. The main points:
Jews are shrewd and wily and gain
power by deception
Jews are responsible for most of
"our" problems (where "our" in this case is the Muslim Ummah rather than the
German Volk).
Human rights and democracy are a
"Jewish Invention" and therefore are illegitimate.
Jews control other countries.
If other countries are against us, it
is because they are controlled by Jews.
Muhammad said, inter alia:
They believe that things can only get
worse. The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and
the Jews. They will forever be poor, backward and weak. Some believe, as I have
said, this is the Will of Allah, that the proper state of the Muslims is to be
poor and oppressed in this world.
That is, according to Muhammad, the troubles
of the Muslim world are in large part due to the Jews. Few questioned that this
is true. "The Jews" in this version of history, are responsible for the low
literacy rate in Muslim and Arab countries, disease and underdevelopment. In
some way, "the Jews" managed to undermine the mighty empire of the Muslims.
Mohamad expounded on a theme that has been
fairly common among Arab extremists, developing it to its logical conclusion:
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.
After all, this theme that shocked many, is
not so different from the thesis of the Hamas charter, that "accused" the
"Zionists" and their allies of fomenting the French Revolution, and the rantings
of the Arab Palestinian mayor of Jerusalem in 1921, Mussa Khazem El Husseini,
who "credited" the Jews with inventing socialism and the Russian revolution.
Mohamad went on to expound yet another common
theme in Muslim (and Western) "anti-Zionist" ideology - the Jews control great
powers:
With these they have now gained
control of the most powerful countries and they, this tiny community, have
become a world power.
Here we have too, the extremist Muslim
version of a "peace" proposal, modeled, as ever, on the treaty of Hudaybieh,
which the prophet Muhammad made with the Quraish tribe, only to break it later
and vanquish them. He says:
The Quran tells us that when the
enemy sues for peace we must react positively. True the treaty offered is not
favourable to us. But we can negotiate. The Prophet did, at Hudaibiyah. And in
the end he triumphed.
Clearly, what is contemplated is not a Sulha,
a great treaty of peace and reconciliation, but rather a stratagem to defeat the
enemy, openly discussed and explained as such: "And in the end
he triumphed."
The vicious diatribe below was delivered,
believe it or not, by a head of state to a public Muslim conference at the
beginning of the Twenty-First Century. As interesting and frightening as the
address itself, is the fact that for the most part, it passed without comment or
with approval and justification in much of the Arab and Muslim world.
Writing in Al-Ahram, the Egyptian government
controlled newspaper, Gamal Nkrumah stated about the speech
This week,
Mahathir again reiterated his belief that Jews ruled the world by proxy. He
obviously has no qualms about speaking his mind and is highly appreciated and
respected by many in the developing world for his outspoken criticism of the
West and its lackeys.
There is nothing
like a successful, articulate and charismatic leader in the South to inspire
millions of people around the globe who are yearning for a new international
economic order.
(Hard
Act to Follow, Gamal Nkrumah, Al Ahram Weekly, 6-12 November http:/ /
weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/663/in23.htm)
It is taken for
granted that the Jews control the world, and his "highly appreciated" for his
"outspoken criticism" according to Al-Ahram. We can imagine precisely what sort
of order is contemplated, in which human rights and democracy are considered to
be a perfidious Jewish invention, and the ills of the world are blamed on the
Jews. Haven't we been in that movie before?
Al Ahram is the
relatively tame government-controlled organ of the Egyptian government, which
has a peace treaty with Israel, and the English version generally confines
itself to the more palatable sorts of racist sentiments.
Saudi Arabia's Ain
al Yaqeen had this to say about the views of Dr. Mohamad:
Then, Malaysian
Prime Minister and the current Chairman of the summit, Mahateer Muhammad
underlined in his address the deteriorating situation in the Islamic world and
the suffering of the Muslims in the light of the divisions and disputes that are
plaguing the Islamic Nation.
Dr Mahatir Muhammad called on the Islamic Nation to solidify and to unite its
stance in facing the aggressive campaign against Islam and Muslims under the
title "the war against terrorism."
( Ain
al Yaqeen October 24, 20
http:// www. ain-al-yaqeen.com/issues/20031024/feat2en.htm)
Mohamad's remarks
about the Jewish people were not worthy of note, it seems, and did not require
special comment.
Ami Isseroff
Copyright
Above text is
copyright 2005 by Ami Isseroff - Reproduction in any form by permission only.
The text below is in the public domain.
Dr Mahathir Muhammad PM of
Malaysia's Speech in Full to the OIC
Thursday October 16, 2003
Dr Mahathir opens 10th OIC Summit
Dr Mahathir addresses the 10th Summit of the OIC in Putrajaya. - Starpix
Speech by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the opening of the
10th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference on Oct 16, 2003
ALHAMDULILLAH, All Praise be to Allah, by whose Grace and Blessings we, the
leaders of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) countries are
gathered here today to confer and hopefully to plot a course for the future of
Islam and the Muslim ummah worldwide.
On behalf of the Government and the people of many races and religions of
Malaysia, may I extend a warm welcome to all and everyone to this 10th Session
of the Islamic Summit Conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia’s administrative
capital.
It is indeed a great honour for Malaysia to host this Session and to assume the
chairmanship of the OIC. I thank the members for their confidence in Malaysia’s
chairmanship.
May I also take this opportunity to pay a special tribute to the State of Qatar,
in particular His Highness Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa AI-Thani, the Emir of the
State of Qatar, for his outstanding stewardship of our organisation over the
past three years.
As host, Malaysia is gratified at the high level of participation from member
countries. This clearly demonstrates our continued and abiding faith in, and
commitment to our organisation and our collective wish and determination to
strengthen our role for the dignity and benefit of the ummah.
I would also like to welcome the leaders and representatives of the many
countries who wish to become observers at this meeting because of their
substantial Muslim population. Whether they are Muslims or not, their presence
at this meeting will help towards greater understanding of Islam and the
Muslims, thus helping to disprove the perception of Islam as a religion of
backwardness and terror.
The whole world is looking at us. Certainly 1.3 billion Muslims, one-sixth of
the world’s population are placing their hopes in us, in this meeting, even
though they may be cynical about our will and capacity to even decide to restore
the honour of Islam and the Muslims, much less to free their brothers and
sisters from the oppression and humiliation from which they suffer today.
I will not enumerate the instances of our humiliation and oppression, nor will I
once again condemn our detractors and oppressors. It would be an exercise in
futility because they are not going to change their attitudes just because we
condemn them. If we are to recover our dignity and that of Islam, our religion,
it is we who must decide, it is we who must act.
To begin with, the governments of all the Muslim countries can close ranks and
have a common stand if not on all issues, at least on some major ones, such as
on Palestine. We are all Muslims. We are all oppressed. We are all being
humiliated. But we who have been raised by Allah above our fellow Muslims to
rule our countries have never really tried to act in concert in order to exhibit
at our level the brotherhood and unity that Islam enjoins upon us.
But not only are our governments divided, the Muslim ummah is also divided, and
divided again and again. Over the last 1,400 years the interpreters of Islam,
the learned ones, the ulamas have interpreted and reinterpreted the single
Islamic religion brought by Prophet Muhammad S.A.W, so differently that now we
have a thousand religions which are often so much at odds with one another that
we often fight and kill each other.
From being a single ummah we have allowed ourselves to be divided into numerous
sects, mazhabs and tarikats, each more concerned with claiming to be the true
Islam than our oneness as the Islamic ummah. We fail to notice that our
detractors and enemies do not care whether we are true Muslims or not. To them
we are all Muslims, followers of a religion and a Prophet whom they declare
promotes terrorism, and we are all their sworn enemies. They will attack and
kill us, invade our lands, bring down our governments whether we are Sunnis or
Syiahs, Alawait or Druse or whatever. And we aid and abet them by attacking and
weakening each other, and sometimes by doing their bidding, acting as their
proxies to attack fellow Muslims. We try to bring down our governments through
violence, succeeding to weaken and impoverish our countries.
We ignore entirely and we continue to ignore the Islamic injunction to unite and
to be brothers to each other, we the governments of the Islamic countries and
the ummah.
But this is not all that we ignore about the teachings of Islam. We are enjoined
to Read, Iqraq, i.e. to acquire knowledge. The early Muslims took this to mean
translating and studying the works of the Greeks and other scholars before
Islam. And these Muslim scholars added to the body of knowledge through their
own studies.
The early Muslims produced great mathematicians and scientists, scholars,
physicians and astronomers etc. and they excelled in all the fields of knowledge
of their times, besides studying and practising their own religion of Islam. As
a result the Muslims were able to develop and extract wealth from their lands
and through their world trade, able to strengthen their defences, protect their
people and give them the Islamic way of life, Addin, as prescribed by Islam. At
the time the Europeans of the Middle Ages were still superstitious and backward,
the enlightened Muslims had already built a great Muslim civilisation, respected
and powerful, more than able to compete with the rest of the world and able to
protect the ummah from foreign aggression. The Europeans had to kneel at the
feet of Muslim scholars in order to access their own scholastic heritage.
The Muslims were lead by great leaders like Abdul Rahman III, AI-Mansur, Salah
El Din AI Ayubi and others who took to the battlefields at the head of their
forces to protect Muslim land and the ummah.
But halfway through the building of the great Islamic civilisation came new
interpreters of Islam who taught that acquisition of knowledge by Muslims meant
only the study of Islamic theology. The study of science, medicine etc. was
discouraged.
Intellectually the Muslims began to regress. With intellectual regression the
great Muslim civilisation began to falter and wither. But for the emergence of
the Ottoman warriors, Muslim civilisation would have disappeared with the fall
of Granada in 1492.
The early successes of the Ottomans were not accompanied by an intellectual
renaissance. Instead they became more and more preoccupied with minor issues
such as whether tight trousers and peak caps were Islamic, whether printing
machines should be allowed or electricity used to light mosques. The Industrial
Revolution was totally missed by the Muslims. And the regression continued until
the British and French instigated rebellion against Turkish rule brought about
the downfall of the Ottomans, the last Muslim world power and replaced it with
European colonies and not independent states as promised. It was only after
World War II that these colonies became independent.
Apart from the new nation-states we also accepted the western democratic system.
This also divided us because of the political parties and groups that we form,
some of which claim Islam for themselves, reject the Islam of other parties and
refuse to accept the results of the practice of democracy if they fail to gain
power for themselves. They resort to violence, thus destabilising and weakening
Muslim countries.
With all these developments over the centuries the ummah and the Muslim
civilisation became so weak that at one time there was not a single Muslim
country which was not colonised or hegemonised by the Europeans. But regaining
independence did not help to strengthen the Muslims. Their states were weak and
badly administered, constantly in a state of turmoil. The Europeans could do
what they liked with Muslim territories. It is not surprising that they should
excise Muslim land to create the state of Israel to solve their Jewish problem.
Divided, the Muslims could do nothing effective to stop the Balfour and Zionist
transgression.
Some would have us believe that, despite all these, our life is better than that
of our detractors. Some believe that poverty is Islamic, sufferings and being
oppressed are Islamic. This world is not for us. Ours are the joys of heaven in
the afterlife. All that we have to do is to perform certain rituals, wear
certain garments and put up a certain appearance. Our weakness, our backwardness
and our inability to help our brothers and sisters who are being oppressed are
part of the Will of Allah, the sufferings that we must endure before enjoying
heaven in the hereafter. We must accept this fate that befalls us. We need not
do anything. We can do nothing against the Will of Allah.
But is it true that it is the Will of Allah and that we can and should do
nothing? Allah has said in Surah Ar-Ra’d verse 11 that He will not change the
fate of a community until the community has tried to change its fate itself.
The early Muslims were as oppressed as we are presently. But after their sincere
and determined efforts to help themselves in accordance with the teachings of
Islam, Allah had helped them to defeat their enemies and to create a great and
powerful Muslim civilisation. But what effort have we made especially with the
resources that He has endowed us with.
We are now 1.3 billion strong. We have the biggest oil reserve in the world. We
have great wealth. We are not as ignorant as the Jahilliah who embraced Islam.
We are familiar with the workings of the world’s economy and finances. We
control 50 out of the 180 countries in the world. Our votes can make or break
international organisations. Yet we seem more helpless than the small number of
Jahilliah converts who accepted the Prophet as their leader. Why? Is it because
of Allah’s will or is it because we have interpreted our religion wrongly, or
failed to abide by the correct teachings of our religion, or done the wrong
things?
We are enjoined by our religion to prepare for the defence of the ummah.
Unfortunately we stress not defence but the weapons of the time of the Prophet.
Those weapons and horses cannot help to defend us any more. We need guns and
rockets, bombs and warplanes, tanks and warships for our defence. But because we
discouraged the learning of science and mathematics etc as giving no merit for
the akhirat, today we have no capacity to produce our own weapons for our
defence. We have to buy our weapons from our detractors and enemies. This is
what comes from the superficial interpretation of the Quran, stressing not the
substance of the Prophet’s sunnah and the Quran’s injunctions but rather the
form, the manner and the means used in the 1st Century of the Hijrah. And it is
the same with the other teachings of Islam. We are more concerned with the forms
rather than the substance of the words of Allah and adhering only to the literal
interpretation of the traditions of the Prophet.
We may want to recreate the first century of the Hijrah, the way of life in
those times, in order to practise what we think to be the true Islamic way of
life. But we will not be allowed to do so. Our detractors and enemies will take
advantage of the resulting backwardness and weakness in order to dominate us.
Islam is not just for the 7th Century A.D. Islam is for all times. And times
have changed. Whether we like it or not we have to change, not by changing our
religion but by applying its teachings in the context of a world that is
radically different from that of the first century of the Hijrah. Islam is not
wrong but the interpretations by our scholars, who are not prophets even though
they may be very learned, can be wrong. We have a need to go back to the
fundamental teachings of Islam to find out whether we are indeed believing in
and practising the Islam that the Prophet preached. It cannot be that we are all
practising the correct and true Islam when our beliefs are so different from one
another.
Today we, the whole Muslim ummah are treated with contempt and dishonour. Our
religion is denigrated. Our holy places desecrated. Our countries are occupied.
Our people starved and killed.
None of our countries are truly independent. We are under pressure to conform to
our oppressors’ wishes about how we should behave, how we should govern our
lands, how we should think even.
Today if they want to raid our country, kill our people, destroy our villages
and towns, there is nothing substantial that we can do. Is it Islam which has
caused all these? Or is it that we have failed to do our duty according to our
religion?
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. Their governments can do nothing to stop them. The
enemy retaliates and puts more pressure on the governments. And the governments
have no choice but to give in, to accept the directions of the enemy, literally
to give up their independence of action.
With this their people and the ummah become angrier and turn against their own
governments. Every attempt at a peaceful solution is sabotaged by more
indiscriminate attacks calculated to anger the enemy and prevent any peaceful
settlement. But the attacks solve nothing. The Muslims simply get more
oppressed.
There is a feeling of hopelessness among the Muslim countries and their people.
They feel that they can do nothing right. They believe that things can only get
worse. The Muslims will forever be oppressed and dominated by the Europeans and
the Jews. They will forever be poor, backward and weak. Some believe, as I have
said, this is the Will of Allah, that the proper state of the Muslims is to be
poor and oppressed in this world.
But is it true that we should do and can do nothing for ourselves? Is it true
that 1.3 billion people can exert no power to save themselves from the
humiliation and oppression inflicted upon them by a much smaller enemy? Can they
only lash back blindly in anger? Is there no other way than to ask our young
people to blow themselves up and kill people and invite the massacre of more of
our own people?
It cannot be that there is no other way. 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.
We know he and his early followers were oppressed by the Qhuraish. Did he launch
retaliatory strikes? No. He was prepared to make strategic retreats. He sent his
early followers to a Christian country and he himself later migrated to Madinah.
There he gathered followers, built up his defence capability and ensured the
security of his people. At Hudaibiyah he was prepared to accept an unfair
treaty, against the wishes of his companions and followers. During the peace
that followed he consolidated his strength and eventually he was able to enter
Mecca and claim it for Islam. Even then he did not seek revenge. And the peoples
of Mecca accepted Islam and many became his most powerful supporters, defending
the Muslims against all their enemies.
That briefly is the story of the struggle of the Prophet. We talk so much about
following the sunnah of the Prophet. We quote the instances and the traditions
profusely. But we actually ignore all of them.
If we use the faculty to think that Allah has given us then we should know that
we are acting irrationally. We fight without any objective, without any goal
other than to hurt the enemy because they hurt us. Naively we expect them to
surrender. We sacrifice lives unnecessarily, achieving nothing other than to
attract more massive retaliation and humiliation.
It is surely time that we pause to think. But will this be wasting time? For
well over half a century we have fought over Palestine. What have we achieved?
Nothing. We are worse off than before. If we had paused to think then we could
have devised a plan, a strategy that can win us final victory. Pausing and
thinking calmly is not a waste of time. We have a need to make a strategic
retreat and to calmly assess our situation.
We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. 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.
We may not be able to do that. We may not be able to unite all the 1.3 billion
Muslims. We may not be able to get all the Muslim Governments to act in concert.
But even if we can get a third of the ummah and a third of the Muslim states to
act together, we can already do something. Remember that the Prophet did not
have many followers when he went to Madinah. But he united the Ansars and the
Muhajirins and eventually he became strong enough to defend Islam.
Apart from the partial unity that we need, we must take stock of our assets. I
have already mentioned our numbers and our oil wealth. In today’s world we wield
a lot of political, economic and financial clout, enough to make up for our
weakness in military terms.
We also know that not all non-Muslims are against us. Some are well disposed
towards us. Some even see our enemies as their enemies. Even among the Jews
there are many who do not approve of what the Israelis are doing.
We must not antagonise everyone. We must win their hearts and minds. We must win
them to our side not by begging for help from them but by the honourable way
that we struggle to help ourselves. We must not strengthen the enemy by pushing
everyone into their camps through irresponsible and unIslamic acts. Remember
Salah El Din and the way he fought against the so-called Crusaders, King Richard
of England in particular. Remember the considerateness of the Prophet to the
enemies of Islam. We must do the same. It is winning the struggle that is
important, not angry retaliation, not revenge.
We must build up our strength in every field, not just in armed might. Our
countries must be stable and well administered, must be economically and
financially strong, industrially competent and technologically advanced. This
will take time, but it can be done and it will be time well spent. We are
enjoined by our religion to be patient. Innallahamaasabirin. Obviously there is
virtue in being patient.
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.
We know that the Jahilliah Arabs were given to feuding, to killing each other
simply because they were from different tribes. The Prophet preached the
brotherhood of Islam to them and they were able to overcome their hatred for
each other, become united and helped towards the establishment of the great
Muslim civilisation. Can we say that what the Jahilliah (the ignorant) could do
we, the modern Muslims cannot do? If not all at least some of us can do. If not
the renaissance of our great civilisation, at least ensuring the security of the
ummah.
To do the things that are suggested will not even require all of us to give up
our differences with each other. We need only to call a truce so we can act
together in tackling only certain problems of common interests, the Palestine
problem for example.
In any struggle, in any war, nothing is more important than concerted and
coordinated action. A degree of discipline is all that is needed. The Prophet
lost in Jabal Uhud because his forces broke rank. We know that, yet we are
unwilling to discipline ourselves and to give up our irregular and uncoordinated
actions. We need to be brave but not foolhardy. We need to think not just of our
reward in the afterlife but also of the worldly results of our mission.
The Quran tells us that when the enemy sues for peace we must react positively.
True the treaty offered is not favourable to us. But we can negotiate. The
Prophet did, at Hudaibiyah. And in the end he triumphed.
I am aware that all these ideas will not be popular. Those who are angry would
want to reject it out of hand. They would even want to silence anyone who makes
or supports this line of action. They would want to send more young men and
women to make the supreme sacrifice. But where will all these lead to? Certainly
not victory. Over the past 50 years of fighting in Palestine we have not
achieved any result. We have in fact worsened our situation.
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.
Of late because of their power and their apparent success they have become
arrogant. And arrogant people, like angry people will make mistakes, will forget
to think.
They are already beginning to make mistakes. And they will make more mistakes.
There may be windows of opportunity for us now and in the future. We must seize
these opportunities.
But to do so we must get our acts right. Rhetoric is good. It helps us to expose
the wrongs perpetrated against us, perhaps win us some sympathy and support. It
may strengthen our spirit, our will and resolve, to face the enemy.
We can and we should pray to Allah S.W.T. for in the end it is He who will
determine whether we succeed or fail. We need His blessings and His help in our
endeavours,
But it is how we act and what we do which will determine whether He would help
us and give us victory or not. He has already said so in the Quran. Again Surah
Ar-Ra’d verse 11.
As I said at the beginning, the whole world is looking at us, the whole Muslim
ummah is placing their hopes in this conference of the leaders of Islamic
nations. They expect us not just to vent our frustrations and anger, through
words and gestures, not just to pray for Allah’s blessings. They expect us to do
something, to act. We cannot say we cannot do anything, we the leaders of the
Muslim nations. We cannot say we cannot unite even when faced with the
destruction of our religion and the ummah.
We know we can. There are many things that we can do. There are many resources
that we have at our disposal. What is needed is merely the will to do it, As
Muslims, we must be grateful for the guidance of our religion, we must do what
needs to be done, willingly and with determination. Allah has not raised us, the
leaders, above the others so we may enjoy power for ourselves only. The power we
wield is for our people, for the ummah, for Islam. We must have the will to make
use of this power judiciously, prudently, concertedly. Insyaallah we will
triumph in the end.
I pray to Allah that this 10th Conference of the OIC in Putrajaya, Malaysia,
will give a new and positive direction to us, will be blessed with success by
Him, Almighty Allah, Arahman, Arahirn.
More about Zionism and Israel
