On July 9, 20,000 Malaysians gathered in Kuala Lumpur to demand more transparency in electoral laws in connection with next year's national elections.
Police unleashed tear gas and chemical-laced water on the demonstrators and temporarily detained nearly 1,700 of them. According to reports, authorities also detained six opposition activists without trial and accused them of trying to use the rally to spread communism. Police said they found T-shirts and other materials linked to communist figures.
Apparently, these measures didn't suffice for some of Malaysia's nervous ruling elite. The editors of Utusan Malaysia, owned by Prime Minister Najib Razak's United Malays National Organization ruling party (UMNO), defaulted to a time-tested maneuver: When in doubt, blame the Jews!
The Jews? Most citizens of the overwhelmingly Asian economic giant have never and will likely never meet a Jew in their lifetime. And yet the folks at Utusan Malaysia, which is influential among Muslims in rural areas who rely on government-linked media to shape their worldview, are apparently confident warnings about a "Jewish plot" would resonate in a land without Jews.
To understand why, you need only look at the track record of the man who dominated his nation for a quarter of a century, Malaysia's fourth prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad.
Mahathir was credited with engineering Malaysia's rapid modernization and spectacular economic growth. He was a dominant political figure, winning five consecutive general elections. He also used his political clout and controversial laws to detain activists and political opponents.
And Mahathir is an anti-Semite.
Back in 1970, in his treatise on Malay identity, "The Malay Dilemma," he wrote: "The Jews are not only hooked-nosed ... but understand money instinctively. ... Jewish stinginess and financial wizardry gained them the economic control of Europe and provoked antisemitism which waxed and waned throughout Europe through the ages."
In August 1984, a visit by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra was canceled when his Information Minister demanded that music by composer Ernst Bloch be deleted from the program. His crime? He was a Jew and the selection chosen was based on Hebrew melodies.
In 1986, Mahathir charged "Zionists" and Jews with attempting to destabilize the country through allegedly Jewish-controlled media. He subsequently banned The Asia Wall Street Journal for three months describing the publication as "Jewish owned." In the 1990s, Mahathir used the Malaysian news agency, Bernama, to accuse Australian Jewry of conspiring to topple him.
Mahathir, who made Islam a central component of Malaysian identity, made this chilling charge in 1997: "We are Moslems, and the Jews are not happy to see Moslems progress."
Perhaps that would help explain the resounding ovation which greeted his screed at a Islamic Leadership Conference in 2003: "The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million ... but today, the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them."
And just last year the elder statesman of anti-Semites said this at a conference: "Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had been confined in ghettos and periodically massacred. But they still remained and still thrived and held whole governments to ransom. ... Even after their massacre by the Nazis in Germany, they survived to be a source of even greater problems to the world."
All this may help explain why Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and the infamous "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are on prominent display at the Malaysian capital's International Airport.
But there are some signs that in 2011 not everyone is drinking Mahathir's toxic Kool-Aid. Maria Chin Abdullah, one of the organizers of the mass rally that sought to prevent electoral fraud, charged that Utusan Malaysia's warning of an alleged Jewish conspiracy was "nonsense that is being spread in very bad taste," adding, "To rely on this claim of Jewish support is to insult the people's good intentions of seeking important reforms."
Perhaps Kuala Lumpur hasn't paid much attention to the Arab Spring. Maybe its time they did, especially since it was inspired by Muslims demanding more freedom and democracy. It isn't world Jewry that is driving members of minorities to the streets of Kuala Lumpur, but the failure of a democratic government to provide equal rights and opportunities to all their citizens. It's time for Malaysian leaders to grow up. Relying on big-lie Jewish conspiracies is no substitute for honest and transparent governance.
Follow Rabbi Abraham Cooper on Twitter: www.twitter.com/simonwiesenthal
Mira Sucharov: The Risks of Jewish Particularism
Malaysia's casual anti-Semitism. - By Carl Schrag - Slate Magazine
Jewish Political Studies Review - Malaysia: Anti-Semitism without Jews
Part of the problem is that the Malaysian government is an oligarchical monarchy that displays a strong inclination to single party politics that violate human rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia#Governance
http://www.hrw.org/asia/malaysia
http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/malaysia
First, Arabs are not "Ishmaelites." There is not a single written record that any Arab anywhere can show to prove a direct descent from Ishmael, it is a myth invented in Islamic times after some Nabateans converted to Judaism that they "discovered" their new found link to Ishmael. Second, Arabs aren't Semites, well mostly. It is the Arabic LANGUAGE which is Semitic, with its roots in the ancient languages spoken by the Sabeans and Nabateans. As an example Ghe'ez and Amharic are Semitic languages of the Ethiopians, but those people are Kushites, not Semites. Arabs are primarily Hamitic, with a relevant Semitic contribution.
Why his alleged "anti-semitism" suddenly becomes an issue at this very moment is beyond me.
Off course, if other arguments are insufficient, accusing someone of "anti-semitism" because you dislike him, is becoming a little bit boring, and since even people like Jimmy Carter or Desmond Tutu have been accused of being "anti-semites", it is perhaps time to try a different approach.
His comments about Jews who "rule the world by proxy and get others to fight and die for them." is totally deplorable, but should be seen in the context of 2003, when he made them, as the Americans were unleashing their appraised "shock and awe" program on a defenseless Iraqi population, killing tens of thousands in the process, and leaving many Muslims believing that the Iraq war was started, in part or in full, because of the wishes of Israel to weaken their most important opponents in the region.
As for "music by composer Ernst Bloch be deleted from the program", that is also deplorable, as music is supposed to bring people together and not drive them apart, but it made me wonder if it is considered acceptable today for Daniel Barenboim and his Israeli / Arab Orchestra to perform Wagner in Israel?
Those who want to beat a dog will always find a stick.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/8659814/Hitler-and-Wagner.html
Did I say that Wagner was a wonderful character? No.
Did I say he wrote wonderful music? Yes.
I just wonder why HuffPost finds that inappropriate to show.
If you start a text demonising the entire people of a nation for the actions of a few, you already use any sort of "moral" high ground in your argument because of the intrinsically racist character of your title / caption alone.
However, I am glad to report that as a Malaysian, the government's rabid anti-Semitic dogma (yes, dogma) is not shared by a large number of the Malaysian population. We know the accomplishment of the Jews and respect many of their achievements. However, this is often overshadowed by the publicity generated by the mindless and often insensitive antics of the ruling party. We should choose better people to run this country. However, it is an uphill task because of systematic electoral irregularities and uneven playing field.
The July BERSIH (coalition for clean elections) rally was precisely for that purpose, to call for fair and free elections so that people in power know that they will be shown the door if they do not honour the people's will. We ask for international empathy and moral support during this difficult journey that we are traversing here in Malaysia. Stand by us and help us inch close to freedom day by day.
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/App/TalkBack/CdaViewOpenTalkBack/0,11382,L-4098821-2,00.html
Time to clean up your own people.
Please understand that it's not ALL Malaysians who think like this.
There are more balanced views at sites like Malaysia Today- Net :
Free Malaysia Today...
http://malaysia-today.net/mtcolumns/guest-columnists/42308-in-malaysia-when-in-doubt-blame-the-jews-
as quoted by a reader....NOT ALL Malaysians....
"...Your title should be Malay leaders in Malaysia. Only 60% of Malaysians are Malay but only 192 of these Malays rule the country ... they are all dUMNO members.
So it is these 192 that are trying to propagate the Jew agenda to their rural brethren. Luckily, only 50% of these 60% folks are buying their lies and spins."
There are many Malaysians who love, respect and appreciate the Jewish contributions to the World and are color blind....
There are quite a handful of our Jewish bretheren living peacefully amongst us...
Like another reader who so rightfully pointed out, we are ALL children of Nabi Ibrahim...( Abraham...)
May Almighty G_D patiently teach us to " look at ourselves, and stop blaming everything and everyone else....
In the Malay culture, we are taught not to point with our second finger, it is more polite to point with the Thumb, and perhaps it will help us remember, that if and when we have to point with our thumb, there are 4 other fingers pointing back at us...
A Malaysian...
According to Wikipedia, there are only two Jews who hold Malaysian passports. TWO. There were quite a few others in the past, but they were all chased out. There's a synagogue in Singapore, but that's no longer Malaysia.
Going back a bit further, there is the Stern Gang, Irgun, Lehi, the Gush Emunim Underground, the JDL and its fair-haired child and hero, Baruch Goldstein.
If you ever paid any attention to any people other than yours, you'd know that.
Much easier to do that than to accept responsibility!
So long as someone is oppressing someone somewhere. Let us just get along!
You need more fans and faves!
Kuwait is tiny and oil rich so yes there is one.
Aluminum …US$317.3 million (23.7% of the UAE to U.S. exports, up 17.6% from 2006)
Uncut or unset diamonds … $105.1 million (7.8%, down 28.8%)
Cotton apparel and household goods … $99.5 million (7.4%, down 36%)
Advanced iron and steel products … $44.8 million (3.3%, down 38.1%)
Cloth, fabrics, cords and threads … $30.9 million (2.3%, up 46.5%)
Non-cotton apparel and household goods … $25.4 million (1.9%, down 11.1%)
Fish and shellfish … $21.5 million (1.6%, down 16.3%)
Boxes, belting, glass and abrasives … $15.1 million (1.1%, up 14%).
Petroleum products including oil and gas represent a little over 20% of UAE’s exports to the U.S. last year.
Read more at Suite101: Top UAE Exports & Imports: United Arab Emirates Exports More Aluminum Than Oil to the U.S. | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/top-uae-exports-imports-a58360#ixzz1SwooE0PW
The media keeps comparing Malaysians' desire for political reform with the Arab Spring. As a Malaysian, I disagree. The sentiments are very different. I just want a clean and fair election; for my vote to count.