February 25, 2003	Tuesday	Zul Hijjah 23, 1423

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KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24: Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia on Monday launched a strong attack on Israel and its backers, accused the Zionist movement of introducing terrorism to lands outside Europe, and said the Jewish militias had used terrorism to make Britain create the state of Israel.

Addressing the opening session of the 13th summit of the Non- Aligned Movement at the Putra World Trade Centre, the Malaysian prime minister made a speech that could be the envy of Yasser Arafat in his heyday.

The speech was characterized by brilliance, by uninhibited criticism of Israeli terrorism and its western supporters and by references to the history of Christian persecution of the Jews for 2000 years.

There was, he said, “no systematic campaign of terror outside Europe until the Europeans and the Jews created a Jewish state out of Palestinian land.”

Pointedly accusing the Zionist terror gangs Haganah and Irgun Zvai Leumi of terrorism, the Malaysian prime minister, who steps down in October, said these two terrorist militias were the first to use terrorism “to persuade the British to set up Israel.”

Observers noted that the Malaysian prime minister did not refer to Nazi crimes alone — a usual Western technique to confine the persecution of Jews to the Germans alone. Instead, he accused Europeans of persecuting the Jews by declaring: “The Israelis demanded European support to atone for European crimes against them in the past.”

Tracing the history of terrorism in the Middle East, Mr Mahathir Mohammad said the Palestinians were ejected from their “homes and country” and were forced to live in refugee camps for more than 50 years. Their struggle to regain their land led first to “conventional wars, then civil protest and eventually violent demonstrations.” In desperation, he said, the Palestinians resorted to “what is described as acts of terror.”

The world rightly condemned the acts, he said, but it did not condemn as “acts of terror the more terrifying acts of the Israelis — the massacres in Sabra and Shatila, the shooting and killing of children, the use of depleted uranium-coated bullets, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes while the occupants are still in them, the helicopter gunships, etc. And Israel is now threatening to use nuclear weapons.”

He condemned “these blatant double standards” and said if Iraq could be linked to Al Qaeda, “is it not more logical to link the expropriation of Palestinian land and the persecution and oppression of the Palestinians with September 11?”

Religious differences did not motivate those who attacked the World Trade Centre in New York, he said. Instead, “it is simply sympathy with and anger over the injustice and the oppression of the Palestinians, and Muslims everywhere” that led to these crimes.

What led to these attacks, he said, was support to “terrorism as practised by Israel and others.” If Israeli terrorism was a response to Palestinian terrorism, then Palestinian terrorism and terror acts by their sympathizers must be due to the expulsion of Palestinians from their land, the further occupation of Palestinian territory and the open support for Israeli intransigence and terrorism by the Europeans.”

He asked: “If the innocent who died in the attack on Afghanistan and those who have been dying from lack of food and medical care in Iraq are considered collaterals, are not the 3,000 who died in New York and the 200 in Bali also just collaterals whose deaths are necessary for the operations to succeed?”

Admitting that the world “is in a terrible mess,” Mr Mahathir Mohammad said the international community must ask why this was so. “Why is there terrorism? Is it true that the Muslims are born terrorists because of the teaching of a prophet who was a terrorist? How do we explain the pogroms, the inquisitions and the holocaust which characterized Christian Europe for almost 2000 years. Why did the Jews choose to seek haven in Muslim countries whenever Christian Europeans persecute them? Do people seek safety in the land of terrorists?”

The Christians too were terrorized, he said, “but not by Muslims but by fellow Christians who condemned them as heretics. They were persecuted, tortured, burnt at the stakes for their beliefs and forced to emigrate. It seems that the Muslims did not have a monopoly of terrorism, certainly not at the scale of the holocaust, the pogroms and the inquisition.”

Criticizing UN sanctions against Iraq, Mr Mahathir Mohammad said applying sanctions, denying access to medicine in order to force the acceptance of democracy were hardly democratic methods of achieving aims. Millions had died, he said, because “they have not converted to the new religion (of democracy).”

The Malaysian prime minister, who on Monday took over as NAM chairman from South African President Thabo Mbeki, launched a frontal attack on globalization and said: “The capitalist free traders have ceased to show a friendly face, because they did not have to compete with the communist world. Their greed knows no bounds and they are not above cheating and corruption.” What was the meaning of competition, he said, “if you cannot win at all?”

There were “currency traders who destroyed the economies of half the world, threw tens of millions out of work, bankrupted banks and thousands of businesses, caused the collapse of governments and precipitated anarchy; all so that half a dozen individuals can make billions for themselves.

“Now the rich give no more aid. They do not lend either. And all the time the international agencies they control try to strangle the debt-laden poor countries which had been attacked by their greedy market manipulators.” Globalization, the prime minister said, must not be confined to the exploitation of the wealth of the earth only. Globalization, he said, “must include the multilateral protection of countries threatened by war or hegemony.”

He said NAM must strive to create a world where democracy is not confined to the internal governance of states only but to the governance of the world. We must work for the revival of the United Nations and mulilateralism. We must work to do away or modify the powers of the victors of a war fought half a century ago.”

He said international lending agencies monitored human rights in a globalized world, then an agency “beholden” to the UN General Assembly should oversee the military budgets of all countries.