This whole "Jewish menace" thing has been blown totally out of proportion.

Colin Powell has agreed that the bulk of Dr. Mahathir's speech contains "a lot of ideas and good things". Powell had taken the trouble to read the text of the whole speech by the Prime Minister after it had sparked off a lot of adverse reaction in the Western world.

There is no part of the speech where Dr. Mahathir calls for the destruction of the Jews. If anything, he has rejected all forms of violence, including suicide bombings.

If you were to read the full text of Dr. Mahathir's speech (attached), it will become very clear that the Western media has simply lifted a few lines out of his lengthy speech, taken it totally out of context, and have magnified it. There is no part of the speech where Dr. Mahathir calls for the destruction of the Jews. If anything, he has rejected all forms of violence, including suicide bombings. In fact, he has asked the Muslim world to learn from the Jews! More than that, you will see that he admonishes his fellow Muslims far more than he admonishes the Jews!

There was an earlier emergency OIC Meeting in Kuala Lumpur in 2002. At that meeting, Dr. Mahathir defined the word "terrorists" as anyone who targets civilians. He included Palestinian suicide bombers as being terrorists in his definition. This sparked outrage amongst many within the Islamic world. Yet, he stood his ground. The fact that he has blasted the Islamic world then and now, has been ignored by the Western media, which has chosen to simply cherry pick comments, taking them out of context.

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"If part of the United States or Britain had been given to the Jews as Israel, they would fight back. Then why do you expect the Palestinians to accept to be expelled from their own country and their country taken and given to the Jews? It is not religion at all, it is territorial. You take somebody's land, of course they will fight for it." - Dr Mahathir Mohamad

Dr. Mahathirs biggest mistake was that he used the blanket term "Jew" throughout his speech. Had he used more specific terms, such as the "Sharon administration" or "Israeli Government" and other more politically correct language, his speech would have been somewhat more palatable. Perhaps, his actual message would have gone out. We would not even be discussing this issue right now, if this were the case.

Having said that, the Western media casually uses the word blanket term "Islamic terrorist" very often in their coverage. Why not Christian terrorist, Buddhist terrorist, Hindu terrorist or Jewish terrorist? This leads to charges within the Islamic world that the West is anti-Islamic.

Dr. Mahathir's alleged "anti-semetic" statements come only days before the US Undersecretary of Defense, Lt. General William Boykin was accused of making anti-Islamic statements (Washington Post) . The Western media has allowed debates of Boykin's statements, with people both slamming as well as defending Boykin's statement. I saw one such debate on CNN a few days ago, where one person defending Boykin, stated that Boykin's statements were taken out of context. However, CNN refuses to report that Dr. Mahathir's point that his speech was taken out of context. Instead, CNN continues to highlight a few lines out of Dr. Mahathirs lengthy speech, and begins to spin a web of deceit around it. (Incidentally, I do not have the full transcript of Lt. General William Boykin's speech, so I am not going to comment on it).

Is Dr. Mahathir anti-semetic? Dr.Mahathir may be many things, but having said that, I don't think he is anti-semetic. Neither do many Muslim and non-Muslim Malaysians. Allow me to explain.

Dr. Mahathir lived through the brutal Japanese occupation of Malaya. He knows all too well what a Holocaust is all about. What the Japanese Imperial Army did to the people of Malaya, was no different from what the Nazi's did to the Jews. The Japanese general in charge, General Tomoyuki Yamashita - the Tiger of Malaya - was executed for war crimes. The only difference between our Holocaust and the Jewish Holocaust is the scale, and that we don't have Hollywood making movies about what happened here. It is a pity, for the memories of this painful period is only remembered by the older generation of Malaysians who underwent this horrific experience, but not the younger generation. Would Dr.Mahathir not empathize with the Jews who went through the Nazis concentration camps? It is silly not to think so. Afterall, he lived through our version of the Holocaust, the Japanese Occupation of Malaya.

"They must never think they are the chosen people who cannot be criticised at all. They suffered a great deal in the past. They were killed, they were massacred and finally there was the Holocaust. We sympathise with them. We are very sad to see how the Jews were ill-treated by the Europeans. They must remember when they were ill-treated by Europeans they had to run to Muslim countries to seek refuge. The Muslims never ill-treated the Jews, but now they are behaving exactly how the Europeans behaved towards them against the Muslims." - Dr Mahathir Mohamad

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Those who say that Dr.Mahathir is an anti-semite do not realize that he was prepared to restore full diplomatic relations with Israel at the time when the Rabin-Arafat negotiations were going well. For a while, local TV news stopped referring to the Israeli government as the "Zionist regime". Mahathir even arranged for an Israeli cricket team to come to Malaysia, despite demonstrations from the hardline Islamic party, PAS ( STICKY WICKET - Israeli cricketers survive loud Malaysian appeals ). Only two weeks before the arrival of the Israeli cricket team, and without the attendant publicity, the Malaysian Government sponsored the visit of a group of 17 year-old Israeli students accompanied by senior officials from the Israeli Education Ministry. Malaysian authorities reportedly insisted that the Israeli teenagers be Jewish, because they wanted to show their guests that Islam in Malaysia was moderate and tolerant, rather than extremist.

Full diplomatic relations would have meant that Malaysian Christians could have made pilgrimages to Israel. All that changed when Rabin was assassinated, and other hardline Israeli leaders took office.

Much has been alleged about Dr.Mahathir being anti-semetic. The paradox here is that Dr. Mahathir actually has several Jewish friends ( BBC News, Talking Point). How can this be if he is anti-semetic?

An Israeli named Israel Shamir visited Malaysia, and even wrote a paper entitled "The Malaysian Solution" (www.israelshamir.net ). How could Shamir's visit to Malaysia have happened, if Dr. Mahathir himself had not approved it?

It would appear strange for an alleged 'anti-semite' like Dr. Mahathir to have Jewish financial advisors, but this is a fact. The official financial advisors to the Malaysian government, Salomon Smith Barney and Goldman Sachs, are Jewish (http://www.mainichi.co.jp/english/mahathir/02.html).

Mahathirs daughter, Marina, condemned Malaysian Censor Board over their decision not to screen the movie "Schindlers List". She stated that what happened to the Jews were the same things happening to Bosnian Muslims at the time. And those of us Malaysians who got to see the movie, were horrified by what we saw. Would Dr. Mahathir not approve of what his daughter has done?

How then can people say that Dr. Mahathir is anti-semetic on the basis of his most recent OIC speech? This is ludicrous.

The problem here, is that no one can criticize the Israeli Government without being branded an "anti-semetic", or a "Nazi".

Christopher John is an electical engineer and entrepeneur who writes about world events and Malaysian political issues. He has been travelling the world and observing global politics for over 20 years. You can see more of his writings on sites such as Yer.US, and www.GarnetChaney.com.