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Stand with W vs. anti-Semitism
By Abraham H. Foxman
National Director of the Anti-Defamation League
This op-ed originally appeared in the Daily News on October 22, 2003.
Posted: October 22, 2003
President Bush was absolutely right to excoriate Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for his call for a final victory against the Jews who "rule the world by proxy."
Mahathir had taken the already incendiary issue of global anti-Semitism to new and more dangerous heights. His remarks fanned the flames for holy war against Jews.
Lest anyone doubt his sentiments, the prime minister made clear his thoughts in The Bangkok Post, where he blamed the Western media and Jews for stoking the controversy. "The reaction of the world," Mahathir said, "shows that they [Jews] do control the world."
The forum and timing of Mahathir's speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference make it one of the most perilous anti-Semitic addresses since the time of the Nazis. In the audience were the leaders of 57 nations. Many, if not most, of those states have had an explosion of anti-Semitism over the last three years.
Surveys indicate that a significant part of the populations in these countries believe the big lie that Jews were responsible for carrying out the terrorist events of 9/11. Many leaders and intellectuals in those states have disseminated the idea that the Holocaust did not happen or was greatly exaggerated by world Jewry to win support for Israel.
There has been a proliferation of anti-Semitic stereotypes - Jews as Nazis, Jews drinking the blood of Muslims, Jews controlling America - in state-controlled media. And Muslims in European countries, inspired by this outburst from Islamic media and the Internet, have committed hundreds of acts of anti-Semitism.
In the 1930s and '40s, we saw where such a campaign of hatred can lead. The Nazi technique of the big lie - telling an untruth over and over until it is accepted - is alive and well. It was embodied in Mahathir's comments.
Mahathir's hatred is particularly lethal because there is the potential for exploitation of his message through terrorism, suicide bombs and, ultimately, weapons of mass destruction. It is no idle thought to believe that terrorists and would-be terrorists will take Mahathir's message as a call to holy war against the Jews and try to implement it on small and large scales, whether in Israel or around the world.
This amounts to a great threat to Jewish security. As has been said many times, Jews are the canary in the coal mine, sounding the first alarm. We all know that concerted attacks against the Jewish people will not stop there but will endanger the civilized world and democratic institutions wherever they exist.
That gets to the issue of complicity. Adolf Hitler could never have carried out his agenda without the complicity - active and passive - of so many. Where were the voices at the summit conference to stand up with Bush and say Mahathir's words were evil and unacceptable?
Now is the time for world leaders to denounce not only Mahathir's words but the anti-Semitism that has gripped significant parts of the Islamic and Arab worlds like a fever.
After World War II, many falsely claimed they didn't know. No one can say that today. The time for good people to stand up is now.
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