Outrage? What outrage?

Presidents and Prime Ministers from all over the world strongly condemned Mahathir Mohamad's "Jews run the world" speech. President Bush even told Mahathir, right to his face, that the speech was offensive and wrong. But one world leader has been noticably silent.

Do I even have to tell you which one?

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien failed yesterday to join the international outrage over Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's public pronunciation that Jews "rule this world by proxy" and that Muslims should rise against them for a "final victory."

Mr. Chrétien shook Mr. Mahathir's hand and said nothing about the controversy when the two men met yesterday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit of 21 world leaders.
[...]
Mr. Chrétien said he did not speak with Mr. Mahathir when he met him yesterday for the first time since his remarks last week.

Asked afterwards what he thought of Mr. Mahathir's comments, the prime minister said: "The minister of foreign affairs expressed the views of the government on that."

When asked what he personally thought, Mr. Chrétien said: "It's the view of the government he expressed."

Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Kimberly Phillips said Canadian officials called Dennis Ignatius, Malaysian high commissioner to Ottawa, on the carpet yesterday to "register our condemnation" of Mr. Mahathir's comments.

"We emphasized that religious tolerance is a cherished Canadian value," Ms. Phillips said.

So is being too timid to tell a world leader he's a disgusting antisemite, appearently. I don't want to sound like a conspirozoid here, but something tells me Bombardier will announce a major deal to rebuild the Kuala Lampur subway system in a few days.

By the way, Moonbat Mahathir is now saying the outrage over his comments (from nations other than Canada) proves that Jews really do run the world.

Mahathir Mohamad, Asia's longest serving prime minister, said on Tuesday that the international outcry over his comments that Jews ruled the world by proxy proved that he was right.

"The reaction of the world shows that they control the world," he said in an interview with the Bangkok Post, during which he expanded on his theories of Jewish power and influence while also explaining that his comments were taken out of context.
[...]
In his defence, Mr Mahathir said: "I have friends who are Jews." He mentioned that he had invited the Israeli cricket team to play in Malaysia, as well as Israeli schoolchildren to meet Muslim and Chinese schoolchildren in Malaysia. "We don't want to kill them," he said.

Mr Mahathir said his efforts to bridge the gap between Muslims and Israelis got "blacked out" by the press, because "many newspapers are owned by the Jews".

"They have a powerful influence over the thinking of many people," Mr Mahathir said, while "the Muslims, we are pictured as terrorists, unreasonable people, unable to administer our countries." [emphasis added]

Mahathir goes on to say the Americans must try to figure out the "root causes" or terrorism: "You have to find out why they want to crash a plane into a huge building. It is a horrible way to die. There must be a reason."

Hey, Mahathir: I'd say people like you are part of the reason, you disgusting asshole.

Posted by damian at October 21, 2003 11:30 AM