Very recently Mahathir told an audience of Muslim statesmen that Jews rule the world and make others fight wars for themselves.
What is the straight dope on this charge of Mahathir.
The very telling fact is that the Western powers all jump up and down condemning Mahathir and acting like very officious apologists of Jews.
What are the faults of the Jews? Or are they the most misunderstood people in the world and in history, the chronic bigot victims of monotheistic civilizations?
Come to think about it, only monotheists like Christians and Muslims hate Jews. Jews must hate them in return. Non-monotheists don’t hate Jews.
But I like to hear from non-monotheists who have long and extensive associations with Jews; whether they, the Jews, deserve the hatred of fellow monothesits. Remember, the Jews are the ones who brought monotheism to the Western world.
Well, if the Jews rule the world, then it would seem that the slaughter of millions of 'em during World War II was faked, in order to garner support and sympathy.
In which case, they must be extremely well organized, and have infiltrated every organization on earth.
In which case… is it really wise to piss them off?
Jews have, indeed, been the traditional `whipping-boy’ of both Christians and Muslims. There are still Christians and Muslims who hate Jews, and there are some Jews who return that hate. Only recently (Vatican II, in the 1970s) did the Catholics officially state that Jews did not kill Jesus Christ, a charge they have been saddled with since the very beginnings of Christianity. Modern Muslim nations (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria) often have strongly anti-semetic leaders (anti-semetic, in this context, meaning anti-Jew).
But for all that, most people don’t hate Jewish people. Most people don’t really care about who is or isn’t a Jew, and most people really wish everyone who did care would shut the hell up.
As for reasons: Well, there aren’t any good ones. All of the traditional charges against Jews are absolute and utter crap (they don’t run the banks, let alone the world, they don’t use the blood of Christian babies to make their matzos (the `blood libel’ that was prevalent in the Dark Ages of Europe), they have never poisoned anyone’s wells (a charge dating to the 14th Century, during the Bubonic Plague), and they aren’t trying to lead African-Americans in a plot to ruin America), and though the behavior of Israel during the Palestinian Emergency is sometimes questionable, it only reflects on the leadership of one nation.
I’m confused. Are you suggesting that Jews DO rule the world? Or just that it’s their own fault if they’ve been persecuted around the world for a long, long time? Or whether Christian/Moslem/Jewish conflicts should be considered intramural?
The problem is that anti-Semites of all stripes seem to use the word “Jew” to mean whatever they hate and somehow associate with “Jewishness”. This includes, but is not limited to: Christianity, the free market, the media, capitalism, Evolution, democracy, Marxism, the rule of law, liberalism, & intellectualism.
Mahathir isn’t the first person to generally conflate the entire Western civilization with the Jews. Hitler was another.
To give credit where it’s due, Mahthir’s speech focused more broadly on the failure of Islamic civilization to sucessfully compete with the West.
That’s very true, Muslim civilization should wake up and do scientific thinking, read Straight Dope and all its materials; but eschew religious debates here, except for the exercise of critical thinking.
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*Originally posted by Susma Rio Sep * The very telling fact is that the Western powers all jump up and down condemning Mahathir and acting like very officious apologists of Jews.
The “Western” powers would all jump up and down condeming Mahathir if he had said blacks, whites, christians, zoroastrians, or just about any religious or ethnic group are ruling the world.
FYI - 99.99% of conspiracy theories are not true. The other 0.01% are doubtful.
Come to think about it, only monotheists like Christians and Muslims hate Jews. Jews must hate them in return. Non-monotheists don’t hate Jews.
Except for example Stalinist Russia - but perhaps that can also be considered monotheistic. :rolleyes:
If suddenly there were no more Jews the problems existing in the Muslim world would still be there.
I’m not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not, but the Arab world has contributed a lot to human understanding. They’ve given us algebra, for instance, whose name derives from Arabic. They’ve also made substantial contributions to astronomy; star names are Arabic. There are many others, if you’d care to do a little homework.
In any event, in Moorish Spain, Jews and Muslims lived together, side-by-side as neighbors. So there is precedence for friendship between the two religions.
Ah yes, I love to hear about ‘the Jews.’ Shall ask ‘the Jew’ playing hackey sack outside how he got such a stranglehold on the world? Or maybe I’ll head dow to the deli and demand an explanation from ‘the Jewess’ behind the counter. Cherrist.
That’s a topic for GD and I’m not going to get into that kettle of worms, except to say what do we (US) do to thwart terrorism? What if we had terrorist attacks originating out of Mexico or Canada?
Mahathir probably does not believe his own statement, but made it for political reasons.
Mahathir is an anti-semitic, ignoramus, who was addressing a whole bunch of other ignoramuses and bigots at that conference.
After Malayasia’s half-assed attempt at trying to backpaddle from their not too intelligent leader’s words of wisdom, Mahathir later said that all of the backlash against him further reinforces his original bigoted statements.
He also said that most other muslim countries share the same views as him, but they are afraid to express it. This I can believe, since they’re all making excuses for him.
But, didn’t you know this already? Did you think that the Jews, who’ve been an oppressed minority in ‘Christian countries’ for centuries are actually controlling those countries? Did you really think that? Did you actually believe in this extraordinary and racist charge condemned by most of the whole world, including many of the other Muslim leaders at the conference?
What evidence did Mahathir give to back up his claim that you thought was valid? Do you regularly believe such outlandish claims just because some national leader says so?
All of this was before the modern Islamic states were established. The philosophy there is quite different. It’s perfectly valid to say that anti-modern, anti-reason attitudes are widespread among the leadership of Islamic societies without worrying about what a totally different society did centuries ago.
The only thing this proves is that Jew-bashing can get you a big round of applause before the right audience. If going after lesbians would have given Mahathir a standing ovation, we’d now be hearing Ellen Degeneris’s complaints about his speech.
That wouldn’t make Degeneris an apologist: it would just mean she knows bullshit when she sees it, and so does pretty much everyone else who objected to Mahathir’s comments.
Personally, I kinda wish Jews did rule the world. A religion that promotes education and literacy but doesn’t convert people by force or view nonbelievers as “infidels”? Sounds like the best possible religion to me. I only hope that if they do end up in charge, they don’t go mad with power, just like that Albert Schweitzer guy.