Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed's plain-speaking at the Organisation of Islamic Conference summit raises the hackles of the U.S. and Israel, to the discomfort of their Muslim allies.
A SPEECH by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed at the inaugural session of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) summit has created a media storm, overshadowing the important meeting. Mahathir is not known to mince words on contentious issues. It was evident at the Non-aligned Movement (NAM) summit held earlier this year in Kuala Lumpur that he was unhappy with the policies of the Bush administration. The majority of NAM countries also shared Mahathir's growing concern about the Bush administration's West Asia policy. Mahathir is retiring from politics on October 31 after holding the office of the Prime Minister for the last 22 years. Even his opponents credit him with transforming Malaysia into one of the most dynamic economies of the world.
At the OIC summit, Putrajaya, Malaysia's administrative capital, Mahathir was forthright in expressing his views on many of the issues affecting the Islamic world. Many Islamic nations are convinced that the United States has converted the war against terrorism into a war against Islam. The invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the unabashed support for Israel, and the pressure exerted on Syria and Iran, are instances that have convinced the majority of the international community, about the malevolent intentions of the current dispensation in the White House. Mahathir, in his long speech, touched on the disproportionate influence exerted by the Jewish-Israeli lobby in Washington's corridors of power. As Mahathir delivered his speech, the Bush administration was giving the green signal to the Israeli government to build the "apartheid wall" on Palestinian territory, which has made a mockery of the "road map for peace" promoted by Washington.
The Malaysian leader, in his speech, lamented the backwardness of Muslims. He said that the Islamic world had lessons to learn from the Jewish community. Mahathir blamed Islamic clerics for discouraging science and technology and emphasising only theological matters. "Reading to acquire knowledge is being interpreted as reading to acquire Islamic knowledge only," Mahathir said in a speech delivered at the School of Oriental and African Studies in mid-October. He said: "The Jews survived 2,000 years of pogroms not by hitting back but by thinking." He controversially went on to add that the "Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule by proxy". According to Mahathir, Jews are now getting "others to fight and die for them". Despite the barrage of criticism from the West, Mahathir has stuck to his guns. In fact, at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum summit in Bangkok, which followed soon after, Mahathir suggested that the U.S. and Israel were responsible for acts of "state terrorism" which were more destructive than the terrorism practised by "irregulars".
The Arab street as well as many Arab governments consider the occupation of Iraq by the U.S. forces as part of a conspiracy to help Tel Aviv realise its long-term goals in the region. It is a fact that until the late 1980s Tel Aviv considered Baghdad its main enemy. The bombing of Iraq's nuclear reactor is an illustration. Washington's winking at Israel's nuclear weapons programme while keeping a hawk's eye on Iran's, despite Teheran adhering to the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), is seen as yet another sign of the double standards adopted by the West in its dealings with Islamic countries. Many of the "neo-conservatives" in the Bush administration who masterminded the Iraq invasion - like Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defence Secretary; Elliot Abrams, who is in charge of the West Asia in the U.S. National Security Council; and Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defence for Defence Policy - were once advisers to Likud Party leader Binyamin Netanyahu when he made his successful bid for the Prime Minister's post in the mid-1990s. Richard Perle, another key "neo-con" strategist, has been an outspoken supporter of Israel.
Perle, who until early this year was the Chairman of the Defence Policy Board, called for an American military strike against Syria days after Israeli planes struck a target in Syria. In 1996, Perle, Feith and Douglas Wurmser, a special assistant to the U.S. State Department Chief Arms Controller, had drafted a joint war plan for Israel and the U.S. on behalf of the Likud Party led by Netanyahu. "Israel can shape its strategic environment in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on containing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right," the 1996 document said.
Mahathir has been unapologetic about his speech at the OIC summit. He told the delegates, representing 57 nations, that Muslims had gained "nothing" from fighting Israel for the last five decades. Mahathir suggested to his fellow Heads of State and delegates that Muslims use their political and economic leverage to achieve their goals. "In today's world, we wield a lot of political, economic and financial clout, enough to make up for our weakness in military terms," Mahathir said.
It was the first OIC summit held after the events of September 11, 2001. OIC summits are held once in three years. At the Malaysian government's initiative, for the first time two countries, Russia and the Philippines, were invited as observers to make the OIC more relevant. Present at the summit were President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of the Philippines. Conspicuously absent from the guest list was India, the country with the second largest Muslim population in the world.
THE presence of Putin at the summit may not have gone down well in Washington. Putin's principled stand on the Iraq issue has won him new friends and admirers in the Islamic world. Russia had made it clear that none of its troops will be heading for Iraq in the near future. Russia, along with France and Germany, has also made it clear that it is in no hurry to bail out the Bush administration financially in the context of Iraq.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Mahir expressed similar views during the summit. He said it was America's responsibility to get the job done in Iraq. "It is not our job to raise money. The main responsibility is the responsibility of the occupying power," he told the media covering the summit.
Malaysia and Russia have come to share a close relationship. Malaysia as the Chairman of both the NAM and the OIC is in a position to help Moscow extend its sphere of influence. New Delhi's relations with Mahathir are known to be frosty. The behind-the-scenes diplomatic manoeuvres at the NAM summit in Kuala Lumpur clearly reflected a divergence of opinion between the two governments. Mahathir had wanted in the final NAM document clear-cut criticism of the Israeli and U.S. moves to attack Syria. However, the OIC too has not been able to do much for the Palestinian people. Many OIC member-countries are too dependent, economically as well as politically, on the U.S., to do anything tangible for the Palestinian people. However, the Palestinian cause had been the rationale for the creation of the OIC in 1969. Though its members control two-thirds of the world's oil reserves, the OIC has not been able to influence Washington against blindly supporting Israel and its aggressive ways.
The summit ended without either passing a planned resolution on Iraq or endorsing the three-year-old "intifada" of the Palestinian people. The OIC only made a tepid call for the speedy restoration of Iraqi sovereignty. Interestingly, the Iraqi Governing Council has said that it is against the participation of peace-keepers from all Muslim countries in their country, not just Turkey and its immediate neighbours. The final communiqu "condemned the perpetration by Israel of crimes, murder, detention, destruction of homes, demolition of infrastructure and imposition of collective sanctions against the Palestinian people". The resolution also condemned the "Judaisation" of Jerusalem and described Israel's policies in the West Bank as "apartheid". The OIC was strongly critical of the American congressional vote calling for trade sanctions against Syria.
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, as expected, raised the Kashmir issue, arguing that the plight of the people of Jammu and Kashmir is a "core Islamic cause". He urged the OIC to "ask India to reconsider its rejectionist and belligerent posture". The overwhelming majority of OIC members are still of the view that the Kashmir problem is basically a territorial dispute between two countries that can be settled through mediation. The more radical among them feel that pro-western leaders like Musharraf are there in forums like the OIC to echo Washington's viewpoint on international issues.
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