It's a pity Mahathir's true message didn't register

On the other hand, the speech was very well-received in the Muslim world which, let us not forget, was its intended audience, and many are genuinely puzzled as to the furore that Mahathir's words have set off. Those who are not puzzled feel that the firestorm underscores Mahathir's point about Jewish domination of the world and believe that he has merely had the courage to articulate what everyone in the Muslim world believes but no-one else dares to say.

Both these views, however, miss the point.

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First, in the West no-one appears to have read the entire speech which is why they are reacting to it as though it were nothing more than an 4000-word rant against "the Jews." As it so happens, this was not at all the principal subject of Mahathir's speech. Mahathir's speech was in fact a powerful critique of the flaws and failings of the Muslim world and a clarion call to action for the Muslim world to overcome its weaknesses.

Had the New York Times editorial board taken the time to actually read the speech in its entirety, it might have helped to clear up the paper's apparent mystification over why Egyptian foreign minister Ahmed Maher thought the speech a "very wise assessment" and "even" Hamid Karzai called the speech "very correct."

"Jews rule the world, says Mahathir" read the BBC crawl across the bottom of my computer screen the day after the speech. This is what the BBC thought fit to highlight about Mahathir's 4000-word call to the Muslims to take control of their own destiny.

In focusing on this one relatively insignificant aspect of his speech and ignoring the rest, the Western media went a long way towards making Mahathir's point for him.

But Mahathir's unquestioning defenders have also got hold of the wrong end of the stick. In the first place, it is equally mistaken to applaud Mahathir for issuing a courageous denunciation of Jews and the influence they wield. This was not Mahathir's message and understanding his speech as such would be to ignore its actual meaning every bit as much as commentators in Europe and the US have. In fact, in his speech Mahathir spoke of Jews almost admiringly and referred to them primarily in order to contrast the condition of Jews in the world with that of Muslims and to exhort Muslims to emulate their success: "They survived 2000 years of pogroms not by hitting back, but by thinking."

To understand Mahathir's speech as a denunciation of Jews is to miss the point entirely. The main point of the speech was that it is self-defeating for Muslims to blame others for the conditions in which they find themselves and that the way forward is for Muslims to empower themselves and take control of their own lives and destinies. "I will not enumerate the instances of our humiliation and oppression, nor will I once again condemn our detractors and oppressors. It would be an exercise in futility because they are not going to change their attitudes just because we condemn them. If we are to recover our dignity and that of Islam, our religion, it is we who must decide, it is we who must act."

Mahathir's speech should be neither attacked nor defended as a denunciation of "the Jews."

This is not to say that Mahathir's speech was entirely trouble-free. The trouble with his speech is that fine sentiments such as those quoted above were undermined by the simplistic language he used when speaking about "the Jews."

Don't get me wrong. I do not equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.

One can have sincere philosophical problems with the creation of Israel and its continued existence as an apartheid that treats its non-Jews as second-class citizens without being an anti-Semite.

One can deplore Israel's continued military occupation of the West Bank and the disgraceful conditions under which Palestinians in the occupied territories must suffer without being anti-Semite.

One can comment on the fact that US foreign policy is biased towards Israel largely due to the disproportionate political influence wielded by the pro-Israel lobby or that the media in the US is heavily biased towards Israel in their coverage of the Middle East without being anti-Semite.

These are coherent and eminently defensible points of view that are shared by many Jews.

Indeed, some of the most powerful critiques of Israel and its supporters that I have read have been written by Noam Chomsky, Eric Alterman and Norman Finkestein -- all of them Jews.

But there is a difference between this kind of critique and statements such as: "But today the Jews rule this world by proxy."

In the first place, it is simplistic and simple-minded to talk about "the Jews" as though Jews are a monolithic block. Like everyone else, Jews are individuals -- they can be liberal and conservative, bigoted and fair-minded, pro-Israeli and anti-Israeli. One can no more speak of "the Jews" than one can of "the Blacks" or "the Bangladeshis" for that matter. To bundle together an entire nation or people under one convenient heading is nothing more than intellectual laziness.

Perhaps Mahathir meant to say that Israel has succeeded in co-opting US foreign policy. Or even that Jews -- taken together as a people -- have achieved success and wield power and influence far in excess of their numerical strength. But this is quite different from stating that "the Jews rule this world by proxy."

Mahathir even conceded as much in his speech. He allowed that "even among the Jews there are many who do not approve of what the Israelis are doing." But this begs the question, if many Jews do not approve of what Israel is doing, how is it possible to speak of "the Jews" as though they were one indivisible entity? It is simply a failure of the intellect to think in those terms.

Let's be frank. Statements such as "they invented and successfully promoted socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with others" are just plain embarrassing. These are not words that a man of Mahathir's calibre should want attributed to or even associated with him.

No-one comes out of this looking well. The commentators and leaders who have obsessed on a few sentences ripped out of context out of a thoughtful 4000-word speech have done nothing more than make Mahathir's point for him that the Western media is only too ready to portray Islam in a negative light.

But at the same time Mahathir has himself undermined an otherwise brilliant uplifting address with a few words that make him sound like an ignorant bigot. Mahathir is by no means an ignorant bigot. He is a highly intelligent, educated and capable man who has provided visionary leadership both to his people and to the people of the developing world for the past two decades.

He should have known better than to give his opponents this kind of opening to discredit both him and the Muslim world. He should have known that the furore over a few poorly-conceived words about "the Jews" would eclipse the true meaning and import of his address, and that the public perception of Islam would thus be diminished at a time when it can ill afford it.

Zafar Sobhan is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Star