GUARDIAN: JEW-HATE IS MODERATE, RESERVED AND COURTEOUS

’Father’ of Malaysia savages Bush and Blair.
Mahathir Mohamad, modern Malaysia's founding father and moderate Islam's self-styled champion, denounced the Bush administration yesterday as a "rogue regime" bent on terrorising innocent civilians. He also said he was disappointed that Tony Blair, who he called a "proven liar", had won re-election after joining the US invasion of Iraq.

Reflecting the rage felt across the Muslim world over abuse scandals in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, and continuing violence in Palestine and Iraq, Mr Mahathir said President George Bush and other US politicians were “ignorant” people who believed might made right - a return to colonial-era “old thinking”.

Speaking to the Guardian at his offices in Putrajaya, near Kuala Lumpur, Mr Mahathir also claimed that the Israeli government had been given a free hand by Washington to continue to expropriate Palestinian land and entrench its control over Jerusalem. The war on terror would not end until the Middle East conflict was justly resolved, he said.

Asked whether he regretted his statement that “Jews rule the world by proxy”, which caused an international furore in 2003, Mr Mahathir said he took nothing back.

“US politicians are scared stiff of the Jews because anybody who votes against the Jews will lose elections. The Jews in America are supporting the Jews in Israel. Israel and other Jews control the most powerful nation in the world. And that is what I mean [about Jews controlling the world]. I stand by that view.”

On his balcony overlooking the tower blocks, mosques, bridges and artificial lakes of Putrajaya, Malaysia’s new administrative capital which he created in the 1990s, Mr Mahathir, 79, cuts a slight, almost self-effacing figure. His personal manner is reserved and courteous to a fault.