Malaysiakini following populist prejudice in using Mahathir’s ‘Zionist regime’ term
Pix: The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini with Hitler
By Hartal MSM
What kind of reporting is it by this Richard Loo Wai Hoong in Malaysiakini?
His article titled ‘Dr M not anti-Jews, say seminar speakers’ starts with “Speakers at a seminar disputed that Dr Mahathir Mohamad was anti-Jewish, despite his former vocal criticism against the Zionist regime.”
First of all, when you use a loaded phrase like ‘Zionist regime’ and this immediately in your intro, you either betray the seminar bias or your own shallow understanding of the genesis of Zionism. That is, if you’re even aware of its historical development at all.
Do you know what led to the Holocaust, Richard Loo? Do you realize what kind of deep suspicion was harboured against this persecuted race so that Europeans and some Palestinians [read this link] could become the willing executioners of the Nazi ‘Final Solution’?
If not for Zionism, more than the six million Jews would have been exterminated.
We suggest that if reading a stack of history and factual books is too much for Richard, he can at least sit down and watch Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List.
Come to think of it, since Malaysiakini is going to allow its reporters to be so casual and irresponsible with word usage, we might actually see articles peppered with the description ‘Umno apartheid regime’ in future as the standard term every time there is coverage of Malaysia.
However, for the present, in employing the term ‘Zionist regime’, we have to say that Malaysiakini is just following blindly the populist prejudice.
And when Richard Loo writes “despite [Mahathir’s] former vocal criticism”, does Richard mean the ex-PM is no longer vocal and he no longer criticizes?
Hullo, hullo, hullo! The seminar you attended was organized by the Perdana Leadership Foundation, for Pete’s sake! PLF is ALL about the old man and was set up especially for the old man. It’s like attending a gathering by the Ku Klux Klan and hearing its speakers say “Oh hell, no, our Grand Wizard ain’t no black hater” and swallowing the kool aid.
Richard, did you not read your own Malaysiakini archives to prepare for the assignment before simply coming back to hit the keyboard and banging out your ignorance for print and posterity?
Click this link, http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/122385 and read Mahathir’s speech only not too long ago: “The Palestinians must be sacrificed to save the Europeans from the depradations [sic] of the Jews.
“The Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom. Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world. The Holocaust failed as a final solution. Creating a state for them was thought to be a better solution. It could be if some European territory had been allocated to make a permanent ghetto for the Jews.
“But of course if this was done the affected European state would rise in arms and kill all the Jews the way they had been doing before.”
And here is a link that compiles his utterances on Jews over the years.
Mahathir has a long history of controversial comments about Jews, dating from The Malay Dilemma and likely prior.
Malaysiakini has done a disservice to its readers to trivialize his ethnic bigotry (we’re avoiding the phrase ‘anti-Semitism’ as Arabs are Semitic people too and Malay Muslims can’t be anti-Arab, can they, as their revered Prophet is Arab) against the Jewish people.
The last time in 2003 when Mahathir said, “We [Muslims] are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them”, there was a firestorm of protest around the world.
The “reprehensible” speech was criticized by Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, as well as the governments of the United States, Germany and Italy (then holder of the EU presidency) as well as by other conscionable, civilized countries.
“Prime Minister Mahathir’s bluster and polarizing rhetoric are not new,” a senior US administration official was quoted by CNN as saying in response. “But his most recent hate-filled remarks further cement his legacy of outrageous and misguided public statements.”
You know what? It does seem as if Mahathir is positively gleeful each time he mentions how many millions of Jews were wiped out. He’s surely the divine inspiration to this fellow Holocaust admirer, see ‘Does Ridhuan Tee endorse Hitler’s genocide?‘
A little word of advice to Malaysiakini (and we say this as your friend and with helpful intention):
Journalism is not stenography where you send a reporter to a function to take notes of what a speaker says and then allow him to return and regurgitate the transcription verbatim for readers. Piecing together a coherent narrative requires at least some maturity, knowledge and exposure to a varied understanding, including of geopolitics and history.
We suspect that Ong Kian Ming, the seminar speaker quoted, was more nuanced in his delivery. Unfortunately we don’t see that the Malaysiakini reporter applied enough due diligence – and might we add, due intelligence – to interpreting the seminar proceedings and its context as a Mahathir public relations vehicle.
hartalmsm.wordpress.com 
Don’t believe anything this shenanigan has to say !
He just recently said he is glad not to have censored Internet
without admitting that he did so then because he did not have a
choice but to do so, no doubt he would have done it if only he
had the choice.
A real bloody hypocrite and a shenanigan he is !
He is a disgrace to the half breed that he is and most of all to all
the muslims in this world. How can he help to promote Islam with his
behavior ? Any wonder why he did not implement a policy to enforce
all the non muslims to become muslims if the non muslims wish to
stay in Malaysia during his tenure as P.M. ? One more atrocity would
not have meant anything to him when he had committed so many.