Welcome to Mahathir's World

According to Mr. Mohammed, President Bush said nothing to him about his, er, remarks at the Muslim conference the other week. I guess the President must have been lying to appease the World Jewish Conspiracy.

Now, Mahathir, who can't get out of office soon enough, is at it again:

"Some people say that we here have no freedom of religion," Mahathir said Wednesday, in a clear reference to the United States, without mentioning it by name. "In reality, the people in that country are the ones who were forced to embrace a religion."

People "who were abducted from Africa were brought to that country and made slaves, tortured and forced to change their religion, including Muslim slaves, (they) were forced to convert," Mahathir said.

Two words: Sudan. Today.

"They must never claim they are the chosen people, who cannot be criticized at all," Mahathir replied.

"We sympathize with them, we were very sad to see how the Jews were so ill treated by the Europeans," Mahathir said. "The Muslims have never ill-treated the Jews, but now they are behaving exactly in the way the Europeans behaved toward them against the Muslims."

OK. Mahathir is probably past understanding the notion of the "Chosen People," but since Muslims tend to claim the Bible as a holy book, he might open it once in a while and notice the amount of criticism the Jews come in for. For the record, I don't think the Koran is similarly critical of the Arabs, which is probably good for their self-esteem, and bad for their education.

Also, note, "the Muslims," not "Muslims," or "Arabs." Forget that Palestinian Christians may finally be learning that their Muslim cousins are a bigger problem than the Jews. Mahathir grew up speaking English, and knows perfectly well what that definite article means, just as surely as we all know the difference between "Jews run the New York Times" and "The Jews run Hollywood."

And then, this half-truth about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "It is not religion at all, it is territorial." Sure. That's why groups called "Hamas," "Islamic Jihad," and "Party of Allah" are engaged in a cooperative war against the Jews. That must also explains why these groups attack Jews, and now Maronites, and not, say, Muslims. Nope, nothing to do with religion.