Bush Tells Mahathir His Jew Remarks Are 'Wrong'

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http://news.myway.com/top/article/id/361635|top|10-20-2003:27|reuters.html

Bush Tells Mahathir His Jew Remarks Are 'Wrong'


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Oct 20, 10:20 AM (ET)

By Darren Schuettler
BANGKOK (Reuters) - President Bush told Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad his remarks about Jews controlling the West by proxy were "wrong and divisive," the White House said Monday.

"It stands squarely against what I believe," Bush told Mahathir during an Asia-Pacific summit in Bangkok, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

Mahathir, attending his last major summit before retiring this month after 22 years in power, was in the same room with Bush during a session of the two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum which ends Tuesday.

Mahathir, 78, has not commented on his encounter with Bush.

The outspoken Malaysian leader provoked an outcry when he told an Islamic summit last week the Jewish people had an influence in the world that far outweighed their numbers.

"The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million, but today the Jews rule the world by proxy," Mahathir said.

The White House said earlier Monday people of all faiths should condemn Mahathir's remarks.

"It's not the first time that he's made outrageous remarks, and those remarks were hate-filled remarks," McClellan said.

Malaysian officials say the remarks were taken out of context and the thrust of his speech was that the Arabs should stop fighting a losing battle with Israel and sue for peace.

Mahathir himself was unapologetic when asked last week about the furor his comments had caused, and some Arab leaders said he was simply telling it like it is.

"The fact is that they are biased, most of them are biased. They think while it is proper to criticize Muslims and Arabs, it is not proper to criticize Europeans and Jews," he told reporters after closing the Islamic summit hosted by Malaysia.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar gave Secretary of State Colin Powell an explanation of Mahathir's speech Monday, but he did not convince Powell that the remarks were innocuous, a State Department spokesman said in Bangkok.

SWIPE AT RICH NATIONS

Mahathir, who has said he likes to speak his mind, took a swipe at rich nations Monday for seeking to impose unfair trade deals on developing countries.

"We are ready to be exploited, but we must be fairly exploited," he told business leaders during an APEC-related session on globalization.

He compared the push for global free trade to the colonial era when rich countries used military force to secure trading rights from the developing world.

Mahathir was born under British colonial rule and has been haunted by fear that Malaysia could slip back into economic re-colonization.

"Today, we cannot really send gunboats to ensure that we can trade with (a) nation. So we have the WTO and an agenda of interest to the people who proposed the agenda, namely the rich countries," he said.

APEC leaders meeting Monday and Tuesday in Bangkok are expected to throw their weight behind measures to restart the so-called Doha round of World Trade Organization talks.

Several APEC members were among the developed and developing countries which clashed bitterly in Cancun, Mexico, last month over how to pull down trade barriers.

Mahathir said the talks collapsed because the agenda favored wealthy Western countries.

"We have been haggling over the agenda for some time and we in the developing countries find that we are losing out," he said. "The stress should be fair trade, rather than free trade. Fair trade can be free, but free trade can be unfair."

Using South Korea as a blueprint, Mahathir transformed Malaysia from an agrarian backwater into one of the world's top 20 trading nations, with a national auto industry and major exports of tin, rubber and other commodities.