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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (117151)	10/18/2003 3:59:47 PM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 281500

It appears that Chirac's attempt to have the EU not issue a statement condemning Mahathir's idiotic statement was ignored by other members of the EU. Good for them. A black eye for Chirac: haaretz.com EU 'strongly deplores' Malaysian PM's remarks on Jews By Haaretz Service and Agencies The European Union on Friday released a statement of strong condemnation of comments made the day before by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who said that "Jews rule the world by proxy." After a move by French President Jacques Chirac to block the EU from ending its two-day summit with a harshly-worded statement condemning Mahathir's remarks on the grounds that the conference was not the correct forum for such a statement, the EU issued a statement "forcefully deploring" the remarks. Backed by Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis, officials said, Chirac objected to a few short sentences in a 19-page summit statement deploring Mahathir's comments. The draft by foreign ministers Thursday night said: "His unacceptable comments hinder all our efforts to further interethnic and religious harmony, and have no place in a decent world. Such false and anti-Semitic remarks are as offensive to Muslims as they are to others." Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters Thursday night that the remarks were "gravely offensive." But when the paper was handed to EU leaders Friday morning, Chirac said there was no place in an EU declaration for a text of this kind, diplomats said. Other leaders agreed, although the Netherlands wanted the wording to stay in the declaration. The leaders then compromised by having Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, the summit host, criticize Mahathir at his closing news conference. The French Embassy in Israel issued a statement saying that Chirac condemned the Malaysian prime minister's statements, but that he felt that the EU summit statement was not the appropriate place to express this. Officials said the draft text also would be issued as a separate statement and would be posted on the EU presidency Web site, ueitalia2003.it Berlusconi told reporters Mahathir's comments about Jews undermine efforts to bring different religions closer. "All of our efforts must go toward a dialogue between the Western world and the Islamic world, between Christian religion and Islamic religion," he added. Malaysian PM refuses to back down on remarks Mahathir on Friday accused Western countries of using a double standard for criticizing Jews and Muslims, and refused to apologize for his comments. "Lots of people make nasty statements about us, about Muslims," Mohamad said Friday. "People call Muslims terrorists, they even say ...Mohammed the prophet was a terrorist." "People make such statements, and they seem to get away with it. But if you say anything at all against the Jews, you are accused of being anti-Semitic," Mahathir told a news conference after the close of a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the world's largest Muslim grouping. In his speech, Mahathir used allegations of Jewish dominance to underline his chief point: that Muslims needed to embrace modern knowledge and technology, and overcome divisions over religious dogma that have left them weakened on the world stage. Mahathir said Muslims had achieved "nothing" in more than 50 years of fighting Israel. He also said the world's 1.3 billion Muslims "cannot be defeated by a few million Jews." Mahathir, 77, a senior statesmen in the developing world who will retire October 31 after 22 years in office, has long been a leader who takes pride in calling things the way he sees them. He is a staunch advocate of the Palestinians and strongly opposed the war in Iraq, but he also has jailed terror suspects from the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group. The United States, Canada, the European Union, Israel, Germany, Britain and Australia all condemned Mahathir's remarks. U.S. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli called the speech offensive and inflammatory. The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said it was "a desecration of the memory of 6 million victims of anti-Semitism." Britain summoned Malaysia's top diplomat in London to express concern, the Foreign Office said. But Mahathir was unapologetic - stressing that remarks by his foreign minister expressing sorrow over misunderstandings were not an apology for the speech - and he told the news conference he opposed terrorism, suicide bombings and Israel's policy of massive retaliation in response to Palestinian violence. "What I said in my speech is that we should stop all this violence," Mahathir said, noting that historically, Jews had sought refuge in Muslim lands to escape persecution in Europe. But since Israel was established a half-century ago, "there seems to be no more peace in the Middle East," Mahathir said. Mahathir said most European leaders - in which he generally includes Australia and the United States - were biased and "feel that while it is proper to criticize Muslims and Arabs, it is not proper to criticize Europeans and Jews. Apparently, they think they are privileged people."

To: carranza2 who wrote (117151)	10/19/2003 2:41:49 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The French Embassy in Israel issued a statement saying that Chirac condemned the Malaysian's prime minister's statements about Jews, but that the French President felt that the EU summit statement was not the appropriate place to express this. And just where does Monsewer(sic) Chirac plan on making such a condemnation... Can anyone truly argue that this B*stard isn't either being paid off by some wealthy Arabs, or being blackmailed? And I see now, in your other response, that the EU overruled him and issued the condemnation anyway... Well, at least we know that the militant Arabs rule France by proxy.. Hawk