GAZA AND ISRAEL

This article appeared in the New Straits Times, Wednesday Nov 21, 2012

1. Israel assassinated a Hamas leader, bombed Gaza and is preparing to invade that strip of free Palestine because rockets had been launched from Gaza to hit Tel Aviv.

2. Israel invariably claims that it is retaliating against Palestinian attacks. But Israel does not mention that it had attacked Gaza in the past and when its troops withdrew, it blockaded all supplies of food, medicine and construction materials to Gaza.

3. Malaysia cannot forget that its ship, the Rachel Corrie, carrying medicine and food for the beleaguered and starving people of Gaza were stopped in international waters and forced to go to Ashdod in Israel.

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“9/11 REVISITED – SEEKING THE TRUTH”


Speech by 
Tun Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad 
at the International Conference
 on 9/11 Revisited at Dewan Tun Dr Ismail, PWTC, Kuala Lumpur 
on Monday, 19 November 2012

1. The Perdana Global Peace Foundation is doing the unthinkable. It is going to seek the truth about the destruction of the twin World Trade Centre buildings in New York on 9/11 i.e. on 11th September 2001.

2. The immediate reaction to this unprecedented aerial attack in America was that it was the work of Muslim terrorists. The Al-Qaeda is especially identified as the organisation behind this act. As a result President Bush wanted to go on a crusade against Muslims. He later withdrew that statement. But in fact his subsequent acts against Muslims reflected this mindset. He attacked two Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, killing their people and destroying these two countries, destabilising them and arresting their progress, even after knowing that the hijackers were not Afghans or Iraqis.

3. The whole Muslim world became suspect. The Muslims are distrusted, subjected to humiliating discrimination and detained without trial and tortured at will for years in camps situated outside the jurisdiction of US laws – in Guantanamo, Cuba for example and in Iraq. Others were flown to countries where torture was practiced so they could be tortured and not break us laws. Then the US actually passed a law legalising torture, a retrogressive act most unworthy of its claims as leader of modern civilisation.

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A LAWLESS WORLD

This article originally appeared in the New Sunday Times, Nov 11, 2012

1.​I don’t know whether it has been reported in Malaysian papers but the Israelis bombed an arms factory in Khartoum two weeks ago. This outrageous act is an example of Israeli disregard for international laws.

2.​There is no war declared between Sudan and Israel. But that does not prevent Israel from bombing Sudan. As with the bombings of the Egyptian Airbase, Iraqi nuclear facilities, again without war being declared Israel feels entitled to bomb other countries in the pursuit of its own security. That the very real possibility of being bombed by Israel creates insecurity for other countries did not matter. Only Israeli security counts.

3.​Israel alleges that arms were being supplied to the Palestinian, probably from Sudan. Whether that is true or not the fact remains that Israel itself is being supplied with all kinds of sophisticated weapons by the United States and Europe to be used as Israel thinks fit. Israel’s receipt of arms from foreign countries for its already powerful military forces is legitimate but the Palestinians may not receive arms to defend themselves so that the balance of terror must always be with Israel.

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PUTRAJAYA

I would like to wish all Malaysians a very Happy Deepavali.

1. I believe people must have noticed a certain architecture associated with Putrajaya. The brown colour of the buildings set it apart from other major development in the country. The design of the buildings also differ from those usually found in this country.

2. Then there are the mosques which reflect Islamic features while not being reproductions of those in other Muslim Countries. The five-domed Court building is perhaps the most impressive (some people think it is a mosque). Each Ministry building has its own design with each having some distinct shape so that they are different from the others.

3. The mosques too are unique with one being more traditional and the other ultra modern. Yet they blend with the architecture of Putrajaya.

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FREEDOM OF EXPRESSIONS II

1. We are often lectured by the West, their leaders and journalists on freedom of speech, of expression, freedom of the press and media. These are part of human rights which Governments, and certainly Governments which accept democracy and the accompanying rights must respect and uphold.

2. Yet this is an area which the West displays the greatest degree of hypocrisy, of double-standards. We know of many instances when Western Governments regulate and control their media. We know that the press often self-regulates in their wish to uphold Government policies or practices.

3. But the most blatant example of control over public expression is with regard to the protection of the Jews. Not only will any criticism of the Jews be condemned, but laws have been enacted in many European countries which makes it illegal for anyone to dispute any aspect of the Holocaust. No one may question the claim that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust.

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CONTEMPT OF COURT

1. I read the New Straits Times article on contempt of court under the heading “Respect Must Be Earned” with a degree of wonderment.

2. In Malaysia no one dares to criticise the courts for fear of being charged with contempt. But in many of the so-called advanced countries the courts are criticised very often. The critics seem not to be afraid of being charged with contempt.

3. In the article, which is an extract of a lecture by Lord David Pannick, a practising barrister in Britain, he said; “If confidence in the judiciary is so low that statements by critics would resonate with the public, such confidence is not going to be restored by a criminal prosecution in which judges find the comments scandalous or in which the defendant apologises.”

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Q E II – 2

1. Q E II is not Queen Elizabeth the Second. It is a term invented in the West to describe printing money to pay debts or to revive the economy. It stands for Quantitative Easing No 2.

2. It is a great way to make money to replace the money that a nation has lost in a recession caused by abuses of the financial system. You just print more money.

3. Actually I don’t think they actually print currency notes amounting to the hundreds of billions of dollars or pounds to replace the money they have lost. The amount of printed currency notes would be huge and be very difficult to transport to the banks which has lost the money. There would be a stream of armoured cars from the mints to the banks.

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SPEECH AT THE RAFIK HARIRI UN-HABITAT MEMORIAL AWARD

I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THIS SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY IN NEW YORK CITY, USA ON SEPT 28, 2012

1. I would like to thank the Rafik Hariri Foundation and the UN Habitat for conferring on me this prestigious Rafik Hariri UN-Habitat Memorial Award.

2. I deem it a great honour especially as this award is named after a remarkable man whose leadership qualities and contribution toward the rehabilitation of the war-ravaged city of Beirut and Lebanon is incomparable.

3. I knew Rafik Hariri when he first visited Malaysia. We immediately became close friends and I visited Lebanon at his invitation to see the damage wrought by the fratricidal war. Rafik promised he would rebuild Beirut as it was before the war. And he delivered on his promise. I visited Beirut after the restoration and I felt sure that a great future awaits Lebanon under his leadership.

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FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION


Addendum to “Freedom of Expression”, updated Sept 19, 2012

1. Hillary Clinton says the film insulting to Muslims cannot be stopped because of freedom of expression.

2. The French and Italian papers published photos of a naked Duchess of Cambridge. Now a French court has ordered the publishers to surrender all the pictures to the royal couple and to stop publishing them. The Italians are also going to do the same.

3. So freedom of expression is selective, not to be used against a countess but okay for the prophet of the Muslims.

4. I know there are many hypocrites in the West but this is the mother of all Western hypocrisy.

ORIGINAL POSTING FOLLOWS;

1. Hilary Clinton defends the film which insults the Prophet of the Muslims because of freedom of expression, a part of human rights. I think Western values have gone crazy. In the name of human rights and free speech one can insult anybody. What kind of human society will we have if everyone can curse and denigrate everyone else? There will be no peace either between countries or religions or races or members of the public anywhere.

2. How would one feel if someone comes up to you and calls you “a bastard, the offspring of sex between your mother and some man who is not your legally wedded father.”

3. Well how would one feel? The Americans would feel nothing because in their society this is normal. Their mothers sleep around with just about anybody. That is the norm, they would say. So do their fathers. It is an expression of the equality of the sexes.

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ISRAELI JUSTICE

1. An Israeli court hearing a case brought by the mother of Rachel Corrie, the American girl who was deliberately run over and killed by an Israeli soldier driving a bulldozer to destroy the home of a Palestinian in Gaza, found the case to be an accident because the Israeli soldier claimed he could not see the girl standing in the way of the bulldozer shouting for it to stop.

2. I have often enough sat in the driver’s seat of a bulldozer or mechanical hoe and I have always been able to see everything in front of me. Certainly a person standing in my way would be clearly seen by me.

3. But the Israeli court believed the soldier when he said he could not see the girl Rachel Corrie standing in front of his bulldozer. And so he ran over her crushing her under the bulldozer.

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