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London, October 20, 2003
[Bush meets with rabbis]Photo:
President George W Bush meets Jewish holy men earlier this month
Bush condemns attack on Jews
US President George
Bush has condemned Malaysian Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad‘s statement that Jews rule the world, pulling him aside at an international economic meeting to tell him the remarks were “wrong and divisive”.
White House press secretary Scott
McClellan quoted Bush as telling the
Malaysian leader: “It stands squarely against what I believe in.”
Bush confronted Mahathir between meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation summit in Bangkok, McClellan said.
[Malaysian prime minister]Chirac rebukes Malaysia in ‘anti-Jewish’ dispute
By Philip Delves
Broughton
in Paris
FRENCH President
Jacques Chirac wrote to Mahathir
Mohamad (right) the Malaysian
Prime Minister, yesterday telling him that his recent remarks about Jewish influence would be condemned by those who remembered the Holocaust.
Before M Chirac’s office released excerpts of the letter he had come under a barrage of criticism from Israel where he was accused of having blocked an EU condemnation of Dr Mahathir’s “Jews run the world by proxy” comment.
An Israeli newspaper, Maariv, ran an unflattering picture of M Chirac with the headline “The Face of French
Anti-Semitism”. At a discussion on
Thursday during a heads of government meeting in Brussels, M Chirac was said to have opposed the notion of including a condemnation in the usual end-of-summit statement. Instead, the EU issued a separate statement in the name of the current Italian presidency.
Though dated
Thursday, it appeared on the Italian presidency’s website only on Saturday.
The statement said Dr Mahathir’s
“unacceptable comments hinder
all our efforts to further inter-ethnic
and religious harmony and have no place
in a different world”.
Maariv’s presentation of events, however, prompted Sylvan Shalom, the Israeli foreign minister, to say: “It is a disgrace when a country like France, an important country, displays even the slightest understanding or acceptance of
Mahathir Mohamad’s anti-Semitic remarks.”
M Chirac’s office vigorously disputed the
Israeli accusations, calling them a “gross misinterpretation”.
A spokesman for Javier Solana, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said all of the EU members had agreed that it was best to issue two statements, the first describing the conclusions of the summit meeting, the second condemning Dr Mahathir.
In his letter, M Chirac said Dr
Mahathir’s comments, at the opening of a summit of Islamic nations, had “roused intense condemnation in France and the world”, though he noted that the Malaysian leader had criticised suicide bombings against Israelis.
Syed Hamid Albar, the Malaysian foreign minister, said Dr Mahathir’s speech was misunderstood. “I am confident he has no anti-Jewish feeling,” he added.©
Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited
2003.
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