On Mahathir and Hitler

By Mahmood Elahi, Ottawa, Canada
28 October 2003, 18:00 PM
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's diatribes about Jews' trying to control the world are not different from Hitler's. Hitler managed to arouse a considerable number of his compatriots to a frenzy of homicidal fury against the Jews when the latter amounted to only one per cent of the German population.

The post-war Polish government did even better: the Communist regime produced anti-Semitism without having much Jews living in its territory. Poland's once thriving Jewish community were either killed during the war or emigrated after the war.

Mahathir is trying to do the same. He is trying to find a scapegoat for his own failures. He may be reminded that he has jailed his able finance minister Anwar Ibrahim on concocted charges, simply because he was becoming popular.