    Mahathir brands US a rogue nation terrorising innocents and stands by
    claim that Jews 'rule the world by proxy'

    by Simon Tisdall in Kuala Lumpur

    MAHATHIR Mohamad, modern Malaysia's founding father and moderate Islam's
    self-styled champion, denounced the Bush administration yesterday as a
    "rogue regime" bent on terrorising innocent civilians. He also said he
    was disappointed that Tony Blair, whom he called a "proven liar", had
    won re-election after joining the US invasion of Iraq.

    Reflecting the rage felt across the Muslim world over abuse scandals in
    Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, and continuing violence in Palestine and
    Iraq, Mr Mahathir said President George Bush and other US politicians
    were "ignorant" people who believed might made right - a return to
    colonial-era "old thinking".

    Speaking to the Guardian at his offices in Putrajaya, near Kuala Lumpur,
    Mr Mahathir also claimed that the Israeli government had been given a
    free hand by Washington to continue to expropriate Palestinian land and
    entrench its control over Jerusalem. The war on terror would not end
    until the Middle East conflict was justly resolved, he said.

    Asked whether he regretted his statement that "Jews rule the world by
    proxy", which caused an international furore in 2003, Mr Mahathir said
    he took nothing back.

    "US politicians are scared stiff of the Jews because anybody who votes
    against the Jews will lose elections. The Jews in America are supporting
    the Jews in Israel. Israel and other Jews control the most powerful
    nation in the world. And that is what I mean [about Jews controlling the
    world]. I stand by that view." On his balcony overlooking the tower
    blocks, mosques, bridges and artificial lakes of Putrajaya, Malaysia's
    new administrative capital which he created in the 1990s, Mr Mahathir,
    79, cuts a slight, almost self-effacing figure. His personal manner is
    reserved and courteous to a fault.

    Earlier in the day, he had lectured students at his Perdana Leadership
    Foundation on the importance of education and development in the Muslim
    world to defend the Islamic faith. The problem was not Islam itself, he
    said, but the many incorrect interpretations of the Qur'an that were
    exploited by extremists.

    "Islam is a positive, not a negative force. Today most Muslim countries
    seem incapable of developing good governments, they are always fighting
    each other, assassinating each other and doing all the wrong things."
    Distortions of the Prophet's teachings had held back the peoples of many
    Muslim countries, he said.

    But Mr Mahathir's strongest criticism was directed outwards. Even though
    he retired as Malaysia's longest-serving prime minister in 2003, many in
    the region still regard him as the country's leader and one of Asia's
    most influential voices.

    His anger is undimmed; his rhetoric flows unstaunched.

    "The US is the most powerful nation," he said. "It can ignore the world
    if it wants to do anything. It breaks international law. It arrests
    people outside their countries; it charges them under American law. It
    kills them.

    "The US war on terror is a way of terrorising people. If you are an
    Iraqi and you are expecting to be bombed, aren't you terrified? If you
    have done nothing, if you are an innocent Iraqi citizen and you are
    expecting any time a rocket to fly in and blow you to pieces, aren't you
    terrified? "That is terror [and] the US is as guilty of terrorism as the
    people who crashed their planes into the buildings ... Bush doesn't
    understand the rest of the world. He thinks everybody should be a neocon
    like him."

    Mr Mahathir was equally scathing about Israeli policies in Palestine. He
    said his visit to the West Bank last month had been deliberately
    disrupted by the Israeli government. Specifically, he said he was
    blocked from travelling to Jerusalem and Jenin, scene of some of the
    worst Israeli violence in 2002, where he was to open a school funded by
    Malaysia. Israel has denied impeding his visit.

    "I suppose I was mistaken in thinking that there are parts of Palestine
    that are under the control of the Palestinians. But apparently the
    Israelis have occupied the whole of Palestine. They do anything they
    like there," he said.

    Mr BLAIR had discredited himself and Britain in Muslim eyes by backing
    the Iraq war, Mr Mahathir said. "He was wrong and he was more wrong
    because he tells lies. You know, Jack Straw came to see me [on the eve
    of the war in January 2003] and I asked him, 'Why are you with the
    Americans?' He said we're trying to influence the Americans not to take
    that kind of action. But it seems it was the other way round.

    "They [Britain] were influenced in supporting America to do something
    that they knew was wrong ... They knew they were being lied to, and yet
    they supported the Americans and today 300,000 Iraqis are dead because
    of these lies. "I think a person like Blair would feel very guilty and I
    am disappointed that the British people would re-elect a person who
    obviously told lies . . . We're beginning to lose faith in the present
    leadership of Britain."

    One eventual consequence, he suggested, could be Malaysia's withdrawal
    from the Commonwealth.

    Malaysia, which is encircled by conflicts in western Indonesia, the
    Philippines and southern Thailand, fully supported the fight against
    religious and political fanaticism, he said. But the west was going
    about it the wrong way.

    "Even if you get Bin Laden, you can't be sure there won't be another Bin
    Laden. You cannot get terrorists to sign a peace treaty. The only way to
    beat terror is to go for the basic causes.

    "They don't blow themselves up for no reason, they're angry, they're
    frustrated. And why are they angry? Look at the Palestinian situation.
    Fifty years after you created the state of Israel, things are going from
    bad to worse.

    "If you don't settle that, there will be no end to the war on terror.
    For how long are you going to go on examining people's shoes?"