Anti-Semitism peddled in Southeast
Asia By Keith Andrew Bettinger
KUALA LUMPUR - In casual conversations about
geopolitics here, it is common to hear charges that
Israel controls US foreign policy or that Jews run the
world (one of these more virulent indictments came from
former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who stated just
before stepping down last year that "Jews rule the world
by proxy").
This is a truth that "everyone
knows" and is a common view around the world. The
problem with this "truth" is that the evidence to back
it up is sketchy at best, relying on questionable facts
and a selective interpretation of events and
information. There is a vacuum of conclusive data, and
corroboration can't be found in the mainstream media.
But an emerging trend suggests that US and European
extremist groups are recognizing demand among Southeast
Asian Muslims for anti-Zionism and anti-Americanism and
are moving to adjust their message to spread the broader
message of anti-Semitism.
One clear instance of
this is the recent visit to Malaysia of American
"journalist" Michael Collins Piper, a writer and editor
for the American Free Press. Piper addressed several
groups, including the Bar Council of Malaysia, on a trip
that also included a stop in Japan. Piper's talks
ostensibly were about the hidden motivations for US
foreign policy, but some basic research reveals that
Piper's musings are characteristic of an effort by
anti-Semites and white supremacists to repackage
themselves as "alternative media voices" claiming to
tackle stories the mainstream media in the US won't
touch. The formula is easily recognizable to American
readers: analyze any event and bend, shape and twist
facts to reveal a Jewish influence.
To spread
his message, Piper also spent time promoting his books,
which were given out free at several speaking
engagements. As anti-Semitism spreads from the Middle
East to moderate Muslims around the world, anti-Semitic
literature is selling faster than it can be restocked on
bookstore shelves. Publications that contributed to the
zeitgeist from which the Holocaust sprang have
now begun finding readers in Malaysia.
Universal
disapproval of Israeli foreign policy is fueling a
resurgence of anti-Jewish sentiment. And anti-Israel
becomes anti-Jew. Of course, many people here do not
know the difference between anti-Semitism and
anti-Israel; some say book sales simply reflect
Malaysian's love for conspiracy. But due to their lack
of a Jewish experience - the only evidence of a Jewish
presence in Malaysia is an old Jewish cemetery in Penang
- people are groping to understand world events. And
people like Piper are ready with a framework that
explains all the unfairness and injustice that exists.
In the process, though, the seeds of anti-Semitism are
planted.
The messenger Michael Collins
Piper has written and been an editor for The American
Free Press and its predecessor, the Spotlight, for the
past 20 years. Both papers, as well as the now-defunct
Liberty Lobby, were founded by Willis Carto, one of the
most notorious American anti-Semites in the post-World
War II era. Carto's ideological genealogy can be traced
back to Francis Parker Yockney, an American anti-Semitic
writer/philosopher and supporter of the Hitler regime in
Germany. Carto's career has had its ups and downs, but
critics maintain that he more than anyone else has been
responsible for keeping anti-Semitism alive in the
United States. He was also instrumental in the creation
of the National Alliance, the most notorious neo-Nazi
organization in the US. Piper has been a close associate
of Carto's for years and also contributes to the Barnes
Review, a "scholarly journal" founded by Carto and
devoted to "Holocaust Revisionism".
Piper's own
writings have disputed recognized historical truths and
have suggested, for example that the Zyclon-B used to
gas Jews in Nazi concentration camps was really used
only to delouse clothing. Particularly illuminating,
though, was an American Free Press article he penned
shortly after the events of September 11, 2001, arguing
that the Israelis and the Jews were responsible for the
attacks. "Did Ariel Sharon help orchestrate the
September 11 terrorist attacks to instigate all-out US
war against Israel's enemies?" he asked. "Don't discount
it," the article concludes.
This sort of writing
is typical of Piper, said Rabbi Abraham Cooper,
associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los
Angeles-based Jewish human-rights organization dedicated
to "fostering tolerance and understanding".
"[Piper] never found a conspiracy he didn't
like," explained Cooper, who is well acquainted with
Piper's activities. Piper, who has attributed everything
from the Monica Lewinsky scandal to Watergate to the
Israelis, is from the school of writers that disregards
the mountains of evidence and facts pointing to one
conclusion in favor of rumors, whisperings and innuendo
that point to the hidden hand of a nefarious enemy.
The main theses of Piper's books are that the
Mossad, Israel's spy agency, was complicit in the
assassination of John F Kennedy and that the Israel
lobby (in his writings and interviews Piper uses the
terms "Jews" and "Israel" interchangeably) controls US
foreign policy. They are "the hidden power behind
Washington", according to an interview that ran in the
Star, Malaysia's largest English-language daily. Piper
insists that his motives are "to help Palestinians get
their land back, keep American kids from getting their
hands and legs blown off, and keep some Jewish people
from their own excesses". But an examination of his
writings clearly reveals a lifetime crusade against a
singular villain - the Jews. Repeated phone calls to the
Star editor responsible for the interview over the
course of the week requesting an interview, or even an
informal lunch discussion, were to no avail. To his
credit, though, the editor did mention in the article
that "regardless of views and beliefs, open discussion
and exchange usually serve better" the cause of divining
truth.
The Star article suggested that Piper
doesn't get play in the US press because he brings up
unpleasant truths, implying that there is a campaign to
suppress Piper's writings. Piper himself works up this
angle in interviews, speeches, articles and books,
frequently lashing out at the Anti-Defamation League, a
watchdog group that he contends is out to get him. Piper
says the Jewish-controlled media giants and publishing
companies won't go near his books because they are
afraid of the truth. A more accurate description,
however, would be that the mainstream media ignore Piper
and his ilk, as his scribblings were recognized long ago
for what they are.
"Nobody takes him seriously
in the United States," said one media watcher who
attended one of the lectures. "He's pretty extreme, to
say the least."
Rabbi Cooper explained: "People
like Piper and the others are free to write just about
anything they want because we champion the freedom of
the press ... but it's hard to over-exaggerate how
irrelevant the lunatic fringe is in the US." Western
journalists in Kuala Lumpur echoed this assessment.
Common sense works against Piper as well; it would stand
to reason that if he was as dangerous as he claims to
be, Mossad would have killed him long ago.
Until
recently Piper has been the darling of white supremacist
bulletin boards such as Stormfront.org and has been a
speaker at meetings of the Counsel of Conservative
Citizens, as well as a noted guest at reunions held by
former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Recently,
however, Piper has found some attention on the worldwide
lecture circuit, speaking at events in Abu Dhabi in the
United Arab Emirates (UAE), Moscow, Japan and Malaysia.
"There is a market for Americans who are prepared to say
nasty things about America," explained Cooper.
Piper told the Zayed Center in Dubai, also in
the UAE, that he became a journalist to "combat the
anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias on the part of the mass
media in America". That visit has been something of a
feather in Piper's cap; he asserted that the anti-Jewish
Zayed center was closed down because it hosted him and
that the visit sparked an international controversy.
During that visit he sounded the trumpet against the
Jewish plutocrats who allegedly control America,
insisting that "everyone of the major television
networks is dominated by Jewish financial interests". He
also asserted that antipathy in the US toward Saudi
Arabia is a result of Anti-Defamation League propaganda.
Piper didn't respond to an interview request.
There is no shortage of "alternative media"
available to the curious reader with an Internet
connection. The proliferation of bloggers and e-papers
is a testament to the fact that people are searching for
more than the mainstream line. With the rise of the
Internet, however, there is also no shortage of
hate-motivated "reporting", and stories originating in
the US and disguised in a veneer of legitimacy can make
it around the world in seconds, to be read by people
lacking the experience to put the "news" in proper
context.
Fertile ground for conspiracy
theories In preparing for this article, I wrote
several e-mails and called the Malaysian Bar Council a
number of times. The human rights officer and the
communications officer both refused to comment, but only
after they asked me if I was a Jew. No one at the Bar
Council of Malaysia was willing to discuss anything
about Piper. I was able to speak with Dr Chanda
Muzaffar, director of the International Movement for a
Just World or JUST, a Kuala Lumpur-based organization
that works to increase cross-cultural dialogue in an
effort to "discover that the spiritual and moral
worldviews and values embodied in all religious and
cultural philosophies can offer the human race much
needed guidance in our common quest for a just world".
Dr Muzaffar said his group helped to organize
one of Piper's speaking engagements. He told me that
Piper had spoken mainly about the influence of the
neo-conservatives and "the hidden power behind
Washington". Piper was an interesting draw, explained Dr
Muzaffar, because he discussed "manifestations of
Washington's overwhelming military power." JUST's
website is consistent with the aforementioned mission;
its essays are aimed at increasing understanding and
most of its analysis centers on the exercise of power to
protect its own interests. Although the US government is
a common target, there is no mention of Jewish influence
or conspiracy theories. The website also has essays
describing the difference between anti-Semitism and
radical Zionism.
In my discussions with people
in Malaysia, I discovered an unfortunate reality that
derives from lack of experience. Many people here do not
know the difference between anti-Semitism and
anti-Israel. The two are conflated. A senior journalist
at Malaysiakini.com, a popular online newspaper here,
explained to me that the concept of anti-Semitism
doesn't really exist in Malaysia. "People say things
about the Jews," he said, "but it's not at the level of
racism."
He explained that most people have not
met Jews, so the remarks stem from a sort of benign
ignorance. He suggested that it would take a push from
the outside to create true racism. Another discussion
with a Malaysia-based American human-rights advocate
confirmed this: "To have anti-Semitism, to classify it
as such, you need to have incidents, like spray-painting
a synagogue, or something like that. Here that just
doesn't happen, because there are no targets." Thus,
people are groping to understand world events, and
people like Piper are ready with a framework that
explains all the unfairness and injustice that exists.
The International Jew A recent
trip through a bookstore at Kuala Lumpur's central train
station revealed a treasure trove of anti-Semitic
literature, including two versions of Henry Ford's
The International Jew, The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion and The New International Jew.
There were also numerous titles in Malay. I asked the
manager about the books, and he said they can't keep
them on the shelves. "This one [The International
Jew], we must sell 50 a day. We have already had to
reorder three times."
When asked why people are
buying them, the manager said it's because they want to
know about Jews, especially now.
Some of the
books were published by the Thinker's Library, a local
publishing house that takes its name from the renowned
Thinker's Library of London, which once published works
by Brave New World author Aldous Huxley, among
others. I called and spoke to the director of the
Thinker's Library, who had his whole line of
English-language books couriered to my office the next
day. He said the books about Islam weren't big sellers
but The International Jew was about to go into
its third print this year; the first two runs of 3,000
books each had sold out.
So why is the book
selling so well? "People here love anything about
conspiracies," the bookstore manager said, adding that
he got the text off the Internet. The International
Jew originally was published in the 1920s. It is now
part of the public domain, meaning that any publisher
can print it freely. Extremist publishing houses in the
US such as Noontide Press make these works conveniently
available online.
Another Thinker's Library
title, Gordon Mohr's The New International Jew,
is published "by special arrangement" in Malaysia. These
books are widely available in other bookstores around
the capital as well. The synopsis on the jacket of the
abridged version of The International Jew, which
is also available on the Internet, explains that "the
Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion reveal a
concerted plan of action, or intention, and achievement,
through centuries of world history". The Protocols has
been recognized as one of the most pernicious hoaxes in
history, and was used to justify pogroms against the
Jews in czarist Russia, as well as by the Nazis to
support "the Final Solution", the Nazi plan to
exterminate the Jewish people. Conversations with book
dealers in the night markets of Kuala Lumpur reveal that
the Protocols is kind of an underground favorite. And
while it is understood in the West that this book is a
hoax, it is sold as an authentic document here.
Publications such as The Protocols of the
Elders of Zion and The International Jew
contributed to the zeitgeist from which the
Holocaust sprang. People believed what they read. Now
these works are finding readers in Malaysia. The same
thing is happening throughout the world, it seems.
Universal disapproval of Israeli foreign policy is
fueling a resurgence of anti-Jewish sentiment.
Anti-Israel becomes anti-Jew. "It's not the ideas that
we're afraid of," says Rabbi Cooper, "It's the blind
embrace of hatred. The hate is not new, the ideas are
not new." But there are new opportunities to spread the
hatred.
The Internet, it has been written, is a
massive, unregulated "Wild West" technological frontier
in which anything goes. Hatred and racism seem to go
very well, and the Internet has indeed facilitated the
dissemination of racist propaganda. For example,
RadioIslam.org, a Sweden-based organization founded by
Ahmed Rami, claims to reveal the truth of the Jewish
conspiracy and carries the text of the Protocols in 11
languages. The Protocols has become so widespread that
the Wiesenthal center has translated its "Debunking the
Big Lie" into Arabic and will soon make it available on
its website. The Anti-Defamation League's website says
that "the Internet has given free access to the
hatemongers in the US to cross-pollinate with
anti-Semites globally to spread their venom of hate on a
scale [like] never before possible".
Roots of
anti-Semitism in Malaysia Rabbi Cooper said that
the most virulent anti-Semitism comes from the Middle
East, but that it is spreading among moderate Muslims
around the world. "It's a kind of cancer that started in
the Middle East in which thinkers have borrowed classic
anti-Jewish themes to paper over the lack of democracy
in the Arab world ... It has little to do with Islam and
everything to do with hate." Malaysians watch the
Israel/Palestine conflict very closely, and feel
sympathy for the latter.
Much of the anti-Israel
sentiment in Malaysia comes from former prime minister
Mahathir. Mahathir is well known for tirades against the
Jewish conspiracy made during his 22-year reign. His
most famous remarks were aimed at financier George Soros
and include a speech he made at the Organization of
Islamic Conference last year, where he stated that "the
Jews rule the world by proxy" and insisted that "1.3
billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million
Jews".
Mahathir discusses global Jewish hegemony
matter-of-factly and says he has lots of Jewish friends.
He invited the Israeli cricket team to play a game in
Malaysia to enhance understanding. That may be the case
for Mahathir, but it's not the case for most Malaysians.
And while analysts debate the motivations behind
Mahathir's comments, some claiming that he is forced to
say such things due to domestic political
considerations. Others maintain he is, in his heart,
anti-Jewish. Whatever the case, the fact remains that
his opinion carries weight in Malaysia, and since there
is no debate, argument, or counterweight, people
reasonably take his word as truth. The only evidence of
a Jewish presence in Malaysia is an old Jewish cemetery
in Penang. There are no synagogues here, and nobody to
refute the allegations that Jews control the world.
An intellectual veneer Everyone from
the National Alliance to French politician Jean-Marie Le
Pen are scrambling to identify themselves with more
moderate positions. Le Pen's championing of the cause of
Iraqi children is a good example of extremists
attempting to show their "human side". This move has
been hijacked by the more esoteric elements of global
hegemonic theory by the Jewish conspiracy crowd. The
fact that International Movement for a Just World was
willing to host Piper is evidence enough of this
conflation of world views. But the differences are
fundamental; one outlook makes an argument based on
power and money, while the other is purely racial in
nature. It is integral to the new anti-Semitism that
common cause be found with anti-establishment
intellectuals, those who see global politics as
manifestations of power and money. By adopting elements
of these more palatable world views, the Pipers of the
world are able to find a forum among intellectuals not
familiar with their true motivations. US extremists
contacted for this article confirm that meshing of
ideals. Tom Metzger, leader of White Aryan Resistance,
explains that their "anti-transnational corporation,
anti-imperialist position" finds a great deal of
like-minded people around the world. Piper and the
writers at American Free Press have learned to tone down
the language a bit, but the message remains the same.
US hate-group leaders have expressed admiration
for the September 11 terrorists on numerous occasions
and admit to an ideological affinity with extremists.
Public Eye, the online portal of the American non-profit
organization Political Research Associates, explains
that the extreme right in the US has three ideological
affinities with fundamentalist Muslims: 1) A hatred of
Jews who are seen in the traditional anti-Semitic
caricature of running the world through secret
conspiracies; 2) A hatred of the US government, which is
seen not just as a global bully but also as a tool of
the Jews; and 3) A desire to overthrow existing
governments and replace them with monocultural nation
states built around the idea of supremacist racial
nationalism. Thus, there is an ideological marriage of
convenience. As Metzger puts it, "the enemy of my enemy
is my friend".
Does it really
matter? One political analyst suggested that the
concept of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy is a coping
mechanism. "It makes it a lot easier to understand the
world if you can pick out a few bad guys, a plan, or a
plot, and blame all the bad things that are happening in
the world on that," he said.
Rabbi Cooper
suggested that there is a "need to find conspiracy
theories that will get Islamists and jihadists of the
hook". So in Malaysia, where there are no Jews, it may
seem irrelevant. "What's the harm?" one might ask. But
Cooper explained that for a nation determined to be
recognized as "developed" by the year 2020, it is very
dangerous. "Bringing in a guy like Piper to speak to
your decision-makers is like bringing in the lunatic
fringe to provide analysis of the Bush administration's
plans over the next four years ... It's a terrible
signal to investors in the US," Cooper said.
Whether Piper's appearance here indicates a lack
of research by his hosts, or a genuine anti-Jewish bent,
his cause is served. He and others like him will
continue to bang the drum of Jewish conspiracy now that
they have found a new audience. Perhaps the most telling
excerpt from Piper's interview with the Star was a
comment on the US election: "The pro-Israel influence
will remain, whichever party wins the election ...
Israel wins whoever wins the presidential election." And
either way, people like Piper will still be in business.
Keith Andrew Bettinger is a researcher
and journalist currently based in Kuala Lumpur. His
interests include development and environmental issues,
as well as US and international politics. He is a native
of Shreveport, Louisiana, and has advanced degrees in
international affairs and education. He can be contacted
at kisu1492@yahoo.com.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
