Days ago, the French foreign minister seriously criticised the US invasion of Iraq and linked the rise of terrorist groups there with the invasion itself. He was right because these groups did not exist before the US led coalition forces invaded Iraq. You invade a sovereign nation, you must pay for it in kind.

Now, we are calling the Iraqi people terrorists because they're scarificing lives to restore their motherland's sovereignty. This is a copy of the Western perception which never addressed the Palestinians as anything other than terrorists. As Bush said after 9/11, if you're not with us, you're against us. Can politics be that much black and white?

I believe the Jews of Israel supporting their government's actions do so out of frustration generated by the persecutions they endured under the European Christians. Dr. Mahathir aptly expressed this Jewish sentiment by saying, "They survived 2000 years of pogroms......".

Mahathir's astuteness is evident in his restraint too: he did not call for a revenge against "the Jews", nor did he call for the unification of the Muslim ummah against US President George W Bush's call for a "Crusade." Nor did he call for the unification of the so called "free nations" to join in a "clash of civilisations."

Mahathir even did not remind the Muslims of their proud history that the three Crusades waged by the European Christians against the Muslims were defeated. Hence the swathe of the Muslim world as it looks today. Islam did survive through Western onslaughts in the past. It is doing so constantly: politically, militarily, culturally, and economically.

Let us try to understand that Mahathir just broached a new perspective for the Muslims. He clearly pointed out the need for "thinking" and taking actions in line with the teachings of our prophet Mohammad (SM) to win the struggle, not to take revenge.

No wonder Islam's enemies will use all its power to isolate a personality like Dr. Mahathir. In fact we are awaiting President Bush's full retaliatory comments on this. Meanwhile, the White House already condemned Dr. Mahathir's address, as was reported by the AP that the French President has blocked an initiative by some members of the EU to adopt a Resolution condemning Dr. Mahathir's address (ref: the Daily Ittefaq, 20 October. Ironically, The Daily Star did not publish this news item).

As a lay person, I fail to evaluate who is more rational, the US President or the French President?

(I strongly disbelieve Mr Zafar Sobhan's claim to be true that "First, in the West no-one appears to have read the entire speech which is why they'd reacted to it as though it were nothing more than a 4000-work rant against 'the Jews'. ......Mahathir's speech was in fact a powerful critique of the flaws and failings of the Muslim world and a clarion call to action for the Muslim world to overcome its weaknesses."

Are we in fool's paradise to believe that the West is so lazy as not to have the patience to read an address of 4,000 words? We would be more enriched by the outcome of an enquiry by Mr. Sobhan into the guiding values of the writers of The New York Times who'd penned such a "thundering editorial" as has been referred to in Zafar's article.