Tolerance for Intolerance?

According to today's Globe and Mail, Canadian Jews (well, at least one guy from B'nai Brith Canada) are dismayed that Prime Minister Jean Chretien did not follow President Bush's example in personally rebuking Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad for his anti-Semitic remarks last week. The White House says Bush took Mahathir aside at the APEC summit in Bangkok to let him know that his comments were "wrong and divisive" and "squarely against what I believe."

Mahathir, who complains that his remarks were taken out of context but has nevertheless repeated the gist of them, got a standing ovation at an Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting after telling his audience that Muslims had better wise up if they expect to beat the wily Jews. "The Europeans killed six million Jews of 12 million," he said, "but today the Jews rule the world by proxy."

At least he's not one of those Holocaust deniers.