Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad says, “there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim.”

Nice of him to clear that up for us.

“What is happening today has got nothing to do with religion. It has got to do with territorial disputes, mainly the dispute over Palestinian land,” he told Reuters after a religious congress here.

He said Bush’s description of America’s “war on terror” as “a struggle for civilisation” on the fifth anniversary of the attacks was flawed, as was the West’s hope that moderate Muslims would have a dominant voice.

“There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim,” he said. “We are fundamentalists in Malaysia. We follow the true teachings of the religion and the true teachings do not teach us to bomb and kill people without reason.”

Although most of the men who carried out the Sept 11 attacks were Saudis, Mahathir - whom Israel has in the past dubbed anti-Semitic - said he saw the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands as the root cause of Islamist extremism.

“They (the hijackers) had no direct link but there is a great deal of sympathy for the sufferings of the people of Palestine,” he said. “Maybe that is because they are co-religionists but it is not because their religion urges them to do so. The West tends to blame religion, they blame Islam for whatever happens and associate Islam with terrorism,” he said.

He said he believed dubbing a fight against Islamic extremism as a struggle for civilisation risked becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. “(Muslims) are without arms, they are weak and they are pushed into a corner. If you are pushed into a corner and the only thing you can do is bite, you bite,” he said. …

“When you target Muslim countries, other Muslims get angry and they try to retaliate the only way they can, by bombing or maybe attempts to blow up aircraft and so you think that these Muslims are really bad,” Mahathir said.

“But think first what you have done to them and then you will realise that if you were in their position you would do the same thing.”

Any questions?