The scapegoating of Jews as the source of our problems is getting out of hand.

I was shocked to read in a malaysiakini letter (' Berita Harian's anti-Holocaust article a sham ') that Berita Harian had published an article claiming that the Holocaust was a fabrication on Jan 28 (' Bukan semua percaya Jerman bunuh Yahudi ').

This is and has been proven to be nothing but anti-Semitic blather. Personally, I have known many Jews in the US, some of which had relatives who died in the Holocaust.

I saw elderly Jewish women with ID numbers branded onto their arms from when they were in concentration camps. I even had a high school teacher who, as a little girl growing up in France, narrowly escaped the German SS by dying her hair and hiding in people's homes during the war. She did anything and everything she could to avoid being caught. She lost both her parents in the Holocaust and was almost captured herself. Did these people all make up these elaborate stories thousands of people, acting in one big communal lie about this big fictitious event called the Jewish Holocaust?

Despite the enormous amount of evidence of its occurrence, most of which was recorded by and preserved by the Nazis themselves, there still exist those who like to feed anti-Semitic sentiments and take advantage of the tragedies occurring in the Middle East by creating nonsensical stories.

Most of these 'researchers' are from the West and are known-white supremacists or Christian fundamentalists who are notorious for their hatred of the Jews. Ironically, these same people are no friend of Arabs or Muslims either - yet Muslims unknowingly support their views simply because they say things against the Jews and Israel.

It is embarrassing, quite frankly, knowing the likes of these people and seeing my fellow Muslims actually adhere to their views. You cannot fabricate the murder of six to ten million people, just as you cannot fabricate the death of 200 plus million (a very low estimate probably) Africans who died in the genocide of the slave trade, and the 20 plus million who died under Stalin's reign in the Soviet Union, and all the other genocides that have occurred throughout human history. So why do we pay heed to such incredulous claims?

It is becoming disheartening that so many Muslims, including those in Malaysia, most of whom have never even met a Jewish person, so conveniently label Jews a people comprised of both those who agree with Israeli policies and those who disagree as the enemy and the number one problem of Muslims.

The fact that we believe stories and associate ourselves with known hate mongers such as David Duke for example, the former head of the American white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan (I saw one Muslim website publish an article by him because he spoke against Israel) is very troubling.

It has gotten so bad that according to certain Muslims - including some of our leaders - the Jews are the cause of every problem facing Muslims anywhere in the world today. Huh? This is interesting considering the fact that in the Koran, Allah tells us that the problems we experience are caused by our own doing.

Look around at our community and what do you see? You see Muslims committing crimes - some of the most heinous of crimes, mind you. You see Muslims displaying some of the most unbecoming and uninviting behaviour, and blatantly disregarding the most basic of religious teachings.

Then you hear Muslims, even our own ulama, blaming Jews for our problems! We are afraid to do the one thing that needs to be done most look inward to the source of our problems. Did the Jews force us to miss our prayers? Did the Jews force us to rape our daughters? Did the Jews make us choose to spend our free time watching football instead of teaching our children? Did the Jews force us to forgo even our most basic religious responsibilities? Did the Jews force us to get into our cars and drive to the malls instead of the mosques?

Allah's condemnation of the Jews in the Koran, which so many Muslims cite as their reason for their own condemnation of the Jews, is for one reason. Allah speaks harshly about them - and not all of them mind you - because they left their religion after having received the message of truth over and over again.

Allah's example of them is supposed to be a lesson and a reminder for the believers not to make the same mistakes. It is not a condemnation of a people; it is a condemnation of the act of rejecting the Truth.

Are we not, as Muslims, doing the same thing? We were sent the greatest Prophet and the greatest, purest and clearest message, but are we heeding it? Maybe we should spend more time pondering the Koran and take a long hard look at ourselves instead of blaming others for our problems.