No wonder Malaysians are confused. Until recently, we were under the impression that the country abhors all forms of violence perpetrated against innocent civilians. Thanks to the Prime Minister's Department, we are now told otherwise.

So what exactly is the government's stand on terrorism?

Last week, the PM's office - for reasons only known to its overzealous officials - strenuously refuted an Associated Press's report regarding a parliamentary debate on terrorism.

According to the AP report, which was filed by its reporter Sean Yoong, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad had criticised the attacks on Afghanistan by the United States and Britain.

"Mahathir's repeated calls for a summit of world leaders to reach an internationally acceptable definition of terrorism, and he criticised Israel. 'If they wanted to take action, they should pick the right people. I would support them if they wanted to take terrorist action against Israel, because Israel had shot dead many Palestinians. For us, those are the terrorists'," said the report.

The PM's office, which slammed the agency for its "incorrect and mischievous" reporting, stressed that Mahathir did not advise the alliance to attack Israel.

" AP had chosen to take out of context and referred the statement to the US and the British attacks on Afghanistan when this was clearly not the case," said a statement from the PM's Department.

It referred to the Hansard's official translation of Mahathir's statement:

"Those who had committed the terrorism against the Palestinians were Israelis. Retaliate against Israel then. Those who were killed in the attacks on the WTC building included many foreigners who had nothing to do with the terrorist acts committed by the Israeli authorities.

"Therefore, if they wanted to take action, they should pick on those who had acted against them, and I would support them if they had committed these terrorist acts against Israel because Israel had killed many Palestinians."

Supporting terrorism

The PM's Department rightly pointed out that the "they" which was referred to by Mahathir were not the US and Britain.

"At no time did the prime minister urge world leaders or US and Britain to attack Israel as was clearly implied in AP article," it said.

AP has since issued a correction.

"When Mahathir said he would have supported the attacks if they had hit Israel as the perpetrator of terrorism against the Palestinians, he was referring to the terrorist attackers who struck the US on Sept 11, not to US and British forces," said the news agency.

Indeed, AP did what any responsible media organisation would do, though the clarification came three days later.

However, while the PM's office is appalled by AP's mistake, Malaysians should be flabbergasted by Mahathir's unmitigated support for terrorist acts against Israel.

This is a statement unbecoming of a state leader. Elsewhere, it would have been an outrage. Here, in Malaysia, that remark went almost unnoticed by the media. Except for Ashraf Abdullah in the New Straits Times .

In his commentary last Friday, Ashraf took AP to task for misrepresenting the PM's remarks. He accused Yoong of either not having his pulse on the whole issue or not bothering to do his homework.

Ashraf went on to attack the Western media for seeking to paint Mahathir as being anti-Semitic, and for its sheer arrogance and lack of accountability, he demanded AP to apologise to Mahathir.

Vigilant public

But wait a minute. A malaysiakini reader Lim Puan has helpfully pointed out that Ashraf's own newspaper - yes, the NST - reported the prime minister making the very same statement as reported by AP .

Check the front-page of NST (Oct 9). In a report of the same event covered by the AP journalist, the newspaper quoted Mahathir as saying:

"However, I would support the US if it resorted to violence against Israel as it (Israel) is killing many innocent Palestinians."

Shouldn't the NST then apologise to the prime minister, too?

Ashraf went on to advise readers to apply a number of rules when reading reports filed by foreign news agencies.

"First, determine fact from fiction; catch the bias, straighten the slant and coax out every facet of the story."

Well said. But these guidelines should not be applied on the foreign media alone. It should also be applied on the Malaysian media, even malaysiakini . Only then, can we reach, if not the real truth, at least an approximation of the truth.

Indeed, no media holds the monopoly on truth. Not the foreign media. Not NST . Not malaysiakini .

Only a vigilant public can separate fact from fiction, catch the bias, straighten the slant and coax out every facet of the story.