Citation in anti-Semitic list provokes furore from Dr M
By Melissa Chi, The Malaysian Insider
Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad lashed out at Jews today for using the Holocaust as an entitlement to inflict suffering on Palestinians, following a top Jewish human rights organisation’s decision to cite one of his quotes among its top ten anti-Semitic slurs of the year.
The Simon Weisenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organisation based in the US, quoted the former PM as saying in January that “Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes and periodically massacred … Even after the massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world.”
Dr Mahathir defended his “slurs” today in a posting on his blog by saying that he was “merely exercising my right to free speech to speak up against what I considered as injustice.”
The US-based organisation ranked the longest serving Malaysian prime minister third on the list, while former UPI Senior White House correspondent, Helen Thomas’s “slur” topped the list.
She was quoted as saying “Jews should get the hell out of Palestine. They should go home to Poland, Germany, America and everywhere else”, in May and “Congress, the White House, Hollywood and Wall Street are owned by Zionists. They put their money where their mouth is”, earlier this month.
Included in the list is also a journalist, Rick Sanchez, formerly with CNN, whose remark had cost him his job at the news channel.
Dr Mahathir said he condemned Israel for breaking international laws, carrying out an illegal siege of Gaza, attacking and seizing the Mavi Marmara and the Rachel Corrie in international waters, killing nine Turkish aid workers, and continuing to deprive the people of Gaza of medical supplies, construction material and food.
“If for any or all these I am considered to be anti-Semitic, then so be it. But Jews clearly cannot be condemned for anything because 60 years ago, the Nazis of Germany committed atrocities against them.
“Apparently their sufferings of 60 years ago entitle them to inflicting sufferings on the Palestinians whose land they had stolen. No matter how cruel or unjust they may be, no one may criticise them,” he said sarcastically.
