Mahathir Mohamad again cast doubt on the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust and claimed that Jews control most of the West.

By World Israel News Staff

Malaysia’s rabidly antisemitic former prime minister went on tirade last week, claiming that Jews did not express sufficient appreciation for the allied soldiers’ sacrifices after the Holocaust and charging Israel of behaving like Nazi Germany to the Palestinians.

Following a recent visit by Mahathir to the UK, where several local religious bodies welcomed him warmly, the London-based Jewish Chronicle reached out to him with a series of questions. In response, Mahathir Mohamad, who is now 98, once again cast doubt on the number of Jews killed during the Holocaust and propagated the idea that Jews dominate most of the West.

Mahathir also claimed Israel is “doing to the Arabs what the Nazis did to [Jews].”

Mahathir, who has self-identified as a proud “antisemite” in the past, made the assertion that “Jews are ruling the world by proxy.”

Mahathir, holds the record as Malaysia’s longest-tenured premier, service twice in the role, with his second stint lasting from 2018 until he quit in February 2020.

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Twitter removed a tweet from Mahathir Mohamad that justified Islamic extremist violence in the wake of two recent grisly terror attacks in France over cartoons of Muhammad.

By World Israel News and AP

Twitter removed a tweet from former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad for glorifying violence after a knife-wielding Muslim killed three people in an attack at a church in the southern French city of Nice on Thursday.

This attack was the second deadly incident of Islamic terrorism in France in less than two weeks, following on the heels of the beheading of middle school teacher Samuel Paty, who showed caricatures of the Muhammad for a class on free speech.

France’s digital minister demanded the company also ban Mahathir Mohamad from its platform.

Cedric O said he told the managing director of Twitter in France that Mahathir’s account “must be immediately suspended,” O tweeted on Thursday. ”

“If not, @twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder.”

Mahathir, the 95-yearold former Malaysian prime minister, claimed the deaths of French people would be justified, in the wake of attacks that French authorities attributed to Muslim extremists.

“Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of people for the massacres of the past,” he said Thursday, in a series of tweets that began with his thoughts on the beheading of Paty.

Twitter at first put a label on the tweet saying it glorified violence but left it up because it “may be in the public’s interest.”

The tweet was later removed and replaced with a tag saying it broke the rules. The company said it took action for violating its policy on glorification of violence, which doesn’t allow threats against individuals or a group of people.

Mahathir was twice prime minister, and his second stint lasted from 2018 until he quit in February 2020. He is an unabashed anti-Semite that has promoted Jew-hatred during appearances in the West.

Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to express his support for France.

Trump tweeted: “Our hearts are with the people of France. America stands with our oldest Ally in this fight. These Radical Islamic terrorist attacks must stop immediately. No country, France or otherwise can long put up with it!”

Muslims have protested worldwide in the wake of a France’s crackdown on Islamic extremism after Paty’s grisly murder.

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad defended his right to express anti-Semitic views in the name of free speech in remarks to Columbia University students.

By Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner

Speaking to a packed audience at the university’s Global Leaders Forum, the 94-year-old leader of Malaysia — whose decades-old conviction that “the Jews rule the world by proxy” has never wavered  — also refused to say whether he accepted the fact that six million Jews were murdered during the Nazi Holocaust.

“Why can’t I say something about the Jews, when people say nasty things about me and about Malaysia?” Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad complained, as he responded to a powerfully-worded challenge posed by a member of the Columbia chapter of Students Supporting Israel.

The Malaysian leader went on to argue, “When you say ‘you cannot be anti-Semitic,’ there is no free speech.”

Denies scope of Holocaust

Pressed by the questioner to state his views on the Holocaust, Mahathir said he accepted that “there was a Holocaust,” but pointedly refused to discuss the number of Jews exterminated by the Nazis and their collaborators.

Conceding only that there were “many Jews killed,” Mahathir attempted to turn the tables on his questioner. “I was very sympathetic to them during the war, that was when you were not around,” he said.

The questioner immediately shot back that while she had not been alive during World War II, her grandmother had survived the Nazi onslaught. Hearing this, Mahathir answered that he had said all he wanted to say on the subject.

The exchange over Mahathir’s well-known anti-Semitism was the only discordant moment in a carefully-choreographed event that presented the Malaysian prime minister as an elder statesman who had pioneered multilateral diplomacy against U.S. militarism.

“We have a lot of wisdom that we can draw on from you,” gushed Prof. Lien-Hang T. Nguyen, the event moderator, at one point in their conversation. And as Mahathir was leaving the stage at the end of the event, Prof. Nguyen told him, “That was amazing.”

At no point during the two-way interview did Nguyen offer the vaguest criticism of Mahathir — whether the issue under discussion was corruption and patronage at home, the impact of climate change or the denial of the Holocaust.

Other questions put to Mahathir were similarly complimentary. Two Malaysian students who spoke in quick in succession peppered their questions about Malaysia’s internal challenges with flattering admiration for their leader.

Meanwhile, the student who followed the Jewish questioner joked to a smiling Mahathir, “That previous question was very tough — this will be easier.”

Telling Mahathir that he was “praised as much in Pakistan as in Malaysia,” he asked the Malaysian leader for his views on the crisis between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir. But strikingly, Mahathir’s response to an appeal for solidarity with his fellow Muslims in Kashmir was somewhat muted.

“We cannot go to war, we cannot invade India, we can only appeal to India to respect UN resolutions,” he said.

Calls AIPAC ‘dark force’

In marked contrast, he has previously claimed that the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda terrorist atrocities in New York and Washington, DC “were staged…as an excuse to mount attacks against the Muslim world.” In that same speech — delivered to a a Muslim solidarity conference with the Palestinians — Mahathir spoke darkly of “forces in the United States which prevent the president from doing some things.”

He continued: “One of the forces is the Jewish lobby, AIPAC.”

Despite his lengthy record of antisemitic barbs, as well as his attacks on the LGBT+ community and his baiting of the Chinese minority in Malaysia, some of the world’s top universities clearly believe that Mahathir’s presence on campus is a mark of honor.

An appearance at Cambridge University in the U.K. in June was distinguished by warm applause and even appreciative laughter when Mahathir told his audience, “I have some Jewish friends, very good friends. They are not like the other Jews, that’s why they are my friends.”

In a statement issued in advance of Mahathir’s appearance on Wednesday, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger defended the invitation in a letter to student groups, including Students Supporting Israel.

“This form of open engagement can sometimes be difficult, even painful,” Bollinger said. “But to abandon this activity would be to limit severely our capacity to understand and confront the world as it is, which is a central and utterly serious mission for any academic institution.”

U.S. Jewish leaders bitterly attacked the invitation to Mahathir, calling on Columbia’s donors to drop their financial support for the university in protest.

“Columbia University stands in disgrace today, having hosted the unrepentant Prime Minister of Malaysia who, in keeping with his self-proclaimed ‘proud anti-Semite’ status, defended his hate speech as a right,” Arthur Stark, chairman, and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman/CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said in a statement on Thursday.

“This would not be tolerated by the University from a leader who expressed such animosity and false assertions about any other group. Indeed, donors and supporters of Columbia University should send a strong message by denying them support. This is not the first such incident but must be the last.”

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“This is not a matter of free speech, or of scholarly freedom,” the petition notes. “It is a matter of basic academic decency.”

By Algemeiner Staff

A Change.org petition protesting an upcoming Sept. 25 speech at Columbia University by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad — who has a long record of anti-Semitic statements — had received more than 800 signatures by Friday afternoon.

“Universities should present divergent and radical opinions, but they are not environments in which absolutely anything goes,” the petition — an initiative of the Students Supporting Israel (SSI) chapter at Columbia — says. “A language that encourages racism, bigotry and hate speech has no place in academic discourse,” it states.

“Free speech is an important fundamental right to any individual living in a free society,” it continues. “Mohamad can say anything he wants, of course — that is free speech. But being able to speak at Columbia University — or at any university, for that matter — is a privilege, not a right.”

“This is not a matter of free speech, or of scholarly freedom,” the petition notes. “It is a matter of basic academic decency.”

The petition concludes by urging Columbia President Lee Bollinger to “undertake immediate measures to ensure the safety and well being of Columbia’s Jewish students.”

“Such measures should be canceling Prime Ministers Mohamad’s expected speech at Columbia, or at the very least, denouncing, on stage, the Prime Minister’s vile and antisemitic remarks,” it demands.

SSI — joined by fellow campus groups Aryeh and J Street U — also penned a letter to Bollinger, calling for such action.

The 94-year-old Mahathir’s most recent anti-Semitic outburst occurred in June, during an appearance at Cambridge University in the U.K.

The event moderator asked him, “Why do you say that the Jewish people, in general, are inclined towards money? There are lots of Jews who care about human rights, care about social justice, care about democracy.”

Mahathir answered: “I have some Jewish friends, very good friends. They are not like the other Jews, that’s why they are my friends.”

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Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an avowed anti-Semite, was asked on Sunday at the U.K.’s Cambridge University:

“Why do you say that the Jewish people in general are inclined towards money? There are lots of Jews who care about human rights, care about social justice, care about democracy.”

Mohamad responded, “I have some Jewish friends, very good friends. They are not like the other Jews, that’s why they are my friends,” comments to which the crowd responded with laughter.

“I have some Jewish friends, very good friends. They are not like the other Jews, that’s why they are my friends”- Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad at the Cambridge Union last night.

The audience laughs.

Freedom of speech is not a joke when it incites hatred against one people. pic.twitter.com/2ZRrMDtfKy

— Union of Jewish Students (@UJS_UK) June 17, 2019

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In a recent BBC interview, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad claimed that truth justifies his statement that Jews are “hook-nosed” and reiterated the canard that six million Jews were not killed in the Holocaust.

The post WATCH: Malaysian PM in UK defends Holocaust-denial, ‘hook-nosed Jews’ comments appeared first on World Israel News.