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Malaysian PM doubles down on antisemitism in Oxford Union address

Mahathir Mohamad told the audience that he had every right to speak 'against the Jews'

January 20, 2019 12:11
Mahathir Mohamad
1 min read

In an address at the Oxford Union on Friday night, the Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir Mohamad doubled down on his well-known antisemitism, saying it was a matter of freedom of speech for him to speak “against the Jews”.

When it was pointed out his previous remarks about Jewish people being “hooked nosed” with “an instinctive sense of money” were antisemitic, he responded saying: “We are free to say what we like, we can say something that can be regarded as antisemitic by the Jews. That is their right to hold such an opinion of me. It is my right to tell them they have been doing a lot of wrong things.

“Why we can’t say anything against Israel, against the Jews?”

The 93-year-old was also asked why, when he wanted to criticise Israel, he used the word “Jews” instead of pointing to certain policies by the Israeli government. He said: “Well, it seems most of them support the stance taken by [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu against the Arabs, so when I say only the ‘Zionists’, people don’t understand. What they do understand is the word ‘yahudi’ or ‘Jews’.”