Malaysia brushes off US threat to cut military aid over
Jews remarks
PUTRAJAYA : Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Tuesday
brushed off a threat by the US Senate to cut US$1.2 million in
military aid over his criticism of Jews.
"It doesn't make any difference to us. We don't really need that
money. I think we can find that one million dollars here," Mahathir
told an impromptu news conference.
He also appeared to imply that the Senate vote was proof of his
claim that Jews rule the world by proxy.
"They are very annoyed about what I said about the Jews. This is
their reaction, so what I say is true."
The US Senate voted unanimously on Monday to tie the military
training aid to a report by the State Department determining
whether Malaysia "supports and promote religious freedoms,
including tolerance for people of the Jewish faith".
The move still needs to win support from the House of
Representatives, which has already passed a resolution condemning
Mahathir over his remarks at the summit of the Organisation of the
Islamic Conference in mid-October.
Mahathir said then: "The Europeans killed six million Jews out of
12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get
others to fight and die for them."
On Tuesday, in response to the Senate vote, he said: "They (the US)
want to dictate to the world. We are all being run by the US
Senate."
Malaysia's relations with Washington have nosedived after reaching
a high point in May last year when Mahathir was welcomed at the
White House by President George W. Bush to be thanked personally
for his support in the war on terrorism.
Since then, while maintaining his strong condemnation of terrorism
and detaining local Islamic militants, Mahathir has been
increasingly critical of Bush's handling of the campaign.
He has accused the US of using the war on terrorism as a pretext
for a war on Islam, and predicted that invading Iraq would simply
inflame Muslim hatred of the US and create more terrorists.
Mahathir retires on Friday after running this moderate
mainly-Muslim country, which has large practising Christian, Hindu
and Buddhist minorities, for the past 22 years.
Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel, and Mahathir
regularly points to the plight of the Palestinians as a root cause
of Islamic terrorism.
His lack of concern about the one million dollars in military aid
can be judged against Malaysia's recent orders for Russian fighter
jets, French submarines, Polish tanks and British missile systems
running into billions of dollars. - AFP"
