A war of words has intensified between Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and Josh Frydenberg, with the 93-year-old Dr Mahathir saying he should be able to criticise Jewish people “when they do something wrong” and defending as “fair comment” his warning that shifting Australia’s Israeli embassy to Jerusalem could encourage terrorism.
Hitting back at the Treasurer, who branded the Malaysian leader “anti-Semitic”, Dr Mahathir said his past comments about Jewish people were a matter of free speech. “People accept that some people, when they do something that is wrong, they need to be criticised and they need to be pointed out that what they do is wrong,” he told The Australian on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Port Moresby.
“But you can’t say anything you want about the Jewish people. Why are they so privileged? They do a lot of wrong things … You call me anti-Semitic. I am also called a dictator. I’m called all kinds of names, but it doesn’t matter.
“I have a right to speak. To say that I can talk about anything else except criticise the Jews is something quite unfair. We are talking about free speech.”
Mr Frydenberg, the deputy Liberal leader and a prominent Jewish MP, lashed Dr Mahathir last week, saying the Malaysian leader had “form” as an anti-Semite, making remarks about Jews being “hook-nosed”, questioning the Holocaust death toll, and banning the film Schindler’s List in Malaysia.
The attack was prompted by Dr Mahathir’s warning that following the lead of the US to establish an embassy in Jerusalem could spark terror incidents.
“Australia will make its own decisions based on its national interest,” Mr Frydenberg told the ABC.
He declined to say anything further when contacted yesterday.
Dr Mahathir said he believed Australia’s relationship with Malaysia was strong, “but when you annoy people, they have a right to react”.
“Sometimes Australia says something and we say it is wrong. It is fair comment,” he said.
Showing he had not forgotten Paul Keating’s labelling of him as a “recalcitrant”, Dr Mahathir said: “You want to say we are recalcitrant or whatever, you are welcome to say (that).”
Scott Morrison has come under increasing pressure from opponents and from some within his own ranks to abandon a proposal to move Australia’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem but Trade Minister Simon Birmingham yesterday said the idea would go through a “proper process”.
“What the government is doing is precisely what Scott Morrison said he’d do, which is to consult leaders through the summit season. We’ll then, of course, bring together the expert advice of our senior officials, and we’ll have a proper cabinet decision at the end of that process,” Senator Birmingham told the ABC.
He insisted that concerns Indonesia had over the free-trade agreement with Australia, which he hoped would be signed “in the coming months”, was “a quite separate matter” to the possible embassy move.
“Australia will make our foreign policy decisions based purely on Australia’s national interest, but judging, as we would, it against our values as a nation, ensuring it’s consistent with our understanding of Security Council decisions through the UN,” Senator Birmingham said.
Liberal senator Zed Seselja added his support to the embassy relocation yesterday, saying he was “certainly favourably disposed” to the proposal. “It goes to our values. We want to see a two-state solution. This in no way undermines the two-state solution,” he told Sky News.
The Morrison government is reviewing the possible move.
The Anti-Defamation Commission rejected Dr Mahathir’s claim that his comments “demonising Jews were ‘free speech’”, saying the Malaysian prime minister had expressed “classic” anti-Semitic views for decades.
“It is beyond belief for anyone to claim that hateful, anti-Semitic rhetoric is free speech,” the commission’s chair Dr Dvir Abramovich said.
“This is a leader who claimed that ‘the Jews rule this world by proxy’ and has argued that sympathy for victims of the Holocaust is ‘wasted and misplaced’. In a recent interview with the BBC this year he said ‘if you are going to be truthful, the problem in the Middle East began with the creation of Israel … That is the truth’.
“He has also disputed the fact that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, claiming the figure was 4 million, and adding, ‘even after their massacre by the Nazis in Germany, they survived to be a source of even greater problems to the world’.”