Dr Mahathir: PH finances critical, parties lack political funding

KUALA LUMPUR: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has defended his stand that Jews are responsible for the troubles in the Middle East.

He said he was merely speaking the truth and questioned whether Jews were so privileged that they were above criticism.

“I speak the truth. I do not care. I have been called anti-Semitic. Why is it that you cannot criticise the Jews and yet criticise everyone else without them giving you a label? This is something I do not understand,” he said.

“Are the Jewish people so privileged that we cannot say anything against them, even when they do something very wrong such as (sending) rockets and bombs (on Palestinian) children, hospitals and schools?”

Dr Mahathir said this at a press conference after chairing the coalition’s Presidential Council meeting here.

He was responding to international attention on his interview with the BBC on Tuesday, where he described Jews as “hooknosed” and slammed them for being behind the troubles in the Middle East.

“If you are going to be truthful, the problem in the Middle East began with the creation of Israel. That is the truth. But, I cannot say that,” Reuters quoted him as saying during an interview on BBC’s HARDTalk.

On another matter, Dr Mahathir said there was nothing wrong for Khazanah Nasional Bhd (Khazanah) and its subsidiary, SilTerra Malaysia Sdn Bhd, to be involved in the third national car project.

He said if Khazanah was interested, the company was welcome to invest in the project.

“If there are companies in Khazanah which are interested, they can invest too. And SilTerra produces microchips used by cars, planes and rockets.

“After all, Khazanah is not a government (company), it is private. So it’s free to run a business,” he said in response to a question raised by MCA deputy president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong, who revealed SilTerra would use public funds to invest in the third national car project.