Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in an interview with the BBC, October 2, 2018.

A UK-BASED Jewish group has applied pressure to officials and demanded a reversal of Cambridge University’s decision to host the prime minister of Malaysia, who has shown a clear understanding of Jewish power.

The Cambridge Union debating society will welcome Mahathir Mohamad, who has criticized Jewish power, calling it a threat to world peace and self-determination of all peoples. He also stated that what Jews refer to as “the Holocaust” had been greatly exaggerated.

Sheila Gewolb, senior vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said in a statement, “The decision by Cambridge University Union to host Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a notorious antisemite who has made no secret of his distaste for Jews and Israel, is deeply disheartening.”

“By inviting this divisive figure, Cambridge Union is creating a hostile environment for Jews, giving a platform to a person who has repeatedly denied the scope of the Shoah, spread antisemitic tropes, and made straightforward racist comments,” she charged.

Mohamad’s statements have gained worldwide publicity. He has also praised Jews for certain of their characteristics, stating once for example that “Jews understand money instinctively.”

During a BBC interview last year, Mohamad defended himself, stating, “There are many races in this world,” adding that when he has criticized non-Jews, “they never accused me of being anti-this or anti-that.”

“They are hook-nosed,” he said of the Jews. “Many people call the Malays flat-nosed. We did not object. We did not go to war for that.”

In a speech to the UN General Assembly the week before, Mohamad referred to the special status that Jews demand, saying, “The Israelis are special, you cannot even mention that in the Holocaust it was not six million.” Even though his sentence clearly implies that “the Holocaust” was an actual event, Jewish publications have described his statement as “denying the Holocaust.”

Mohamad has also said he was “glad to be labelled anti-Semitic,” and equated the Jews with “Nazis.”

“Today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them,” he asserted in 2013.

In 2010, he stated, “Jews had always been a problem in European countries. They had been confined in ghettos and periodically massacred. But they still remained and still thrived and held whole governments to ransom.”

* * *

Source: based on an article in the Algemeiner