KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 21 — Outspoken critic of Israel Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad launched another diatribe against the Zionist state yesterday, accusing it of treating African immigrants as how Nazi Germany had treated Jews.
Drawing parallels between the notion of racial supremacy that drove Nazi Germany in its quest to wipe out the Jewish populace during the Holocaust, the former Malaysian prime minister said the once-oppressed people were now entertaining the same concept in wanting to preserve “racial purity” in Israel.
“The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu fears the possibility of African blood being mixed with Jewish blood. The Jews must remain pure.
“Seems that the Jews believe in racial purity. There is no difference then between the Nazis and the Israelis. Their oppression of the Palestinians is another indicator. Given power Jews behave in the same way as the Nazis,” Dr Mahathir wrote in his latest blog entry.
In it, he lashed out at Israel’s apparent hypocrisy in the segregation of African migrants as well as a reported US$3,5000 (RM10,500) “reward” paid to those from the group who were willing to be deported from the Jewish state.
Dr Mahathir also sought to lump the treatment of Africans with the continued Jewish “oppression” of the Palestinian people, for whom the former prime minister is an outspoken champion.
He also accused Israel of being an Apartheid state, saying that only Jews could become full-fledged citizens while migrants from migrants from the Middle East were treated as second-class citizens.
Saying that although the rest of the world sympathised with the Jews over their treatment during World War II, Dr Mahathir said it was now necessary to “judge” Israel for its current actions.
“Jews condemned the German Nazis for the persecution of their people. Now they themselves are behaving like Nazis; persecuting the Africans,” he wrote.
Israel has seen recent protests by African asylum seekers who fear authorities there intend to force them out of the state.
Last month, Israel passed a new law that allows refugees and asylum seekers to be detained indefinitely, placing them under added pressure to agree to repatriation.
Some 53,000 African refugees are believed to be in Israel.
Dr Mahathir is vocal in his criticism of a so-called global Jewish agenda, most famously claiming in 2003 that Jews “rule the world by proxy”.
