I refer to the Malaysikini report Dr M: If they can make Avatar, they can make 9/11.

I can understand Malaysiakini not wanting to be labelled as anti-Semitic but I don't think it is necessary to omit certain words which give a totally different interpretation of what I said in my speech at the General Conference for the support of Al-Quds.

What I said was: ‘Jews had always been a problem in European countries’.

You omitted ‘in European countries’ thus implying that what I said was not just the Europeans but Jews were a problem for everyone including the Muslims.

I would like to point out that in the past when Europeans confined (the Jews) to ghettos, and periodically massacred (them), they used to seek refuge in Muslim countries (of North Africa and the Ottoman empire).

They couldn't have gone there if Muslim countries were less hospitable than the Europeans. Even today, Jews live in Muslim countries including in Iran. It was only after the US welcomed the Jews that they ceased to migrate to Muslim countries.

For the hospitality of the Muslim countries, they were repaid by the Zionists by seizing Palestine to create the state of Israel. Not content with seizing Arab land, they went on to expel the largely Muslim Palestinian.

All that I say here can be verified by the history books of Europe. If Muslims are antagonistic towards the Jews today, it is because of the way the Jews repaid them for their hospitality.

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Editor’s Note: Malaysiakini had inadvertently omitted the words ‘in European countries’ in Mahathir's quote above. It should be "Jews have always been a problem in European countries". The complete quote appears in the full version of Mahathir's speech which Malaysiakini carried on the same day. We regret the error.