Even the world’s most anti-Semitic leaders often try to hide or deny their anti-Semitism. Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may be the world’s most prominent anti-Semite, but he likes to couch his deep-seeded hatred of Jews in the language of anti-Zionism and the destruction of Israel.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, too, says he is not anti-Semitic; he is just opposed to Israel. Turkey’s Jews are the canary in the coalmine, though. Under Erdogan, their numbers have plummeted. When Erodgan wants to inflame his base or when he does not need anything from the West, he lets his anti-Semitism shine through. Long before Jewish space lasers became a thing among fringe conspiracy theorists, Erdogan’s top advisor suggested Jews killed Turks via telekinesis.
Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s senior statesman who served close to 25 years as the Southeast Asian country’s prime minister, abides no such nuance. In a December 29, 2023 tweet, Mohamad (who has long been open about his anti-Semitism), outlines his theory about the Jewish control of the United States. “Who owns America?” he asks, before explaining, “Obviously, the Zionist Jews because they control the different media and they own most of the big American corporations.”
American officials might dismiss Mohamad’s rant as the ravings of a has-been 98-year-old but this would be a mistake both because Mohamad inspires Islamist extremism in the West and because the infrastructure of terror support Mohamad introduced continues to cultivate and support terrorists.
Consider: In 2018, Malaysia accused the Mossad of assassinating a Hamas engineer on a Kuala Lumpur street. Whether Israel was behind the assassination is immaterial to the fact that Malaysia was hosting a prominent Hamas weapons specialist.
In November 2022, Turkey blew the whistle on an alleged Israeli operation to nab “Omar A,” a Palestinian hacker who had disrupted Iron Dome in 2015 and 2016 to enable Hamas rockets to strike Israel. As is increasingly common, initial interrogation occurs by video, in this case from a cabin about 30 miles outside Kuala Lumpur. After the Turkish tip-off, Malaysian officials rescued the Hamas hacker and arrested the Mossad’s Malaysian informants.
That Malaysian connection for Hamas is now the rule rather than the exception. While Hamas terrorists reportedly practiced their October 7 attack in Gaza itself, the exception was the mechanized paragliders who could not do so without attracting Israeli attention. Enter Malaysia to host their training.
The current Israel-Hamas War should be a wake-up call for the West. Hamas is a transnational terror group that finds fertile ground in Iran, Turkey, and now Malaysia. Just as with Afghanistan pre-2001 (and perhaps post-2021), safe-havens allow terror to metastasize. Mohamad laid the infrastructure for terror to thrive in Malaysia, his successor has done nothing to uproot it, and so its cancer now grows. Counter-terror policy is most effective when it is based on fact rather than wishful thinking. At a minimum, Malaysia should be on the Financial Action Task Force grey or black lists. Simultaneously, it is time the State Department consider designating Malaysia to be a state sponsor of terrorism.
