Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg yesterday said that Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has a history of anti-Jewish statements, in an escalating war of words over the possibility Australia might move its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison proposed the embassy move last month during a local election campaign, sparking concern from Indonesia and Malaysia.
“The Malaysian prime minister has form,” Frydenberg said in a radio interview. “He has called Jews hook-nosed people. He has questioned the number of people that have been killed in the Holocaust.”
The comments came after Mahathir brought up the issue of moving the embassy with Morrison during a meeting at the ASEAN summit on Thursday in Singapore.
“I pointed out that in dealing with terrorism, one has to know the causes,” Mahathir told reporters afterward, Australian media reported. “Adding to the cause for terrorism is not going to be helpful.”
Indonesia has also expressed concern over the embassy review and suggested it might upset plans for a free-trade agreement with Australia, although Morrison has said the issues were not conflated during talks he had with Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Morrison’s embassy announcement came just before a key by-election for a seat that has a large Jewish community and Morrison’s Liberal National government was desperate to win to keep its majority in parliament.
The seat was lost anyway, leaving the government ruling with the cooperation of independent lawmakers.
Speaking yesterday, Morrison confirmed that Mahathir had raised the subject of the embassy, but said that only “Australia determines Australian foreign policy.”
“I think what Josh said today was filling in the history of his [Mahathir’s] record on various issues over time,” Morrison told reporters on a visit to Darwin, where he was due to meet Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. “Make no mistake: I will not have our policy dictated by those outside the country.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not