Mahathir retires with fresh attack on Jews

The Prime Minister of Malaysia compared Israel's treatment of the Palestinians with the Holocaust and accused the United States of forcing slaves to convert to Christianity in his final hours in office yesterday.

Mahathir Mohammad, 77, who retires today after 22 years, brought prosperity to his nation. But this had already been overshadowed by an outcry over his pronouncement that "Jews rule the world by proxy" by getting "others to fight and die for them".

He reignited the row yesterday by saying: "Jews must never claim they are the chosen people, who cannot be criticised. The Muslims have never ill-treated the Jews but now they are behaving exactly in the way the Europeans behaved toward them against the Muslims."