Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has rebuffed a threat by eight US lawmakers to suspend military training funds unless Kuala Lumpur reverses its long-standing restrictions on Israeli nationals.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel and has long been one of Southeast Asia’s most vocal supporters of Palestinian statehood.
Anwar said Malaysia was exercising its sovereign right to control entry and rejected the lawmakers’ assertion that his government was violating international law by pledging to deport Israeli citizens, including dual nationals, found living in Malaysia.
“This is totally absurd because, as far as we are concerned, this policy has been adopted by Malaysia for decades,” he told reporters in Seremban on Wednesday. “We are against the presence here of any Israeli citizen – not Jews, but Israeli citizens because they are complicit in the murders, crimes and continuous oppression and colonisation of Palestine and Gaza.”
The confrontation followed a letter on Tuesday to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio from Democratic members of Congress Greg Landsman, Josh Gottheimer, Jimmy Panetta, Dan Goldman, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Jared Moskowitz, Brad Sherman and Jake Auchincloss, accusing Anwar of vowing to “hunt down and expel” citizens of a close American ally solely because of their nationality.