Israel will not allow Malaysian diplomats to cross through the country on their way to new consulates in Ramallah and Gaza, in response to the Muslim country’s vicious anti-Israel stances and actions.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah announced last week that his country is planning to appoint honorary consuls to Ramallah and Gaza in 2020.
Responding to the announcement, Gilad Cohen, Deputy Director-General for Asia and the Pacific at Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs tweeted “to this we say NO WAY.”
“When Malaysia stops it’s anti-Semitic incitement and hostility, when Israeli athletes are not banned from entering Malaysia, when Israel is treated fairly, only then will we allow Malaysian official envoys through our territory,” he stated Wednesday.
He was referring to Malaysia’s refusal to admit Israeli athletes into the country for the 2019 World Para-Swimming Championships, which led the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to hold the event in another country.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is a vocal anti-Semite who said in an October 2018 interview with the BBC that truth justifies his statement that Jews are “hook-nosed” and repeated the falsehood that six million Jews were not killed in the Holocaust.
He also notoriously boasted that “I am glad to be labeled anti-Semitic…How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies.”
In 2016, two Israeli windsurfers were refused visas to compete at the Youth Sailing World Championships in Malaysia.
Hamas’ actions to recruit and train Arab students in Malaysia and were exposed by the Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) in 2015.
The Muslim majority country has no diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.