- Joined
- Mar 11, 2013
- Messages
- 15,787
- Points
- 113
Former two-time Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, once again courted controversy by speaking out on the Bondi Beach terror attack and giving a seemingly back-handed compliment to Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
In a Facebook post on Dec. 18, about four days after the shooting at Bondi Beach that left 15 victims dead and saw one gunman killed, Mahathir had this to say:
Mahathir did not offer any condolences to the families of the victims in the post, instead referring to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with more Palestinians being killed despite a ceasefire brokered between militant group Hamas and Israel.
He said "of course", these events have nothing to do with the terror attack, and "agreed" with Albanese that it was "all because of evil anti-Semitism".
The gunmen targeted and killed some of the attendees of a Jewish religious service, before they were confronted by Ahmed el Ahmed, a Muslim immigrant from Syria, who tackled one of the gunmen, getting shot himself in the process.
Likely sarcastic remarks
Mahathir's likely sarcastic remarks appeared to link the killings in Gaza by Israeli forces to the Bondi Beach attack.
With one gunman shot dead by police and the other having only recently emerged from a coma in hospital, little definitive evidence of a motive has been presented.
Both religious and secular organisations and individuals around the world, including those in Singapore, condemned the act of violence and offered their condolences to the victims' families.
While some commenters applauded Mahathir's remarks, others criticised them, slamming him for seemingly being unable to simply express his condolences, instead of trying to politicise the incident.
Still others questioned what he had done to help the Palestinians during his time as prime minister.
