Israel’s Genocide in Gaza Will Stain History for Centuries: Former Malaysian PM

Marking his 100th birthday, Mahathir Mohamad warned that Israel’s assault on Gaza — which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, mostly women and children — will remain etched in history as a crime against humanity for centuries to come.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, shortly after recovering from exhaustion, Mahathir said Israel’s assault on Gaza was an atrocity that would be remembered for generations.

“Gaza is terrible. They killed pregnant mothers… babies just born, young people, boys and girls, men and women, the sick and the poor… How can this be forgotten?” he asked.

“It will not be forgotten for maybe centuries,” Mahathir said.

He described Israel’s mass killing of nearly 66,000 Palestinians — most of them women and children — as genocide, drawing parallels with the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia in the 1990s and the Nazi extermination of Jews in World War II.

“I thought people who suffered like that would not want to visit it on other people,” Mahathir said.

Victims of genocide, he added, should “not want to wish their fate to befall other people.”

But Israel, he said, had proven the opposite.

“They want the same thing that happened to them, they want to do it to the Arabs,” he said.

Mahathir, once a prominent voice of the Global South and a fierce critic of Western imperialism, has long defended the Palestinian cause. His sharp denunciations of Israel and the United States often drew accusations of anti-Semitism.

Yet, as he told Al Jazeera, he once felt deep sympathy for Jews after World War II. Now, he says, Israelis “did not learn anything from their experience.”

Mahathir Mohamad marked his 100th birthday this year with the same discipline he has maintained for decades — little food, relentless work, and no indulgence in rest.

“The main thing is that I work all the time. I don’t rest myself,” Mahathir told Al Jazeera.

“I am always using my mind and body. Keep your mind and body active, then you live longer,” he said.

From his office in Putrajaya, south of Kuala Lumpur, Mahathir continues to write daily on Malaysia’s economy, its political landscape, and global events — especially Israel’s war on Gaza.

Looking ahead, Mahathir said the only “reasonable” way forward is a two-state solution. He noted that recent recognition of Palestinian statehood by Australia, Belgium, Canada, France and the United Kingdom marked a significant development.

But he conceded such a resolution remains distant.

“In my lifetime, no. Too short a time,” he said.