RIYADH:Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad strongly backed the Saudi call for a probe into Israeli war crimes, and said that the UN must set up a war crimes tribunal against Tel Aviv to investigate what he called the genocide of innocent Palestinians.
Speaking to Arab News, Mahathir said he supported the Arab peace initiative of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.“King Abdullah’s peace plan is a good initiative, but we are dealing with certain countries — especially Israel — that do not care about world opinion and peace,” he said.
“So any effort to establish peace and to bring the warring parties together will fail, but that does not mean that there should not be any effort to resolve the issues.” Mahathir said that a Malaysian NGO is working to set up a tribunal to try, expose and punish several world leaders, especially the Israeli leadership, for their acts of terrorism.
“The Malaysian tribunal, for which we are now trying to find judges from different countries, will pronounce punitive judgment which may not be carried out because the culprits are high-profile world leaders,” said Mahathir.
He blamed the US for backing Israeli aggression against innocent Gazans, saying it makes the US a bigger culprit than Israel. Speaking about the changes in the American policy with Barack Obama at the helm, he cautiously welcomed the closure of Guantanamo prison and said: “It remains to be seen how effective these steps would be.”
Source: Arab News