Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said in an interview Monday that “Antisemitic is a term that is invented to prevent people from criticizing the Jews for doing wrong things,” as he dismissed anti-Jewish hatred as an artificial construct to stifle debate, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported.

“There is one race that cannot be criticized. If you are antisemitic, it seems almost as if you are a criminal,” Mohamad, an avowed anti-Semite, told the Associated Press. “When somebody does wrong, I don’t care how big they are. They may be powerful countries but if they do something wrong, I exercise my right of free speech. They criticize me, why can’t I criticize them?”

(The term anti-Semitism was coined by the 19th century German journalist Wilhelm Marr, who opposed Jewish emancipation and sought to popularize a term that would make Jew-hatred sound more scientific.)

Mohamad was elected into office in May and has since been in the spotlight for his anti-Semitic rhetoric based on a decades-long record of incitement against the Jewish people. On his personal blog, he entertained anti-Semitic conspiracies, such as the Jewish plot for world domination. “Jews rule this world by proxy,” Mohamad wrote in 2012.

At 92, he is the world’s oldest elected leader. He previously served as prime minister from 1981 until 1999.

In his 2003 address to the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in Kuala Lumpur, Mohamad vowed that “1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategize and then to counterattack.”

“We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed 6 million Jews out of 12 million,” Mohamad said in an apparent attempt to incite a second Holocaust.

He has also said he was proud to be an anti-Semite. “I am glad to be labeled antisemitic […] 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 his book, “The Makay Dilemma,” published in 1970, Mohamad stated that “The Jews are not merely hook-nosed, but understand money instinctively.”

[Photo: U.S. Department of State / WikiCommons ]