BANGKOK, 22 October 2003 — An unrepentant Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has repeated his charge that Jews control the world and has denied that he was personally rebuked by US President George W. Bush.

In an interview published yesterday with the Bangkok Post, Mahathir stood by his earlier statements on Jews and said the global reaction, including criticism from many international leaders, “shows that (Jews) do control the world.”

“Israel is a small country. There are not many Jews in the world. But they are so arrogant that they defy the whole world. Even if the United Nations say no, they go ahead. Why? Because they have the backing of all these people,” Mahathir was quoted as saying. Mahathir, who retires at month’s end after 22 years as the leader of mainly Muslim Malaysia, often makes acerbic speeches against globalization and US policy in the Middle East.

He triggered an uproar last week at a summit of Islamic countries in Malaysia by stating that “Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”

That led Bush to pull him aside at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Thailand to say the remarks were “wrong and divisive,” a White House spokesman said. A senior Malaysian official said Bush’s personal rebuke of Mahathir, considered a senior statesman in Asia, was disrespectful.

“I consider Bush’s action rude, as though he wants to determine what and how a person should speak and say something,” Rais Yatim, Malaysia’s de facto law minister was quoted as saying in Kuala Lumpur by the Malaysian news agency, Bernama.

Later at a news conference in Bangkok Mahathir denied Bush had rebuked him.

“I don’t know how people can come to that conclusion, because I know for a fact nobody heard what he said to me,” Mahathir told a news conference. “I would like to explain that he did pull me aside, in order to explain to me why he made such a strong statement against me.”

“Certainly, he did not rebuke me,” Mahathir said. “After that, we were walking practically hand-in-hand. How do you say a person is rebuking another person if our relations are that good?”

Controversy surrounding his comments on Jews trailed Mahathir to the APEC summit which closed yesterday.

Mahathir told reporters after the summit ended that, “I can’t very well be criticizing Muslim countries without at the same time pointing out the mistakes and the wrong acts performed by the Jews.”

Asked if he would ever visit Israel, Mahathir said that he would — but only if Jewish leaders visited Muslim countries first “and explain why they call Muslims terrorists. So then I think it would be fair.”

Mahathir said he was concerned that Christian fundamentalists held positions of power in the US government “a development we worry about, because like the so-called Muslim extremists, Christian fundamentalists tend to have the extreme views.”

Shortly before Bush and Mahathir sat down together in the same room with 19 other APEC leaders Monday, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said the American president “thinks those remarks were reprehensible.”