Eight Democratic congressmen wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday calling on him to force Malaysia to cease its “hunt down” of Jews.
Reps. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) and Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) led the letter, in which they wrote that “Jews around the world have seen this playbook” after Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said last week that his government would track down and deport Israeli citizens in the country.
“Malaysia’s refusal to recognize Israel is troubling enough,” the congressmen wrote. “But, it is totally unacceptable that a head of government has publicly declared that his country will hunt down and expel citizens of our close ally based solely on their nationality. It should not be underwritten by the American taxpayer.”
“This is also a government that maintains open ties with Hamas,” they wrote. “Hamas fighters have even trained on Malaysian soil. The Malaysian government welcomes terrorists while targeting Jews.”
In July, an anonymous Malaysian group called Malaysian Protest 4 Palestine accused the tech startup company Network School of hosting Israeli dual-passport holders.
In response, Anwar said “if there are Israeli nationals involved, they will be deported immediately because Malaysia does not recognise Israel,” the Straits Times reported.
Balaji Srinivasan, Network School’s founder and a prominent Silicon Valley investor, wrote on Thursday that the company had invested about $25 million in Malaysia and that after investigating, “Malaysian authorities confirmed to the press on July 15 that they checked 266 physical passports in our community, and ‘all those inspected possessed valid immigration documents.’”
“If you don’t want our investment, or those of our colleagues at billion dollar funds and trillion dollar companies, we will of course respect your wishes, and reallocate our capital to other countries instead,” Balaji wrote.
On Thursday, Malaysian regulators revoked Network School’s operating license.
The congressmen who signed the letter to Rubio, who also included Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), urged the secretary to review the United States’ security and economic relationship with Malaysia “to ensure that it is serving the best interests of the United States.”
“Should Malaysia refuse to reverse this discriminatory policy within 15 days, we urge you to suspend international military education and training funding,” they wrote.
