SYDNEY - Australian leaders joined a worldwide chorus of condemnation over comments by outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad that "Jews ruled the world by proxy".

"It is offensive," Prime Minister John Howard said, breaking with his policy of refusing to comment on remarks by his controversial Malaysian counterpart.

"Any suggestion from anybody anywhere in the world of dividing the world into Jewish and non-Jewish groupings is historically indefensible and wrong and something that most Australians would regard as quite repugnant," Howard said in a radio interview.

Mahathir, who has ruled Malaysia for 22 years and frequently clashed with Australia over its role in the Asian region, made the anti-Jewish remarks as he opened an Islamic summit on Thursday.

Brains and brawn

"The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million. But today the Jews rule this world by proxy," Mahathir said.

"They get others to fight and die for them," he said, adding, "1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews."

"We cannot fight them through brawn alone, we must use our brains also," he said.

The statement drew strong condemnation from many quarters, including the United States and the European Union.

The foreign affairs spokesman for Australia's opposition Labor Party earlier Friday called on Howard to break with his past policy of ignoring Mahathir's diatribes and directly confront the Malaysian leader's latest remarks.

Dangerous remark

"The bottom line is, his most recent remarks are not just offensive, they are downright dangerous," said Kevin Rudd.

"Countries like Australia appropriately need to respond to these sorts of remarks."

Rudd called on Howard to take the matter up personally with Mahathir when the two men attend an Asia-Pacific regional summit meeting next week in Thailand.

"The prime minister's got a responsibility to engage Dr Mahathir, he'll be attending the Apec summit soon and any strategy of oxygen denial as far as Mahathir is concerned is plainly not working," Rudd said. - AFP