Putrajaya, Malaysia ? Malaysia’s outspoken leader accused Western countries of using a double standard for criticizing Jews and Muslims, and refused to apologize Friday for a speech in which he said Jews ruled the world.

“Lots of people make nasty statements about us, about Muslims,” Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said. “People call Muslims terrorists, they even say … Muhammed the prophet was a terrorist.”

“People make such statements, and they seem to get away with it. But if you say anything at all against the Jews, you are accused of being anti-Semitic,” Mahathir told a news conference after the close of a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim grouping.

Mahathir was reacting to a wave of international condemnation over his speech to the summit Thursday, in which he said “Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.”

In his speech, Mahathir used allegations of Jewish dominance to underline his chief point: that Muslims needed to embrace modern knowledge and technology, and overcome divisions over religious dogma that have left them weakened on the world stage.

Mahathir said Muslims had achieved “nothing” in more than 50 years of fighting Israel. He also said the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims “cannot be defeated by a few million Jews.”

Mahathir, 77, a senior statesmen in the developing world who will retire Oct. 31 after 22 years in office, has long been a leader who takes pride in calling things the way he sees them. He is a staunch advocate of the Palestinians and strongly opposed the war in Iraq, but he also has jailed terror suspects from the al-Qaida-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group.

The United States, Canada, the European Union, Israel, Germany, Britain and Australia all condemned Mahathir’s remarks about Jews.