comment The wrangling in Parliament over the reach and influence of communications consultants, Apco Worldwide, has reached a defining pass.

One side of the argument wants Anwar Ibrahim hauled before the rights and privileges committee for claiming that Apco were the brains behind the ‘One Israel’ policy of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, a carbon copy of which, claimed the opposition leader, is the Najib administration’s 1Malaysia policy.

A finding by the committee of false and misleading disclosure against him could see Anwar suspended from the House.

Besides the looming possibility of a jail sentence for the PKR supremo over the sodomy charges preferred against him in Sodomy II, Anwar now has to worry about a threatened suspension from Parliament.

NONE These days where Umno is concerned, any cudgel will do if useful for clobbering Anwar.

Never mind, it seems, if this lack of discrimination about the means is likelier to get the man enthroned rather than eviscerated.

Perhaps that’s why Anwar is unfazed. Yesterday, he said he will furnish the speaker with the backing for his claims about Apco’s reach and influence.

It’s hard to see what the hubbub is all about. Actually, the 1Malaysia concept, like the New Economic Policy of 40 years ago, is an arresting idea.

If the germ of the idea was Apco’s and the assist for it came from the One Israel policy of Labour Prime Minister Barak, then Apco is to be congratulated.

Because Labour is the more likely to make peace by surrendering conquered land to the Palestinians than their rivals, Likud, a policy that helps Labour gain an electoral edge in the Jewish state’s politics must be good.

Anwar attacked for Jewish link

But because this whole issue is embroiled with the vexed ‘Jewish question’, it is fertile a field for the display of cant and hypocrisy.

Traffickers in this debate often suffer from a kind of deformation: they are more solicitous of their rectitude than of the merits of the issue.

Thus their contributions to the debate are of a self-regarding nature, serving no useful purpose other than to establish their moral credentials.

Even with that as handicap, it appears Anwar is not likely to come out of this scrape in Parliament worsted.  

As he said, he has been tarred, without substantiation, with the brush of collusion with international Jewry for 12 years now.   

He feels that with the government having admitted in Parliament that the Jewish-linked Apco has had inputs on its overall communications strategy, he has Umno hoist with its own petard, especially if he can prove that Apco had inputs on ‘One Israel’.