Time to face the Israel question

(FMT) All publicity is good says an old adage among press agents. That adage is being put severely to the test in the matter of the federal government’s publicity consultants Apco Worldwide.

At last count, six institutions and seven members of the ruling establishment have become embroiled in a fast-escalating row that threw up questions of national security and Israeli influence. It is a row that has now gone up to the very top – to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.

Yet it had seemed innocent enough when Anwar Ibrahim questioned Apco’s role in the 1Malaysia campaign of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak, and linked it to Apco’s relationship with Israel. Inevitably the Z word and the J word came into play.

At first glance Anwar’s question was just a political stunt to repay Barisan Nasional administration leaders in the same coin, for having been tarred by them over many years with the taunt of being an agent of Jews and Jewish interests. It looked like payback time.

But there are more serious questions to answer – about Apco’s relations with Israeli intelligence, Israeli links to the federal police through a Singapore company, and the implications these have on national security. Answers have been few.

One answer given shows that Apco’s deal with the government, at RM77 million, will cost the taxpayer at least three times more than was originally believed.

As the prime minister basks in the Washington spring sunshine and the warm limelight of an association with the world’s favourite US president, the taxpayer will wonder exactly what – and who – that RM77 million has bought on their behalf.

Memories will be stirred of another Malaysian PM, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, another US president, George W Bush, and another lobbyist from K Street, Jack Abramoff, now serving a five-year jail term for fraud and corruption offences.

It must be said those offences had nothing to do, as far as we know, with the US$1.2 million fee that Mahathir later said Abramoff was paid for arranging his meeting with Bush in 2002. That meeting helped to raise Mahathir’s profile after being severely criticised by the previous Clinton administration – for anti-Semiticism, and for Anwar’s jailing.

That Anwar is again at the centre is not surprising. Neither is the government’s response about Apco and the Israelis. (In typical shoot-the-messenger style, it is Anwar that is to be investigated by four government agencies, including the National Security Council.)

But the fundamental questions go unanswered.

Read more at: Time to face the Israel question