Anwar says sorry for anti-Semitic remarks

with updates, at the end of posting.

Hero Islam? This stinger is from Reme Ahmad's blog posting Anwar mintak maaf dengan Yahud:

Bagus si Anwar Ibrahim.
Tentu ada lebih baiknya anda meminta maaf kerana berkasar dengan Yahud daripada meminta maaf dengan sesama Melayu-Islam di negara sendiri.

Beliau baru pulang dari Washington -- rupa-rupanya nak jumpa rakan Yahud meminta maaf kerana 'garang' sangat dalam isu Apco dan demo anti-Israel.

Menurut columnist akhbar utama di ibunegara Amerika, The Washington Post:
He said he regretted using terms such as "Zionist aggression," which are common coin for demagogues like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "Why do I need to use it if it causes so much misunderstanding?" he said. "I need to be more careful."

Read the article and some interesting comments here. The Washington Post article Flirting with Zealotry in Malaysia, thanks AIDC.

updates ...

June 30, 2010 20:13 PM

Anwar Tells Washington Circles He Regrets Using Terms Such As Zionist Aggression

KUALA LUMPUR, June 30 (Bernama) -- Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has told his friends in the United States (US) that he regretted using terms such as "Zionist aggression", the Washington Post reported Monday.

In an article by its deputy editorial page editor Jackson Diehl, the paper said Anwar was in Washington for a couple of days last week.

"(He) spent a lot of time offering explanations to old friends, not to mention House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman and a Jewish leader or two," Diehl wrote in the article with the headline "Flirting with zealotry in Malaysia".

Anwar said he regretted using terms such as "Zionist aggression", which are "common coin demagogues like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad", Diehl added.

"Why do I need to use it if it causes so much misunderstanding? I need to be more careful," the writer quoted Anwar, who is also the advisor of the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).

The daily noted Anwar recently joined a demonstration outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur where an Israeli flag was burned and had also made dark insinuations about the "Jewish-controlled" Washington public relations firm, Apco Worldwide, which is working for the Malaysian government.

Diehl said many of Anwar's friends, among them former diplomat and ex-World Bank chief Paul Wolfowitz, were inclined to give him a break.

Diehl said Wolfowitz told him: "What Anwar did was wrong, but considering that he's literally fighting for his life -- physically as well as politically -- against a government that attacks him as being 'a puppet of the Jews', one should cut him some slack."

Diehl said Anwar was not getting the kind of support from the US for his current second sodomy trial unlike the first prosecution when the then vice-president, another of his friends, had spoken up for him.

President Barack Obama said nothing in public about Anwar during a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in Washington in April, he added.

Anwar, he said, found his own way to fight back by trying to turn the tables on allegations that he was an Israeli agent and a "Wolfowitz-loving American lackey".

"..he tried to turn the tables, alleging that Apco was manipulating the government to support Israeli and US interests. He also said that Israeli agents had infiltrated Malaysia's security forces and were directly involved in the running of the government," Diehl wrote.

-- BERNAMA