Obama has led to Turkey and then Malaysia turning on Israel

Flirting with zealotry in Malaysia

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim speaks at an anti-Israel rally in front of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur this month.
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim speaks at an anti-Israel rally in front of the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur this month. (Saeed Khan/afp/getty Images)
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By Jackson Diehl
Monday, June 28, 2010

Anwar Ibrahim, the leader of Malaysia's political opposition, has become known over the past decade as one of the foremost advocates of liberal democracy in Muslim countries. His many friends in Washington include prominent members of the neoconservative movement -- such as Paul Wolfowitz, the former World Bank president and U.S. ambassador to Indonesia -- as well as such Democratic grandees as Al Gore.

Lately, Anwar has been getting attention for something else: strident rhetoric about Israel and alleged "Zionist influence" in Malaysia. He recently joined a demonstration outside the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur where an Israeli flag was burned. He's made dark insinuations about the "Jewish-controlled" Washington public relations firm Apco Worldwide, which is working for Malaysia's quasi-authoritarian government.

Therein lies a story of the Obama era -- about a beleaguered democrat fighting for political and personal survival with little help from Washington; about the growing global climate of hostility toward Israel; and about the increasing willingness of U.S. friends in places such as Turkey and Malaysia to exploit it.