Bruce Gilley criticized instead of praised Anwar’s foreign policy.
A Canadian-American professor of political science, Bruce Gilley’s alma mater included the University of Toronto (BA), University of Oxford (MPhil) and Princeton University (PhD). From a Bachelor of Arts in economics and international relations to a Master of Economics, he then received his PhD in politics. Crucially, the University of Toronto is ranked #21 in QS World University Rankings 2024, whilst Oxford and Princeton are Ivy League.
Also the founder and president of the Oregon Association of Scholars, his research centres on democracy, legitimacy, climate change, and global politics, not to mention he is a specialist in the comparative politics of China and Asia. He is the author of four university-press books, including The Right to Rule: How States Win and Lose Legitimacy (2009) and China’s Democratic Future (2004).
In comparison, Malaysia’s 10th Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was educated at the University of Malaya, where he got a bachelor’s degree in Malay Studies. He was a radical Islamist who used Islam as a platform to achieve his political ambition, leading a radical movement called ABIM. He was the second most powerful man before he was sacked as deputy prime minister for sodomy in 1998.
As the co-founder and president of ABIM (Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia) for eight years (1974-1982), the young Anwar claimed that his goal was to lead young Malays in opposition to the ruling UMNO (United Malays National Organization) government’s perceived neglect of Malay rights. He condemned corruption, yet he shockingly joined the corrupted UMNO in 1982.
So, which part of Gilley’s impressive credentials that Anwar doesn’t understand that he had to resort to name-calling – mocking the US academician as a mediocre scholar for criticizing Malaysia’s pro-Palestinian stance in the ongoing Israel-Hamas War? The PM said – “A mediocre scholar should not have been invited as a visiting professor in the first place.”
In the first place, it was the University of Malaya, which is ranked #65 in QS World University Rankings 2024, who invited Gilley to give talks on Malaysian foreign policy during a 10-day visiting professorship. Exactly why the local university invited a so-called mediocre academician knowing very well he was the controversial author who called for a revival of colonialism?
If Gilley is mediocre by Anwar’s standard, does it not make Malaysian top scholars even worse than mediocre? Where were all the 70 top Malay professors (G70) who had previously praised Anwar’s track record and credibility? For the prime minister to belittle Gilley as mediocre rather than mobilizing local genius academicians to debate and counter the US professor shows Anwar too is a mediocre PM.
Yes, PM Anwar was mad and furious because Bruce Gilley criticized instead of praised his foreign policy, the same way Anwar used to call the Malay PhD as “Professor Kangkong” when he was in the opposition camp. Had the political science professor from Portland State University sung songs of praise to Anwar, do you think the PM would have called him mediocre?
But what did Gilley say that made Anwar so upset? When the professor said – “A country whose political leaders advocate a second Holocaust against the Jewish people will never be a serious player in world affairs and will certainly never be a friend or partner of the United States,” – it was not only an attack on Anwar’s foreign policy but also his mediocre leadership.
It’s not hard to understand why the professor had boldly accused Malaysia under Anwar’s leadership of pushing for “a second Holocaust”. It wasn’t so much because of the Southeast Asian nation’s support for Palestine, but largely due to the government’s anti-Semitism which saw the prime minister repetitively defending Hamas, even though the terrorist organization had butchered 1,200 Jews.
Anwar hypocritically refused to admit that his Hamas brothers started the war on Oct 7, 2023. Worse, the premier considers the terrorists as freedom fighters, whom according to his twisted logic, have the right to rape, slaughter and kidnap Israeli women and children. He conveniently keeps quiet about the 253 hostages, including children, women, and elderly people, abducted by Hamas.
But when his best friend, Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, lost three sons and two grandchildren in a drone strike, Anwar went berserk – whined, moaned and bitched about the Jewish brutal retaliation. The war could end if Hamas releases the remaining Israeli hostages, but Anwar would rather see more Palestinians being killed as human shields than the defeat of his terrorist brothers.
Gilley also wrote that Malaysian politicians were “going back to former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir’s advice to learn from the Germans on how to kill Jews”. The Holocaust, which happened between 1941 and 1945 during the World War 1, was the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women, and children and millions of others by Nazi Germany.
Why Gilley accused Anwar’s government of promoting a second Holocaust? That’s because Malaysia television aggressively broadcasts the pro-Palestinian-Hamas slogan “from the river to the sea,” which is construed as an anti-Semitic call for the destruction of Israel. In fact, since its founding in the late 1980s, Hamas policies have been about destroying the Jewish state of Israel and killing Jews and Israelis around the world.
Like Hamas terrorists, who cowardly retreated into its network of tunnels beneath the homes, schools, and hospitals of Gaza, using Palestinian civilians as human shields in order to weaponize the resulting civilian casualties, Anwar too demonstrated similar cowardice when he went into hiding whilst minorities ethnic Chinese and Indians were bullied – even firebombed – by Malay extremists and radicals.
That’s why the prime minister was reduced to personal attacks and labelled Bruce Gilley a mediocre academician. Anwar cannot accept that the professor has publicly exposed him as a racist and an anti-Semitic, who was trying to leverage his link with Hamas to position himself as a major player in world affairs. But even without Gilley’s criticism, Anwar had failed to claim his seat at the high table.
Globe-trotting using taxpayers’ money, the Malaysian prime minister had travelled to Saudi Arabia for the ASEAN and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Summit, before jetting to UAE, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey seeking support from Arab leaders to stop Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza. Amusingly, while the Arabs support Palestinians, none of the Gulf states support Hamas.
During a photo session with the leaders of the OIC countries at the 8th OIC Emergency Summit Media Conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Anwar was bumped to behind, where the first row was reserved for leaders from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, the PLO and even Syria. It showed Anwar was not appreciated because the entire Arab world despised Hamas.
Of course, the Arabs knew Anwar’s political reason for supporting the Palestinians. But they were also suspicious of his support for Hamas, which like ABIM (Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia) that was co-founded by Anwar, was linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. And the foolish Malaysian PM bragged about his phone conversation with Hamas’ political bureau Ismail Haniyeh.
Like it or not, it’s true that any leader who is anti-Jew will never be a friend or partner of the United States. To rub shoulders with the big boys and to have a photo-op with the most powerful man on the planet, ex-premier Mahathir Mohamad shamelessly paid disgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff US$1.2 million for a meeting with then US president George W Bush in 2002.
The Jews have very powerful friends in every Western nation, friends whom Anwar wishes he could have a photo-op with to boost his mediocre resume. He is betting on a losing horse (Hamas) as his childish game of getting Washington’s attention by screaming that he could play a bigger role based on his friendship with Haniyeh has backfired spectacularly. Even Qatar may abandon Hamas and quit hosting them.
Expressing his disappointment that Malaysia’s government “joined the witch hunt rather than defend academic freedom”, Gilley did more damage to Anwar’s leadership when he said he had “safely departed from Malaysia, one step ahead of the Islamo-fascist mob whipped up by the government there”. It basically means the country was using Islam as a cover for a totalitarian ideology. – Finance Twitter