KUALA LUMPUR, June 4 — Pakatan Rakyat (PR) leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim continued his dogged attack on APCO Worldwide today, accusing the public relations firm of attacking him personally for daring to criticise it.

“APCO is so influential as to be able to influence the oldest Jewish body to attack me personally... and to ask [other] countries, mainly the United States, to consider me an enemy because I’m seen as an enemy of Israel,” he said, referring to the B’nai B’rith International.

B’nai B’rith, the world’s oldest Jewish service organisation, had late last month written to the US Congress’ Committee on Foreign Relations, criticising Anwar for alleged anti-Semitic attacks, and had asked for the body to sever ties with the opposition leader.

“They want to confuse our attack on Israel and Zionist imperialist violence with [anti-Semitism].”

The de facto leader of PKR was speaking at the “Justice and Peace for Gaza” roundtable discussion convened by PR to discuss an action plan following an Israeli raid on aid ship, MV Mavi Marmara, on Monday left nine passengers dead and over 60 injured.

The flagship of the six-vessel Gaza Freedom Flotilla had been trying to break the Israeli maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip when it was intercepted.

Anwar also called for the public to see the Palestinian issue as not just a Muslim problem but one of basic human rights.

“The Palestine issue is not a sectarian issue or just a Muslim issue,” he said at Kelab Sultan Sulaiman in Kampung Baru here.

“[It is] an issue of the principle of justice.”

The Permatang Pauh MP explained that the Palestinian issue was a problem of the politics of dispossession.

“It’s a fundamental principle applicable to all... the inalienable right of any citizen to their own land and status has been denied [to the Palestinians] for decades,” he said.

Anwar, together with DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, PAS deputy president Nasharudin Mat Isa and several Malaysian NGOs later issued a joint statement calling for Israel to be brought to the International Court of Justice.

The statement also demands that Israel pay full compensation to the victims of the Mavi Marmara.

The PR leaders and NGOs also put together a memorandum addressed to US President Barack Obama urging him to take a lead in resolving the Gaza blockade and suspend all economic and military aid to Israel to force them into peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

It added that the United Nations Security Council should hold an enquiry into “to establish the full facts and circumstances” the raid.

“This enquiry cannot be left to the Israeli government to conduct if it is to be credible,” the statement read.

Anwar, Lim and Nasharudin also plan to lead a “peace walk” to the US Embassy to protest Israel’s actions after Friday prayers at Masjid Kampung Baru today.

Thousands of supporters, including leaders of Muslim and non-Muslim NGOs and Gaza Freedom Flotilla representatives, are expected to join them.

Israel, together with Egypt, maintains a land-sea blockade to stop what it says were arms shipments to Hamas-controlled Gaza.