Malaysian primary sources and academic treatment of pre-1965 interaction with Israel is sadly lacking, and filling the void requires some recourse to the works of both Israeli and foreign political historians and former diplomats, most notably former Israeli representative to Malaya, Dr. Moshe Yegar, and Middle East specialist Professor Jacob Abadi. Accounts by Singaporean and Australian academics such as Dr. Shanti Nair, Professor Chandran Jeshurun and Professor Peter Boyce are also instrumental to coloring in the geopolitical backdrop against which Kuala Lumpur and Jerusalem directly and indirectly interacted during this period. The so-called 'second era' of Malaysian-Israeli relations (or lack thereof) encompassing 1965 (when Malaysia acceded to the Organization of the Islamic Conference) to 1981 (when Dr. Mahathir ascended to the Prime Ministership) is well covered by academics across the disciplinal spectrum - Malaysian, Israeli and foreign, and there exists an equally formidable body of literature and primary materiel on the 'third' and present era of bilateral interaction . However, the variations between the eclectic
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Accounts of Malayan interaction with Israel at the ambassadorial level during the immediate post-independence period have been largely expunged from Malaysian and most Singaporean analyses of Kuala Lumpur's foreign policy, and there the only references to Israel's role in the admission of Malaya as the United Nations' 82nd member state can be found in the writings of Dr. Yegar and Prof. Abadi. Yet a 2009 publication of the journal of Malaya's maiden permanent representative to the UN, Tun Dr. Ismail Abdul Rahman, spanning his first year at the UN reveals that the author did periodically interact with his Israeli counterpart, then Abba Eban, and an excerpt in Dr. Ismail's entry relating to his being "lecture(d)" by his presents a rare glimpse into the Malayan geopolitical mindset at the time: "My attempt to explain (to the Arab ambassadors) that my having social contact with the Ambassador of Israel did not necessarily mean that I support Israel in her quarrel with the Arab states, was brushed aside".
That the Tunku may have been personally predisposed towards diplomatic relations with Israel is not . In his seminal account of Malaysian foreign policy, Dr. Chandran Jeshurun writes that the Tunku adeptly perceived the contemporary geostrategic architecture of Malaya's South-East Asian hinterland and was motivated toward developing close relations with democracies outside the region by the region's volatile and communism - and strengthening existing relations with the region's beleaguered democracies, including South Vietnam and the Philippines? Malaya - neutral
This account does not suggest any ideological orientation towards Israel on the part of Malaya's first politicians, the Tunku in particular. On the contrary, the Tunku remained deeply devoted to the perceived plight of the Palestinian people throughout his premiership and beyond. His stance however illustrates a pragmatism , The Tunku was curious about the nature of the Zionist movement and inquired his Israeli and Jewish interlocutors . However, as the religious political opposition solidified its challenge to the Tunku's National Front and as the Malayan people became more conscious of events in the Middle East, the Tunku was forced to abandon for the sake of political expediency.
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