Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum, who was barred last week as a member of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) fact-finding mission by the Malaysian government because he was an “active supporter of Israel,” said it was “a moral tragedy” that the Malaysian government had “stooped to exploit human suffering for cheap political gains.”
Tanenbaum reported on the development in a cable to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency from Bangkok, in which he confirmed reports that the Malaysian government had cited his Zionist activities in informing the U.S. State Department he was being denied entry. The IRC mission was organized to investigate the plight of the Vietnamese boat people, those who fled Vietnam and adjacent countries after North Vietnam took over South Vietnam following the American pullout and denied permission to enter by other countries, live in often dangerously inadequate boats. Sixty-six of these boat people were invited to come to Israel by Premier Menachem Begin shortly after he became Premier last year.
CHARGES SUBVERSION OF HUMANITARIAN CAUSE
Tanenbaum asserted in his telegram that the Malaysian Foreign Minister had claimed that his visit would be “exploited” by the opposition Pan Malaysian Islamic Party among the 55 percent Moslems in local elections March 18.
The rabbi, who is also director of the department of interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee, reported that the IRC had cabled a protest to the State Department, charging that Malaysia “subverts” the humanitarian cause of the Indochinese refugees by linking it to an “extraneous” Middle East conflict. He said the Christian members of the IRC unanimously refused to visit Malaysia.
Tanenbaum said the IRC group went last Wednesday to meet Vietnamese boat people in Indochinese refugee camps and with Indonesian government authorities who “are also predominantly Moslem.”
The rabbi said that at a press conference in Bangkok, he and IRC co-chairmen Leo Cheme and William Casey issued a statement that “our interviews with Indochinese refugees during the past 10 days in Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand persuades us that this is one of the greatest neglected humanitarian problems of this decade.”
MASKED ANTI-JEWISH BIGOTRY
In denouncing the Malaysian authorities for exploiting human suffering, the three IRC members said “it is deeply heartening that Americans of all faiths and races repudiated decisively Malaysian efforts to deny” Tanenbaum’s “fundamental human rights and treating Jews as second class citizens to be isolated from fellow Americans.” The statement added: “The political fanaticism masked by anti-Jewish bigotry will not deter the American Jewish Committee nor myself (Tanenbaum) from continuing activities with the IRC to alleviate the suffering of hundreds of thousands of human beings.”
Richard Maass, president of the AJCommittee, in a telegram to Zain Azraai, Malaysian Ambassador to the U.S., protested the barring of Tanenbaum. Noting that the IRC mission was “a humanitarian effort completely apart from any political implications,” Maass added: “If your government does not disavow this action, it will be guilty of exploiting a humane cause for purely political purposes as well as violating the human rights of one who has devoted a lifetime to such causes.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
