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Musharraf hits the 'Israel'
button
By Muddassir Rizvi
ISLAMABAD - If it was just an official feeler to
gauge public opinion on the controversial question of
Pakistan's recognition of Israel, the government has an
answer - the Pakistani people are not ready to even
consider the option.
The controversy started
earlier this month when President General Pervez
Musharraf said in a television interview that mainly
Muslim Pakistan must seriously take up the issue of
recognizing Israel and avoid dealing with it on
emotional grounds.
In view of the changing
international scenario and the road map to peace in the
Middle East, Pakistan has to consider whether its Israel
policy needs a review, Musharraf said a day before his
departure for a four-nation visit that also took him to
Camp David for a meeting with US President George W
Bush.
"We all know Musharraf. He knows what to
say when to appease his mentors in the West, whether he
means it or not. But it was very careless of him to
speak of an issue so simply that is very sensitive in
nature and close to people's heart," said Afsarul Mulk,
a leader of the Pakistan People's Party who belongs to
the remote northern district of Shangla in North West
Frontier Province.
In short, Musharraf's
utterance raised tempers in a country where the majority
of people sympathize with the Palestinian cause and
continue to censure Israel for its continued occupation
of Jerusalem, Islam's second holiest place after Mecca
and Medina in Saudi Arabia. They consider Israel an
illegal occupier of the Arab lands, its hands stained
with the blood of thousands of Palestinians.
Even at the government level, Pakistan's
position has been more or less the same. In fact,
Pakistani opposition to a Jewish state dates back to the
days of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and the capture
of Jerusalem by General Allenby. Under the declaration,
Lord Balfour announced British support for a Jewish
national home in Palestine. The Muslim League, which was
leading the struggle for an independent Pakistan at that
time, was quick to express its concern for the "safety
and sanctity of holy places".
The Muslim League
called for the annulment of the declaration as well as
the British mandate over Palestine, and warned that in
"consonance with the rest of the Islamic world" Indian
Muslims would treat the British as an enemy of Islam if
the latter "fails to alter its present pro-Jewish policy
in Palestine".
Later, Pakistan stood alongside
Arab and Islamic countries in opposing the United
Nations Partition Plan in the late 1940s, one that
formed the legal basis for the establishment of the
Jewish state. Within days after its creation on May 14,
1948, Israel requested Pakistan's recognition. Since
then, the request has remained unanswered. Instead,
Pakistan always supported at all international fora,
including the UN, the Palestinians' right to their land
and end of Israeli occupation of all Arab lands.
It was against this backdrop that Musharraf's
remarks stirred an uproar. The religious parties
threatened street protests, and the secular political
parties called it Musharraf's gimmickry to score points
in the Western countries he was visiting.
In the
meantime, in reaction to Musharraf's comments, the
Israeli ambassador to the European Union, Oded Eran, was
quoted in local media as saying that he appreciated
Musharraf's statement. "It is a positive statement, and
we hope that it will not prove to be a statement of
political expediency and his views will be translated
into action by the establishing diplomatic relations
between Israel and Pakistan," Eran said.
But at
home, the reaction of the religious parties was
particularly antagonistic. The six-party religious
alliance Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA), already in a
bitter row with the government over the issue of
constitutional amendments, threatened that it would
launch a countrywide movement to oust the government if
it took even a step toward the recognition of Israel.
"Jerusalem is not just an Arab issue and is
linked to the faith of every Muslim," maintained Qazi
Hussain Ahmed, chief of Jamaat-i-Islami, a component
party of the MMA. "Presenting Palestine as a sole Arab
issue is a heinous conspiracy of the imperialists and
colonists aimed at disintegrating the Muslims and
shattering the concept of Muslim unity. It is for the
same reason the colonist forces are trying to portray
every Muslim issue as regional or bilateral," said Qazi,
reiterating his support for the Palestinian intifada or
uprising.
Sensing the popular mood, government
leaders have been working overtime to dispel the
impression created by the Musharraf's statement that
there was any move for the recognition of Israel. Prime
Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Information Minister
Sheikh Rashid Ahmed have had to do the crisis
management, reiterating the country's traditional policy
toward Israel. The Foreign Office also joined the
chorus.
While opposition political parties are
not ready to accept their clarifications, experts in
security and foreign policy issues believe that
Musharraf's remarks about Israel were precisely meant to
provoke a controversy at home in a bid to ease US
pressure on the country to accept the Jewish state.
"The issue must have come up for a discussion
during Musharraf's meetings with the American and
British leaders. With such a reaction at home, Pakistan
can certainly put off the issue for some more time,"
commented a researcher at the government-run Institute
of Strategic Studies in Islamabad, requesting anonymity.
The researcher said that Musharraf's statement was also
well timed in view of increasing Israeli-Indian
cooperation, particularly in the defense sector.
Israel will certainly make calculated moves with
regard to expanding its relations with India as it knows
Islamabad is seriously weighing the option of its
recognition, he averred. "Israel has always viewed
Pakistan's acceptance as very important, considering our
position in the Muslim countries and role in the
Organization of Islamic Conference."
(Inter
Press Service)
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