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Rapprochement
with Israel
FOREIGN Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri’s meeting with his Israeli
counterpart Shilvan Shalon in Istanbul on Thursday has evoked mixed reaction
in and outside Pakistan. President Musharraf, who has already accepted an
invitation to address a Jewish conference in New York later this month,
spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas before Kasuri was authorized to
meet the Israeli Foreign Minister. While Saudi Arabia’s King Adullah Bin
Abdul Aziz has welcomed the first-ever high-level contact between Islamabad
and Tel Aviv, Pakistan People’s Party Spokesman Senator Farhatullah Babar
has observed that this major contact between two Governments should have
been authorized by the National Assembly which is in session. Muttehida
Majlis-e-Amal, as expected, has condemned the meeting which it feared could
eventually lead to recognition of Israel that continues to occupy Arab lands
it seized in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister
has also expressed its concern over the meeting prior to evacuation of all
Arab lands including West Bank which are under Israel’s illegal occupation.
A number of major Muslim powers including Egypt and Turkey have diplomatic
relations with Israel. Pakistan’s policy towards Israel has been consistent
over the decades. There can be no recognition of Israel until the Middle
East issue is resolved to the satisfaction of the people of Palestine.
Pakistanis in particular in Ummah are quite sentimental about the continuing
atrocities of Israeli troops in the Arab lands and its forcible occupation
of West Bank and other Arab territories. However, the historic contact
between the two countries was apparently facilitated by Turkey at the
initiative of President Musharraf who a day earlier stated in Rawalpindi
that Pakistan could not afford to live in isolation. He had observed that
“forward looking nations perceive changes in advance and formulate policies
accordingly.” At their joint press briefing the two Foreign Ministers hailed
the development which Israel considered as a way forward towards
establishment of diplomatic ties with Pakistan. Foreign Minister Kasuri
explained to the media that very few people appreciated the difficulties
Pakistanis abroad particularly in America and Europe faced due to continuing
hostility between his country and Israel. He emphasized that Pakistan was
making sincere efforts to avoid a clash of civilizations.
The emotions apart, Pakistan has to consider dispassionately what harm is
being caused to its interests as a result of animosity with Israel and the
Jews. The decision by the MMA to greet Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud
Kasuri on his return home with black flags is understandable but the
elements opposed to any rapprochement with Israel must take into
consideration the damage present policy towards Tel Aviv has done to
Pakistan especially in the wake of Nine Eleven. President Musharraf’s
forthcoming address to the Jewish conference in the U.S. will focus on clash
of civilizations. Of course, we should continue to support Palestinians’
aspirations and hope that in the event of Pakistan ending its conflict with
Israel thinking in Tel Aviv will also undergo a change for the better. Peace
in the world, especially in the Middle East, is vital to us. Pakistan’s
rapprochement with Israel should pave the way for understanding between the
Ummah and Israel.
Under siege
A destroyed city with those
inhabitants who have not fled trapped in the wreckage; a city with streets
given over to gunmen who fire on US servicemen and helicopters; a city where
disease and desperation grow with the heat of the sun and the decay of the
dead. This is not a description of Iraq’s Fallujah last year, though it
could very easily have been, but America’s New Orleans this week in the wake
of the disastrous hurricane Katrina. It is a city under siege — and it is
cracking in more ways than one. Maybe when the daunting task of rescuing the
living and burying the dead is done, Americans will give some thought to
those points where the enormity of destruction in Iraq touch the devastation
that has been visited upon this famous American city. As the looting and
lawlessness in New Orleans has demonstrated, a disaster on this scale can
bring out the very worst as well as the very best in people. No doubt some
of the criminals ignored the mayoral order to evacuate the city precisely
because they expected rich pickings in properties from which a million
people had fled. There were many others among the 100,000 who stayed, who
either lacked the means or the common sense to get out. Yet while these
innocent victims struggle to survive the floods and ruin, a significant
number of their fellow citizens, far from turning to help them, has instead
helped themselves to whatever they can plunder from homes and shops.
At least one National Guardsman sent in to keep order has been shot and a
rescue helicopter, probably suspected by the looters of spying on them has
come under sustained fire. Yet though these depraved events have grabbed the
headlines, it can be certain that there have been many more acts of bravery
and selflessness, both by the official rescuers and by ordinary citizens
helping out their fellow citizens. The parallel between Fallujah and New
Orleans can of course be taken too far but there is an important lesson
here. As Americans recoil in horror at the extent of the tragedy that has
befallen one of their cities as a result of a natural disaster, maybe they
should reflect on the reaction of Iraqis to the man-made disaster of the
Fallujah siege or the daily carnage of bombings and murders that has turned
parts of Iraq into a bloody nightmare, a thousand times more awful than that
which has hit New Orleans.
With the single home-grown exception of the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, until
9/11, Americans were strangers to the horror of terrorism. They found it
difficult to envisage the fear and tension elsewhere in the world where
terrorists struck ferociously and often. That lack of empathy informed their
furious overreaction and bad judgment when they themselves were targeted.
Now the people of America have the chance to learn what it feels like to
have one of their own cities reduced to a helpless, lawless mess by a
catastrophe. Maybe they will begin to understand the frustration and anger
felt by decent Iraqis at the man-made destruction that Washington’s bungled
thinking has brought down on their heads.
—Arab News
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