Why it Makes
Sense for Arab and Muslim Nations to Recognize
Israel
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
It was June 1967. The second Arab-Israeli war
had just ended with a crushing defeat for Syria,
Egypt and Jordan. There was jubilation in the
Israeli camp and gloom in the Arab camps. The
United Nations was busy debating the conflict
and the usual calls for a ceasefire and withdrawal
to pre-war boundaries went out.
My good friend and a brilliant political analyst,
the late Professor Eqbal Ahmad of Pakistan was
at the time teaching international labor relations
at Cornell University. He issued a statement that
the UN would be debating the issue for decades
to come, meaning, that there would be no quick
withdrawal. He also said that the Israeli army
was strong enough to beat back any conceivable
combination of Arab armies.
Eqbal was literally roasted for his views by the
Arab students at Cornell. Those were still heady
days for Arab nationalism with the rhetoric of
Gamal Abdel Nasser carrying many a head into the
dizzy stratosphere and into a disastrous war with
Israel.
What Eqbal said in 1967 is even truer today. Israel
is by far the strongest military power in the
Middle East and could easily defeat any conceivable
combination of Arab armies. This fact alone should
be sufficient for sober minds in the Arab world
to think of a political accommodation with the
state of Israel.
The antipathy towards Israel is not just confined
to the Arab world. Israeli policies in the occupied
territories have created a general animosity towards
it in the broader Islamic world and in the global
left-of-center political circles. The animosity
is passionately reciprocated on the Israeli side.
The Israeli position is what it is because the
United States either wants it that way or is tolerant
of it. Whether one likes or not, the US is the
sole global superpower with an iron grip on most
of the Middle East. Rhetoric aside, no nation
on earth can challenge the sway of the United
States in that part of the world. This is the
second reason to seek a political accommodation
with Israel.
It is conventional wisdom that it takes seven
generations to recover from defeat in a major
war. That is about two hundred years. The Arabs
lost the war of Palestinian succession in 1948.
But they have refused to accept the verdict. And
the mayhem goes on with a predictable pattern
of occasional Arab pinpricks followed by massive
Israeli retaliations.
Time is not on the Palestinian side. Israel continues
to nibble at the undefined interface between it
and the occupied territories. The longer Israel
holds on to the West Bank the smaller the odds
that the Palestinians will get back any of that
land. A long, protracted negotiation will result
in a settlement, if there is one, further to the
advantage of the Israeli side. This is the third
reason to recognize Israel, the sooner the better.
The Arab leaders have ill-served their own people.
After the shrill demagoguery of Ahmed Shukairi
in the 1950s came the insipid leadership of Yasser
Arafat. When there was room to articulate a vision
for his people Arafat could not articulate one.
When there was a chance to negotiate peace he
could not muster the courage to make peace. His
organization was riddled with corruption inside
and out. Likewise, the Arab leaders in the neighboring
countries have kept alive the bogey of Palestinian-Israeli
conflict to distract their people from their own
wretched political environment. Demagogues on
both sides of the conflict have exploited the
usefulness of hate.
The unending war of Palestinian succession is
a historical detour for the Arabs comparable in
its impact to that of the Mongol invasions on
Central Asia and Persia in the thirteenth century.
It has exacerbated the internal contradictions
in Arab societies, widened the fissures in the
Arab body politic and spawned extremism of the
most destructive kind. For over a hundred years
it has kept the Arabs focused on an issue that
they are unable or unwilling to revolve. Left
unsolved, it will be another hundred years before
they come to terms with it.
History must move on. The Arabs and Muslims must
move from the past and confront their future;
else, history will abandon them. This is the fourth
reason to recognize Israel.
Recently, Ahmedinejad, the President of Iran reportedly
called for Israel to be wiped off the map. As
a student of history I find such voices to be
a prelude to an unfolding tragedy. Every thinking
person must repudiate and distance himself from
such rhetoric.
It makes sense for the Arabs and the Muslim nations
to recognize Israel because it is the right thing
to do at the right time. This may be a dangerous
position to take before a predominantly Arab and
Muslim audience. Some medicines are bitter. It
takes courage to push the envelope of acceptable
political discourse. One may ask: How can the
world forget the atrocities that are synonymous
with Deir Yassin, Sabra and Chatilla? Have not
the Palestinians long suffered under a ruthless
occupation? These are legitimate questions. But
two wrongs do not add up to a right. Vengeance
is not justice. Only a right choice results in
the right outcome. That is the true meaning of
justice.
Lastly, it makes sense to recognize Israel because
the alternative is a massive tragedy for all the
peoples of the Middle East. Surely, this is not
an outcome that any sane person would recommend
for a region that was the cradle of human civilization
and the birthplace of three of the major religions
of man.
I was in Muzdalifa, after performing hajj in September
1977 when news broke that Anwar Sadat, then President
of Egypt had gone to Jerusalem, ostensibly to
pray at the Al Aqsa mosque. Anwar Sadat addressed
the Israeli Knesset. “Egypt will not go
to war again”, he vowed, “unless it
is for the waters of the Nile”. The result
was peace between Egypt and Israel. Egypt paid
a heavy price between the wars of 1967 and 1971.
The Israeli air force had bombed the city of Cairo
at will and there was nothing that Egypt or their
patrons in the former Soviet Union could do about
it. The Suez Canal zone between Port Said and
Port Suez looked like the cratered moon surface
from daily Israeli bombings. Sadat extricated
Egypt from the Palestinian quagmire. This was
perhaps the only statesmanlike act of Sadat in
his presidency, which was otherwise rampant with
corruption.
Peace has its dividends. War exacts a price. The
Middle East, mired in multiple conflicts, is falling
behind year after year in every index of social
and economic development. Without peace there
is no space for social or economic reconstruction.
A Middle East, inclusive of Israel has an opportunity
to make its presence felt in the world. A Middle
East, minus Israel will be further marginalized
and slide into the backwaters of history.
Geopolitics is about power balance and power flows.
Tough political issues cannot be solved through
pious declarations, unending analyses, belligerent
statements or sermons from bully pulpits. Negotiation,
not continued confrontation, is the rational approach
to resolve the issues of Palestinian nationhood,
the right to return of the refugees or compensation
for them, national boundaries, and the incontrovertible
Muslim rights in the city of Al Quds that is Jerusalem.
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