Pakistan and
Israel
By Mastan Khan
Moreno Valley, CA
It
is so good to see so many Pakistanis coming out
of their shells and discussing openly the necessity
of recognizing the state of Israel. I only wish
that they had been more considerate and open to
this issue once the sanctions hit us in the early
90’s, we would not have been in this muck
that we are in, today.
You see, we are talking about the benefits of
dealing with the Israelis now, when our backs
are pressed hard against the wall and there is
so little room to move around and it did not have
to be that way. Once we saw India spreading its
arms open towards Israel in the 90’s that
was the moment to re-align our loyalties on this
extraordinary issue. But, seemingly the shock
of the sanctions was absolutely harrowing on our
psyche. From being the most reliable nation and
then being condemned in the oncoming decade was
indeed a terrible thing to go through. We were
literally shell shocked by the experience and
tragically neither of our politicians came forward
with a proactive and viable solution to the issue.
As the sanctions affected our nation in a negative
manner, they also took away our sense of reasoning.
If it was not for 9/11, we indeed were getting
close to be an almost lost cause.
Pakistan could have recognized the state of Israel
right after the sanctions hit us or should have
at least opened the doorway for negotiations with
some visible meetings between the dignitaries
to release the pressure that was building up.
We knew very well by then as to how effective
the Israeli lobby was in the US and we did not
use our assets to our advantage. India did and
put such a stranglehold on us that nobody could
hear our screams for a long time.
The next chance to open up with Israel came when
Ehud Barak made the offer for peace and land to
Arafat and Arafat refused it. That was the time
for Pakistan to have realized that Arafat was
not sane enough to take advantage of the peace
plan to resolve the issue with Israel. We were
totally blind in our foreign policy as to how
we could deal with Israel. We were at a total
loss of direction, we were clueless where this
senseless issue of following Palestine at all
cost would take us. You could call it a lack of
common sense and a lack of leadership on our part.
We were, as the Europeans say, ‘being more
catholic than the pope ‘. Sadly, one opportunity
after the other was lost and India took advantage
of every chance that it got to stick the knife
in deeper.
Israel has produced a master stroke by not requiring
any license for trade with Pakistan. Pakistani
military can buy from Israel if the need be. We
did not know where and how our military bought
its hardware from before. It won’t make
any difference now. A third party could sell Pakistani
exports to Israel and it would all be good. Things
are going to move at a very fast pace in the political
circles and they will benefit Pakistan in the
short as well as the long run. India’s influence
will be neutralized to some extent.
The ball is in Pakistan’s court. Musharraf
has done a tremendous job in getting us from there
to here. It is for us to support him as much as
we can and now is the moment to get out of the
muck that we were stuck in for a long time.
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