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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (44275)	7/15/2003 6:50:01 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

dailytimes.com.pk Should we recognise Israel? Khaled Ahmed’s TV Review The callers from among our expatriate community in the Middle East showed remarkable pragmatism and wanted the state of Pakistan to secure itself strategically by recognising Israel. Not so the sophisticated English-speaking crowd in Pakistan. Why? Everybody finally chickens out on Israel. There is no logical argument left for this repeated act of showing a clean pair of heels. One can only latch on to the basic fact that we are scared of the clergy. Why should we be scared of them? Because in the light of two articles of the Constitution, anyone who is not a cleric is a second-class citizen, ideologically speaking. The clergy says you can’t recognise Israel. So what if a dozen other Islamic states have? It’s like you have to have stoning to death, so what if Iran has abolished it? Or you have to have abolition of bank interest, so what if Egypt has allowed it? The state wants to secure its strategic interests, but in Pakistan other things take priority at the cost of the state. Those who decide matters (read the clergy) are fighting to prove that their education is equal to BA. BBC “Question Time Pakistan” (20 June 2003) discussed the question of the recognition of Israel by Pakistan with Sindh Opposition leader Nisar Khuro, ex-president Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari, and eminent lawyer and PML-QA senator, S M Zafar. There was a consensus that Pakistan should wait till Israel was able to resolve its disputes with the Palestinians, then think about it in consultation with the Arab and Islamic states. The house vote 93 percent against recognising Israel. The problem before Pakistan is strategic. And the answer must be given now. India recognised Israel in 1992 and is edging Pakistan out in terms of acquisition of high-tech contracts. The Arabs don’t mind it; in fact, the Arabs have a good channel of communication open to Israel through a friendly India. There are other Islamic states who have military, economic and diplomatic relations with Israel, but Pakistan’s recognition would mean a lot more to Israel because of its size and importance. Pakistan could actually be in a position to persuade Israel much more than any other Islamic state. The topmost consideration however remains India’s stealing a march over us and linking up with Israel, the third (non-declared) nuclear power outside the NPT. The formula for recognition put forward by the discussants was nothing but a subterfuge. It simply means that Pakistan will indefinitely postpone addressing an important strategic question. Israeli radio has already disclosed that an important Pakistani personality (businessman Mr Ikram Sehgal) had secretly visited Israel in the recent past. Reported in “Jang” of July 8, Maulana Ajmal Qadri of Lahore admitted that he had gone to Israel and that his visit was in the knowledge of the then chief minister Punjab Mian Shehbaz Sharif. He also disclosed that Sardar Qayyum, leader of the Muslim Conference in Azad Kashmir, had also visited Israel. (Sardar Qayyum has denied it.) ARY Channel (20 June 2003) had its host Dr Shahid Masood making a speech on the subject of recognising Israel with a clear personal bias towards not recognising. He said he had revealed the secret Protocols of the Elders of Zion in an earlier programme and would talk more about them. He said according to his information, Pakistan was considering contacts with Israel and a group of important people had actually gone to Israel secretly on one-page passports to assess the situation. He said there was a plan afoot to allow Pakistani pilgrims to visit the al-Aqsa mosque in Israel through and in agreement with the government in Tel Aviv. He quoted the editorial of “Daily Times”, without naming it, that the Pakistan army had prepared a secret report about recognising Israel in 1994 and that a number of Islamic states had already recognised Israel. He quoted from the editorial that last year the Arab League had promised collective Arab recognition in return for Israel going back to the 1967 borders. He then opened the discussion. He received the following calls. (Dubai) No recognition as that would be recognising Yuhud-o-Nasara already designated by Islam as enemies. (Karachi) Israel should be recognised because we must have good relations with all countries. (Sharja) We should recognise because the Palestinian ambassador in New Delhi had said that the Kashmir dispute was in a lesser category than the issue of Palestine. Tomorrow we would be left alone as the Palestinians move closer to India. (Karachi) Since India has recognised Israel and benefited from it we too should recognise Israel in our national interest. (Saudi Arabia) The next world war against Islam would start in Israel. We should not recognise Israel. (Dubai) We should recognise not as a dictation from America but in our own interest. The Jews are already dominant in the global economy. (Karachi) Economics is not everything, a man must have self-respect. We should not recognise. (Karachi) If we have recognised America why should we hesitate about recognising Israel? (Saudi Arabia) Don’t recognise because the Americans are doing nothing for us. They have refused to give us the F-16s. (Sharja) We should be friendly with all states and should recognise Israel as that will decrease our enemies by one and put pressure on India. (Karachi) Realism recommends that we recognise. Many Islamic states have already done that. (Saudi Arabia) We should recognise because Islam gives us permission to have formal relations with all kinds of states. Dr Masood kept trying to persuade the callers to say no. One caller said, “I am a businessman and I assure you Pakistan will only benefit and that the Jews will not be able to undermine Pakistan’s economy under any secret protocol.” In this programme the host was shocked to find that almost 80 percent of the callers wanted Pakistan to recognise Israel. These callers were mostly from the Middle East and belonged to our not-so-educated expatriate community. They are usually very conservative and feed into the reactionary Islamic line taken by the ARY Channel, probably because of the personal bias of Dr Masood. On the question of Israel, the callers showed remarkable pragmatism and wanted the state of Pakistan to secure itself strategically. On the other hand, the BBC discussion referred to above had a group of “upper crust” people taking a line that was close to the clergy. The politician can be excused for his habitual duplicity, but the intelligentsia should be more intellectually liberated. GEO TV (19 June 2003) showed a documentary about fortune tellers and clairvoyants and focused especially on Baba Tanakka in Punjab who had the practice of beating his visitors with his stick. The belief was that whoever got beaten by his stick was blessed with good fortune. Nawaz Sharif went to him and got beaten by his stick and heard the prediction that he would be king. Nawaz Sharif spent three crore rupees officially to build the road to Baba Tanakka’s residence and also arranged a helipad there. Baba Tanakka also hit Benazir Bhutto on the back and told her she too would have power. She walked seven miles on foot to his residence to show respect. Journalist Javed Chaudhry said Pakistani politicians lacked ability and therefore relied on charlatans. Ijazul Haq said it was all right to ask the “buzurg” people. Imran Khan said he was guided in his faith by men of religion but he did not believe in fortune-telling as that weakened the faith. Baba Tanakka must be a cunning man because he did two politicians in by telling them fortunes that clashed. Another such baba was presented to General Zia by a federal secretary called Haji Akram. That baba predicted all sorts of good things for Zia but poor Zia died an unforetold death. An unconfirmed story about Imran Khan is that he was once taken to a naked baba who broke his vow of never climbing down from a “keekar” tree (he even defecated from the tree-top) and gave him good tidings. One should be grateful that Imran Khan doesn’t believe in this mumbo-jumbo. His obeisance to “men of religion” too was expendable. *