Face-To Face: Pak and Israel

[Neo]

SLAMABAD: Foreign ministers of Pakistan and Israel held a meeting in Istanbul - the first official contact that is being widely seen as a prelude to the recognition of Tel Aviv by Islamabad.

"This contact, the first at this level, is essentially a gesture to Israel to underscore the importance that we attach to the end of Israeli occupation of Gaza and the (West) Bank so that all occupied Palestinian territories are vacated leading to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state living side by side with Israel in peace and security," Pakistan's foreign secretary said.

He said this contact between Pakistan foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri and his Israeli counterpart Silvan Shalom is vital for "just and durable peace in the Middle East".

During his visit in May this year, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had discussed with President Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan could help the peace process in view of the important position it enjoys internationally and within the Islamic world.

Abbas also invited a delegation from Pakistan to visit Palestinian territories.

[Neo]

Good for Pakistan and Israel!

[Gautam]

I wonder what the Arab Nations have to say about this.

[Neo]

Pakistan wil not be the first muslim coutry to recognise Israel, Egypt and Turkey did that earlier.
I don't expect to outrage Arabs by recognising Israel.

[Neo]

Israeli and Pakistani foreign ministers hold first high-level meeting in Turkey

Benjamin Harvey
Canadian Press

Thursday, September 01, 2005

ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - The foreign ministers of Israel and Pakistan, a Muslim country that has long taken a hard line against the Jewish state, met publicly for the first time Thursday, a diplomatic breakthrough that both ministers linked to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom hailed the meeting as an "historic first" and said that after the Gaza pullout, it was "time for all of the Muslim and Arab countries to reconsider their relations with Israel."

Shalom also said he hoped the Istanbul meeting - initiated by Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf - would result eventually in full diplomatic relations with Pakistan and all other Arab and Islamic countries.

"I am sure that this meeting will be followed by more meetings in the future," Shalom said. "We hope that finally it will lead to full diplomatic relations with Pakistan, as we would like it with all Muslim and Arab countries."

Israel has open diplomatic relations with only four Muslim countries, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Mauritania, Shalom said. He said Israel had "secret" contacts with all Muslim countries, but that Israel hoped others would follow the lead of Pakistan and bring these contacts into the open.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri called the meeting "a gesture to underscore the importance that we in Pakistan attach to Israel ending its occupation of Gaza."

"It is important that Israel is encouraged to continue to pursue the course of peace" and end its occupation, he said.

"The meeting today does not mean recognition," Kasuri added. "That stage will come following progress toward the solution of the Palestinian problem."

This point was also emphasized by Musharraf in Islamabad, who said the meeting "in no way means that we are recognizing Israel. We will not recognize Israel until it resolves the Palestinian issue."

At a news conference Thursday in Islamabad, Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammed Khan said Pakistan's position on the Palestinian issue "remains unchanged."

"We stand by our Palestinian brothers and sisters in the cause for the establishment of an independent state in Palestine with al-Quds (Arabic for Jerusalem) as its capital. We will continue to support all efforts toward that objective," he said.

The ministers met at the Four Seasons Hotel, a former Ottoman prison not far from Topkapi Palace, seat of the Ottoman sultans for almost 400 years. Security was extremely tight, with Turkish and Israeli security officials searching bags and even disassembling photographers' cameras.

Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim country that has good relations with Israel, was chosen as a neutral venue at Musharraf's suggestion. Pakistan has no diplomatic relations with Israel.

Shalom and Kasuri informally met Wednesday night at a dinner in Istanbul, Israeli officials said.
Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in the Indian subcontinent, has been moving gradually toward conciliation with Israel, despite the influence of a powerful Islamic radical party in Pakistan.

The Pakistani president accepted an invitation to address an interfaith conference this month organized by the Council for World Jewry while he is in New York to attend the U.N. General Assembly.

The Arab all-news satellite channel Al-Jazeera has quoted Musharraf as calling Sharon a "great soldier and courageous leader" after announcing his plan to end Israel's occupation of Gaza. Pakistan says Israel must abandon all other territory it captured in the 1967 Mideast war and clear the way for an independent Palestinian state.

Sporadic articles in the Pakistani press have appeared in recent years urging a reassessment of Pakistan's refusal to consider diplomatic relations with Israel.

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington and a foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said Israel would welcome relations with Islamabad, and has been quietly working toward that goal.

"There have been contacts on different levels with Pakistani officials for several years," Shoval told The Associated Press. "Even I myself had contacts with the Pakistani ambassador during my tenure in Washington, and I always heard the willingness and desire to establish relations at the right moment," he said.

http://www.canada.com/news/world/sto...c-5c8007391ad8

[667medic]

Forget it man. You arab wannabes will never do it. But I do wish Mushy meets the Israelis, should be fun watching the tamasha in pakistan ....

[Neo]

Last Updated: Thursday, 1 September 2005, 16:27 GMT 17:27 UK
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Pakistan and Israel - new friends?


By Aamer Ahmed Khan
BBC News, Karachi

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri (l) and Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom
Will the public response be as cordial as the high level talks?
In January this year, one of Pakistan's leading newspapers, The News, interviewed Israel's deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

In that interview, Mr Peres called upon the two countries to have "direct, personal contact, publicly, without being ashamed about it".

The very next day, an angry mob stormed the newspaper office in Karachi - smashing several window panes and other fixtures.

The mob, it is said, was not just reacting to the contents of the interview but to the very fact that a Pakistani publication had dared provide a voice to the Israeli government.

Eight months later, the two countries have formally kicked off a policy of diplomatic "engagement" in the first ever publicly acknowledged meeting between senior government figures from both sides.

The sensitivity that surrounds any move towards establishing diplomatic ties with Israel is evident from the choice of the word "engagement" rather than "relations".

President Musharraf was himself quick to tell reporters shortly after the Istanbul meeting that it did not mean a step towards the formal recognition of Israel.

Public relations

But some analysts in Pakistan seem convinced that the road from Istanbul can only lead to formal recognition backed by full diplomatic relations.

"This is the first step towards eventual recognition of Israel," says senior defence analyst Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi.


What better way can there be for Pakistan to prove its moderate credentials by moving towards establishing some kind of ties with Israel?
Hasan Askari Rizvi, defence scholar
Dr Rizvi points to two immediate benefits that Pakistan may be seeking from its change of policy.

"The first has to do with image," he says.

"What better way can there be for Pakistan to prove its moderate credentials by moving towards establishing some kind of ties with Israel?" he asks.

The second and far more important reason, he says, relates to the country's defence policy and weapons requirements.

Pakistan has historically relied on US weaponry for its security needs, ignoring calls from independent experts, to diversify its weapons base.

Dr Rizvi says at the moment any Pakistani requests for fresh weapons systems from the US are fiercely resisted by Indian and Israeli lobbyists.

By moving towards a formal recognition of Israel, Pakistan can thus gain entry into an elite club - currently comprising US, India and Israel - with common security perceptions vis-a-vis the Middle East and South Asia.

'Illusion of change'

Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan scholar at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, inserts an important proviso into this argument.

"What remains to be seen is whether the move is aimed only at garnering further US support or is it actually based on a desire for genuine change," says Mr Haqqani.

He says President Musharraf is known for "creating an illusion of change" without actually working towards it.

Hijacked plane crashing into North Tower of World Trade Center
Some in Pakistan say September 11 attacks were a Jewish conspiracy
Mr Haqqani feels that anti-Semitism is so deeply rooted in Pakistani society that it would take more than a meeting between the foreign ministers of the two countries to neutralise it.

In an interview with the LA Times published on 18 August, Pakistan's education minister called Jews "the worst terrorists in the world" while summing up the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Pakistani passport holders still cannot travel to Israel.

And there is no shortage in Pakistan of those who believe that the 11 September attacks on the US were a Jewish conspiracy, as were the London bombings, to discredit Muslims.

Pakistan's top religious leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed has already described the Istanbul initiative as a move "against everything that Pakistan has so far stood for".

Unofficial contacts

It is perhaps this deep rooted suspicion between orthodox Jews and Muslims - a suspicion fuelled by events dating back to the times of the Muslim prophet Mohammed - that has led the Musharraf government to go one step at a time.

Defence analyst AR Siddiqui - who once headed the Pakistani army's public relations department - says that within the military top brass, a recognition of the need to improve ties with Israel has been gaining momentum over the last few years.

Indirect relations between Pakistan's military establishment and Israel dating back to the 1980s are already a documented fact.

But over the last couple of years, President Musharraf has repeatedly attempted to bring these contacts into the public sphere.

In 2003, he stressed the need for better relations with Israel during his visit to Camp David. But his comments were quickly brushed under the carpet when they drew an adverse reaction at home.

Earlier this year, Pakistan's prime minister reportedly met Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Davos.

The meeting was confirmed by Israeli officials and described by the Jerusalem Post as an event that went beyond "just a passing conversation in a hotel corridor".

But the Pakistan foreign office vehemently denied that any such meeting had taken place.

That scenario seems to have changed somewhat with the Istanbul meeting.

Some Pakistani observers argue that President Musharraf has been resolutely trying to move Pakistan's foreign policy away from its current ideological basis to one rooted in economic self interest.

They describe the Istanbul meeting as one more step in this direction.

What remains to be seen now is how successfully Pakistan's foreign office and its affiliated think tanks can sell it to the public.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4205750.stm

[Sameer]

Mushy is gonna get bombed again. :)

[Srirangan]

Forget it man. You arab wannabes will never do it. But I do wish Mushy meets the Israelis, should be fun watching the tamasha in pakistan ....

More fun will be the Saudi tightening noose on Pak :) Actually no, Mushy as usual won't walk the talk, and the rest be meaningless.

[Lahori paa jee]

At last we come to it. At last the speculations are turning out to be true. It was widely believed that Gaza withdraw would come with some conditions and one of which wud be to recognize Israel by the rest of the Muslim world. Its sad

[Neo]

Ghaza and Westbank are the major keys in this process. Israel will gain more by losing those territories.

Expect more non arab muslim countries to follow the move and seek diplomatic relation with Tel Aviv.

[Neo]

Musharraf links Israel recognition to Palestinian state

President Pervez Musharraf defended a meeting on Thursday between the Pakistani and Israeli foreign ministers, saying it was backed by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

.

[ZFBoxcar]

At last we come to it. At last the speculations are turning out to be true. It was widely believed that Gaza withdraw would come with some conditions and one of which wud be to recognize Israel by the rest of the Muslim world. Its sad

Oh cry me a goddamn river. Israel withdrew from Gaza and part of the West Bank BEFORE this meeting occured. And lets say for a moment that your non-sensical theory was true: what is the problem? Why do you object to peaceful co-existance and dialogue between Israel and the rest of the Muslim world? Seeing as the Muslim world keeps losing to Israel, maybe you guys should realize that war is not a great option for you.

[Akshay]

It is good to see Pakistan finally moving ahead with respect to Israel. This could be one of the points of 'Enlightened Moderation' that Musharaff has been ranting about. Given the current global scenario, there isn't much choice left for Musharaff. 60 years of anti-Israel slogan havn't yeilded anything. Most of the muslim world might not have realized it but, atleast Pakistan is now beginning to show some sense of understanding & maturity. Also, because of the compounded relations it has with India, Pakistan needs to dent into Indo-Israeli axis that has forged alliance on many fronts including military, economic & technology development. Pakistan understands that being the lone Islamic country with the capability of manufacturing nuclear weapons it is vulnerable to Israeli threats or even attacks to its nuclear facilities. Pakistan cannot afford to have two enemies at this moment. It also understands that in the event of any Israeli adventurism against it none of the Muslim countries(or even China) would stand up for its support.

[Gautam]

At last we come to it. At last the speculations are turning out to be true. It was widely believed that Gaza withdraw would come with some conditions and one of which wud be to recognize Israel by the rest of the Muslim world. Its sad

I didn't know that Israel really gives a toss about recognition. Recognise them or not, countries that matter on the world stage (UK, USA, France) and countless more recognise the state of Israel, so what are you talking about.
Israel has pulled out of Gaza for other reasons but to you everything seems a Jewish conspiracy.

Remember when a Pakistani Newspaper printed that Imran Khan was paid 40 million $ by Lord Goldsmith to marry his daughter Jemima Goldsmith (Both Jewish) and how this was labeled a Jewish Conspiracy.

Grow up and wake up from ur illusions.