Procrastination

kumaraswamy’s comparison of israel and pakistan seems really forced to me, don’t you think. by those standards you could juxtapose just about any two countries and say ‘hey look these two guys are essentially the same, the differences are only cosmetic…’
do you agree with his parallels?

Interesting stuff. I wouldn’t have thought Israel would get anything out of military contact with Pakistan, and I certainly wouldn’t think they’d trust pakistan enough to want to share any military knowledge, not for a long while…

On the other hand, Israel IS engaging in direct and overt military co-operation with India, so why the hell would they do the same with India’s current enemy?

pakistan will benefit much more than israel. israel won the intifada and is close to both america and india.
sooner or later it will happen

India has followed continuity with the rest of those states not directly embroiled in the IP conflict. Diplomatic relations et al followed Oslo and would not have really occurred otherwise. Nevertheless there is a shift towards Israel as an adjustment process; now with a saffronist-dominated government, many ideologues and hyperactive nationalists see some sort of Zionist-Hindutva alliance with American patronage as a bulwark against the threat of Islamist opponents (read Pakistan). This feeds into domestic politics as well, as one of the frequent complaints of saffronists and conservative Hindus is that the non-recognition of Israel was another policy of ‘pampering the Muslim minority’ as part of Nehruvian secularism. Garbage, but peddled about nonetheless.

Israel will play a smart game if it can play off India and Pakistan; it has little need to be closely allied with either; I would think, though that there may be domestic repercussions for any Pakistani govt that did recognise Israel, particularly if the MMA and other religious formations become a permanent fixture in representative politics.

On September 9, Israel will going to India for military development that makes our country greatly worried. It is going to be late for Pakistan government to recognize Israel. As we know that Israel is a smart player. Pakistan’greatest goals is to have Anti-missiles system, which India already have and importantly F-16, which US refused to deliver.

India, coward country, is going to make last laugh for making strong cooperation with Israel. Secretly we maybe heard that US agreed to deliver F-16s to India after refusing to Pakistan. What the hell is going on?

Salman

I have read on a number of occasions that the religion was the basis for creation of Israel and Pakistan. That is true. However, no body has ever pointed out that Pakistan was carved out of India and consisted of the population which is there for thousands of years. However, Israel came into existence by deviding Palestine and its population in majority consisted of the people migrated from Europe in recent history. These people came to Palestine when the Jewish Leaders decided that they want to have their own land and they instructed their followers to go to Palestine.

I have read on a number of occasions that the religion was the basis for creation of Israel and Pakistan. That is true. However, no body has ever pointed out that Pakistan was carved out of India and consisted of the population which is there for thousands of years. However, Israel came into existence by deviding Palestine and its population in majority consisted of the people migrated from Europe in recent history. These people came to Palestine when the Jewish Leaders decided that they want to have their own land and they instructed their followers to go to Palestine.

It is impractical not to recognize Israel. Anyway it is there, and the economic-military gap between Israel and the Arab world has never been wider. From the very beginning Pakistan treated British-Palestine as an Arab-Muslin land, so it could not legitimize Israel, but it was based on sentiments rather than facts.
The idea that the Jews are invaders and Palestinians are the authentic dwellers of the region is wrong. Both Israel and Palestine, as well as Iraq or Jordan, are a product of the British rule. Jews did not have self rule for almost 2000 years while Palestine as an Arab entity has never ever existed. Both sides evolved their national identity through opposition to British colonialism, it is clear that Jews won the 1948 war not because of any moral superiority, but because their national identity was more solid than that of Arabs who really had a loose idea what they were fighting for. Mostly, Arabs perceived themselves as Palestinians only after the 1948 defeat, and the hostile welcome to Palestinian refugees in all Arab states bar Jordan.
Pakistan was usually practical in its foreign policy choices, true to this tradition, it should follow India who understood back in 1992 who are the winner and losers in West Asia. Pakistan could use the first Oslo Accord 10 years ago to recognize Israel, had it done it back than, we would not have witnessed such a huge military gap with India today.

As a New Yorker, where I interact daily with hundreds of Pakistani and Indian folk…. I can only say that as we have all learned here - the world is one large brotherhood.

Until such time that Pakistan can truly open its arms to a democracy, like Israel, it is destined to make slow progress towards moving away from outdated modes of hatred and prejudice.

May that future era of harmony soon be here.

what i cant figure out is the simple q: is it politically possible for pak’s leader to establish diplomatic relations with israel? won’t the left and islamist forces scold him for such a move? won’t he lose his power if he does do such a drastic move? who exactly openly suppotrs contacts inside pak?

what i cant figure out is the simple q: is it politically possible for pak’s leader to establish diplomatic relations with israel? won’t the left and islamist forces scold him for such a move? won’t he lose his power if he does do such a drastic move? who exactly openly suppotrs contacts with israel inside pak?

Thank you,
This was a good answer, at least I will not have illusion that on my next visit to india, I will be allowed to enter Pakistan. I envy the tourists from “normal” places who can visit the subcontinent properly, pak, bangla and ind.
Are you pakistani? what is your full name?
What do you do when you are offline?

oh, you have seen a lot. how is libya [one more country i am disallowed to visit]?

now that sharon has visited india, there were many article on indo-israeli relations.
pakistani PM said according to DAWN that these relations are not of worry for him. does he speak the truth?
one more, why DAWN is so against recognition of israel, all their articles oppose it. are there more rational newspapers in pakistan?

zack: the catch that i see is that even if pakistan recognizes israel, does it have enough money to buy baraks, arrows, phalcons and so on?
does not pakistan in a lose situation anyway?

zack: in an ideal world normal trade is more important than military one. but in a normal world pakistan would have recognized israel one second after egypt [1979], the leading muslim-arab country in west-asia.
i am not sure it is worth risking recognizing israel just because there is a just cause to do it, it seems that realpolitik, i.e, improving contacts with the us and preventing a huge tech-military with india are the leading motives to re-think relations with israel.
the question is can pakistan hold an arm race with india giving its shaky economy, what do you think?

now, that pak’s rules almost lost his life (twice),
israel is the last and least issue on his mind.

I want to quote some of my points regarding Pakistan and Israel realations.The main cause of tension between Pakistan and Israel is Palestine issue.The ppls of pakistan dont like israel coz it is a Zionist state but the political leaders of Pakistan backed by America want to make good relations with Israel. so according to me view their are some chance of improvement of good relations Pakistan and Israel.

israel katz, the israeli cabinet minister has stated that relations are improving.
what does he know that we dont?

I would like someone to confirm, if Israel in the past has offered India miltary assistance to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear programme. As I have heard this from other other sources! Certainly such history may dictate Pakistan’s stand against Israel.

Sorry i know this topice is probably history now..but i can never see Pakistan and Israel ever enjoying Sound diplomatic relations.

It is irrelevant whether one is a practising muslim or not.. but the Quran is quite clear on how ‘Jews’ will decieve and be fought against in the future(approaching Kiyamat).
And i think that most jewish children are made aware of this…??? i may be wrong.. just an opinion!!

pakistan has got two fields of intrest 1) the military coopration 2)ecnomic coopration now for military coopration pakistan is enjoyiing good ties with china and for ecnomic ties pakistan considers arab countries a better partner so israel never has been a center of focus for pakistan so why will pakistan go against its arab friends and give israel any importance when its 2 major intrests r being fulfilled

I think Pakistan and Israel would do well to
forge closer ties. In fact, this should have been
initiated some years ago. Apart from Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan has not gained any meaningful support
from the other Arab countries. The vast majority of
them actually look down on Pakistanis and have a
greater preference for Indians. Of course, the
ultra-right religious groups in Pakistan have to be
handled with care….so this is something to be worked at.

well after reading all the comments i just want to say that pkistan should accept israel for its national interest……..while making its foreign policy every country put forward its national interest then why not pakistan….it will help to stable its ecnomic condition…..however bout the issue of palestine…….their is a better way of negotiation…i m not a stereotype person thats y consider my opinion as an opnion but not as secular mind girl…..i m proud of being muslim

This Mid East problem could be over in 5 min if the Muslims could read in the Quran about the land of covenant that as per Quran belongs to the Jews.(corollary) I do not remember the Verse no. but it says that when there is a covenant, when the help from God and men arrices, the Jews would win(in a conflict) It actually hints that in this case Muslims would not win in conflict. We must understand that Israel is the land of the covenant (how large I dont know) and that God did help the Jews get Israel in 1948 and that help of men was there in the form of UN Security Council.Thus all 3 Quranic conditions seemed fulfilled in 1948……So Israel has a right to exist. While Mid east is the Muslim promised land (Byzans and Sassan territory) , Israel is the land of the covenant for the Jews so they should recognize each other and live peacefully……Mind you Quran says it would go to Jrws and not the entire set of children of Israel…so correct as Jews are a subset of the ancient children of Israel…The covenant was with the entire set of children of Israel during Moses’s time but at time of Prophet Mohammad (7th Century) only Jrws had been left in that area……….We are also reminded of a Hadith (event) in Prophet’s life when he instructed muslims to do justice to a Jewish person and gave him back his land which a muslim had taken……Its time we settle this issue for ever.

Leaving the religious standpoint aside, I believe Pakistan should not recognize Israel because of the latter’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of palestinian arabs (including christians). I would be ashamed to shake hands with Sharon and company, whose hands are bloody - remember sbara, shatilla, muhammad al durra??

This is only in reference to an earlier post by “Fahd Sultan” which seems ignorant (seems b/c without the vowels it a little hard to read) and crude. I wish people wouldn’t post with their full names because this posting by “Fahd Sultan” could offend my peers in IT. Anyhow, the crux of this post is that this isn’t me, Fahd Sultan, NY, USA.

we should recognize israel, they are great people.such things will help them in their sense of security,which they lacked in history.

I think Pak shoud stay ou of the Arab-Israeli conflict.We alredy have a western-backed bully on our backs.
We wasted so much time on the Israelis only to be backstabbed by the Arabs and Iranians.Iran and the Arab world have ties to India,so I have mixed feelings about wheather Im pro or anti Israel.

The Arabs and Iranians have no respect for Pakistan.Even outside their countries they continue to attack us verbally.

I think we should limit our relations with the Jewish state to economic ones for now.I’m sure Israelis would enjoy saving money by importing cheaper products from textile to hardware from Pakistan than spending extra money and importin them fom the west.

I have no likes for India and the other Mideast countries that’s for sure.

I think Pakistan should recognize Israel. I am a Pakistani and have tons of Israeli friends. We eat, have fun and recreate together, so why not accept each other. I believe this is in benefit of Pakistan and Israel. I do believe that there will be extremists who will appose this idea just because they can?

Come on! just be friends man. It is stupid that the people of Pakistan and Israel meet eachother without a problem and the governments are being lazy.

pakistan is a confused state.it does not know where its intrests lie.it links religion with all issues.guys ,learn to deal with issues on its merit.do not consider all countries as ur enemy intent on harming ur country.other countries are busy in growing.hence they have no time & respect for pakistan,

I am a Pakistani who cannot wait for the day Pakistan recognizes Israel. Both countries can benifit from a friendly relationship. Israel can sell it’s defense equipment to Pakistan, and Pakistan can sell its export products to Israel.

Unfortunately, the 5% of the Pakistani population that is extremist/supports extermists/hates Israel by default will start suicide bombing every town in Pakistan if Israel is recognized. I hope Musharraf learns from Israel and bombs the shit out of the terrorists in Pakistan.

Israel is a country, and it’s going nowhere. People better realize that, and work for peace and economic cooperation.

Whether some find Kumaraswamy’s comparison “forced” (and the tone does indicate that his stance may be distinctly out of dislike for Pakistan), the similarities do play out in terms of how both countries are confronting a conflict of national interests. For Pakistanis like myself whose parents migrated from outside the current boarders of Pakistan, maybe this seems more apparent to me. Ultimately, Israel and Pakistan were built on ideological grounds, and that is an undeniable fact. Sure, maybe Islam had been an established faith in the region for a continuous 1000 years, but we could say the same thing about the gradual expulsion of Jews from biblical Israel around the 2nd century AD. Just because it happened before the Geneva conventions of War were written, and before modern principals of human rights were formally written doesn’t make it any less an unacceptable act. But as far as the modern states of Israel and Pakistan are concerned, the idea of straddling an Islamic or Jewish state with the full embracing of modern principals of a secular democracy are battles that are central to our existence, and the histories of our formation dictate our status quo. You can liken the fleeing of thousands of arabs from palestine to the fleeing of thousands of hindus from Sindh. Or in the aftermath, the pogroms that followed which forced my parents out of Gujarat, India into Pakistan, just as the Yemenite Jews were confronted with violence upon the formation of the Israeli state. Neither makes the other acceptable, and irrespective of whether Israel is not recognized by the Arab world, but Pakistan and India recognize each other, for Pakistan and Israel, our position in global politics are ultimately going to have to take into account what our nationhood ultimately stands for.

pakistans security & prosperity lie in befriending india.not accepting this simple fact is the root cause for pakistan entangling itself in all kinds of alliances .accept the fact that you cant choose your neighbours, hence it would be common sense to have good ties with them.hope this realisation dawn earlier than latter. vijay dixit

i cant see any reason for pakistan to actually get irritated form israel india relation ship in the after math of 1998 when bith india pakistan have nukes in arsenal the possiblity of all out war is not option no matter how much technolgy india acquires or pakistan acquires bith definately have mean for there nukes to reach in there respective target, so there is no need really to get worried form indo-israeli cooapration as it may help india improve its military arsenal but it in no way weekens pakistan, caz improving our military arsenal is not pakistans main objective all we need is a credable defense and we alredy have acheived that against india in 1998 by going neculer , keeping in view that we dont have any agreesive desgines for any body in the world all we want to do is defend ourselves, now as for as accepting israel is concerened pakistan has taken a principel stand that improvment needs to take place in middeleast before pakistan can consider going towards normilization with israel and when that happen the normilization should not be done with mind set of accuring something form israel but basing on human social values where ppl try to accomdate each other , but for now pakistan should carry on woth its principal stand caz our only conceren is defense against india we r already capable of that, and we will do fine in future as well