August 3, 2003

The decision to recognize Israel would have several consequences for Pakistan. Some of these would be positive, others would be negative, and some cannot be prejudged. A straw poll of experts suggests the majority is not averse to the idea of recognition provided certain conditions are met

THE issue of whether Pakistan should recognize Israel came to the forefront during President Pervez Musharraf’s tour of the United States in June. Presumably, it was placed on the front burner by his American hosts, who are anxious to move ahead with their vision of remaking the Middle East into a region governed by democratic governments committed to free market reforms.

A key part of Washington’s agenda involves improving Israel’s credibility in the Muslim world, by projecting it as a credible partner for peace in the Middle East. The Bush administration views this repositioning of the state of Israel as being vital for the implementation of its roadmap for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

At the Camp David summit, the US promised $3 billion of economic and military aid to Pakistan over a five-year period provided a number of stated and unstated conditions were met. Recognition of Israel may well be one of these unstated conditions.

This $3 billion aid package supplements the economic assistance that the US has provided to the government of Pakistan as a reward for its cooperation in the war against terrorism. This prior assistance includes the rescheduling and forgiveness of portions of Pakistan’s bilateral debt to the United States and pledges of additional assistance through the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

One can presume that several members of the US Congress and the Bush administration want to ensure that they obtain maximum leverage from Pakistan in return for providing it a multi-billion aid package at a time of fiscal stress in Washington. Initial estimates indicate that the US fiscal deficit during the current fiscal year will come in at $455 billion, an all time record.

It is clear that many within the Bush administration want Pakistan to go beyond cracking down on terrorist organizations, capturing Al Qaeda suspects and broadening the educational curriculum of the seminaries. They want to make Pakistan an active partner in the implementation of their Middle Eastern policies, which is also why Pakistan has been asked to contribute two brigades of troops to the restoration of civil society in Iraq. That is the price Pakistan is being asked to pay in return for being able to develop long-term ties with the US, an often-stated goal of President Musharraf’s foreign policy.

Another unspoken factor that seems to be at work is Pakistan’s expanding nuclear and ballistic missile capability. As long as that capability remains India-specific, the US may not regard Pakistan’s possession of weapons of mass destruction a matter of serious concern requiring immediate military action to neutralize such a capability.

Under the Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, such actions represent a legitimate extension of the concept of self-defense. However, should Pakistan’s reach extend to include the borders of Israel, the situation could become dicey. Realists in the Pentagon have probably concluded that it is futile to assume that Israel would not come within range of Pakistani missiles in the years to come, much as the idealists would like to cap Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programme. One way to prevent US-Pakistan’s relations from coming under stress in the future would be to have Pakistan recognize Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign nation.

Just a few years ago, it would have been unthinkable to publicly mention the issue of whether Pakistan should recognize Israel. Even now public opinion in Pakistan seems strongly opposed to recognizing Israel, and, thus, it is not surprising that President Musharraf has called for an open but non-emotive debate on the merits of the proposal.

Before proceeding to analyze its merits, it is useful to review the major countries that have recognized Israel. Israel was admitted to the United Nations in 1949. Currently, there are more than a hundred diplomatic missions in Israel, including embassies and consulates.

In addition to the United States, all the other permanent members of the UN Security Council have recognized Israel. This includes Pakistan’s main ally in the Council, China, which recognized Israel in 1992, the same year in which India recognized it. All European nations maintain diplomatic ties with Israel, including the Nordic countries and Switzerland. Israel was admitted to the European Common Market in 1979.

In the Americas, Canada has recognized Israel, as have several Latin American nations, including Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. In addition, many African nations, including Kenya and South Africa, maintain diplomatic ties with Israel. While Nelson Mandela has been one of the strongest critics of Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, and has often compared it with apartheid, Pretoria continues to engage in a dialogue with Tel Aviv.

In South Asia, India recognized Israel in 1992, in the aftermath of the Gulf War of 1991. It has been able to maintain strong relations with the Arab countries, while benefiting enormously from purchases of military equipment from Israel. Nepal has ties with Israel, as do Australia and New Zealand.

Among Arab or Muslim countries, only Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Turkey and Uzbekistan maintain diplomatic ties with Israel, but a few others, such as Oman and Qatar, maintain business ties. Morocco and Tunisia have low-level diplomatic ties with Israel, but these have been suspended since the beginning of the second intifada.

There is no need to dilate upon the reasons why the Muslim world is reluctant to embrace Israel. It continues to maintain the possession of Arab territories it occupied in the Six Day War of 1967, and has clearly stated its intention of making Jerusalem its eternal capital. Articles even today continue to appear in Israeli media suggesting that the Muslim world has no claim on Jerusalem.

Nevertheless, Muslim countries have come to accept the concept of Israel as a nation-state, especially after the PLO dropped the demand to eliminate Israel and signed the Oslo Accords in 1993. Talk of driving the Israelis into the sea has disappeared from public discourse in the Arab world, and is confined to zealots in extremist organizations.

Most notably, Saudi Arabia sponsored a proposal before the Arab League in March 2002 that would have given recognition to Israel once it withdrew to the borders that existed prior to the Six Day War of 1967, i.e., conceded the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinian authority along with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The Arab League in a unanimous resolution adopted this proposal. However, Ariel Sharon’s government spurned this resolution, after having denied Yasser Arafat permission to attend the meeting of the Arab League in Beirut. To make its intentions very plain for the world community, Israel then proceeded to re-occupy the West Bank and Gaza in a bloody military campaign that drew widespread global condemnation from every government except Washington.

In the aftermath of the Iraq war, after coming under considerable pressure from the government of Tony Blair to have a balanced foreign policy in the Middle East, the US convened a peace summit between the Israelis and Palestinians on June 4 in Aqaba, Egypt. The summit was also attended by other Arab leaders, and was intended to pave the way for the formation of a Palestinian state. Several parties at the summit mentioned the Arab League resolution in favourable terms.

Before considering the merits of recognizing Israel for Pakistan, it is important to note that recognition would mean the establishment of diplomatic relations between Islamabad and Tel Aviv. But it does not mean that Islamabad would have to agree with all or even most of Tel Aviv’s policies.

As the continuing friction between the US and several of its NATO allies over the war in Iraq indicates, countries can fully recognize each other, but still not agree with major components of their foreign policy. The history of the 20th century is replete with wars between countries that recognized each other. The wars between India and Pakistan provide specific evidence of this proposition.

The converse of this statement is that non-recognition (the current policy) does not mean that Israel would cease to exist as a nation-state. It is a political reality that would still be there whether or not Pakistan recognized it.

As mentioned earlier, Israel is a member of the United Nations and is recognized by all major powers. By recognizing Israel, Pakistan may be better able to influence its policies toward the Palestinians and the status of Jerusalem.

There are many precedents for engaging in constructive engagement with countries that are widely perceived to be ‘enemies’ in one sense or another. For example, President Nixon used the logic of constructive engagement when he made the decision to visit China in 1972, and it is being used by some in the US to argue for a similar approach towards the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The decision to recognize Israel would have several consequences for Pakistan. Some of these would be positive, others would be negative, and some cannot be prejudged. It is important that Pakistani experts debate all sides of the issue and help Pakistan’s leaders make a well-informed choice.

On the assets side of the ledger, a decision to recognize Israel would improve Pakistan’s standing within the US. There are many neo-conservatives in the Bush administration who worry that Pakistan in reality is a militant Islamic state armed with weapons of mass destructions. Recognition, perhaps, is being put forth as a test of Pakistan’s moderation in foreign policy, and may be the only way to convince Washington that Pakistan’s nuclear bomb is not an Islamic bomb.

Recognition would also ensure continuing US economic and military aid to Pakistan, and greatly reduce the risk that a future US administration may characterize Pakistan as a failed state or a state whose nuclear arsenal was prone to being hijacked by militant elements in the body politic. In other words, it would prevent a US attack on Pakistan’s strategic assets.

Israel has long sought Pakistani recognition. These two countries were created so that the followers of their two religions would be able to find a homeland. Israel would get a substantial boost in its standing among not only Muslim but also non-Muslim countries if it gained Pakistan’s recognition.

In theory, Pakistan would gain access to civilian and military Israeli technology and it may be able to prevent the already burgeoning Indo-Israeli ties from reaching a prohibitive level. Finally, once Pakistan has recognized Israel, it would be able to use its good offices to facilitate a dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians. Such a dialogue may expand to include Syria and possibly Iran at a future date.

On the liabilities side of the ledger, recognition of Israel is almost certainly going to polarize public opinion in Pakistan and cause political discord. After recognition by Pakistan, Israel would have less incentive to withdraw from the occupied territories and to give East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Israel is unlikely to give Pakistan access to advanced military technology since this would upset India, which remains a much larger market than Pakistan.

Moreover, as the decision of the US to veto Israeli sale of advanced military equipment to China indicates, the US would ultimately be the final arbiter on what Israeli equipment is sold to Pakistan. When the US will not sell F-16s directly to Pakistan, it is unlikely to allow Israel to sell similarly sophisticated military hardware to Pakistan. In addition, if done in haste, recognition would complicate Pakistan’s relations with several Arab and Muslim countries.

These are the major issues surrounding the decision to recognize Israel. Every individual will weigh the pros and cons differently, and come up with a different recommendation. Some might say, on balance, Pakistan should not recognize Israel under any conditions while others might say it should recognize Israel without any pre-conditions.

To illuminate these issues, I conducted a straw poll of 50 experts on Pakistani politics through e-mail. These experts represent a cross-section of writers, journalists, academics, activists, retired diplomats and soldiers, some based in Pakistan and some abroad. Thirty-one people responded to the poll. It is important to keep in mind that a straw poll is not intended to be a substitute for a scientific survey, but merely to set the stage for conducting such a survey.

Four people said Pakistan should not recognize Israel, and six said it should recognize it without any pre-conditions. However, two-thirds (21 of the 31) said that they would support the recognition of Israel under one or more conditions. The conditions ranged from, (a) Israel should recognize the state of Palestine, to (b) that it should recognize the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, to (c) that, in addition to (b), it should revoke any secret agreements that it has entered into with the government of India that would affect the national security of Pakistan.

Since individuals are likely to arrive at different decisions on the issue of recognition, the next logical question is how should the state of Pakistan make this fateful decision. Going back to the straw poll of experts, the overwhelming majority said that the decision should be made by the cabinet, and ratified by the National Assembly. Very few said it should be left to the president, or settled through a national referendum.

President Musharraf has said recently that the government can only study the question of recognizing Israel if the Middle East conflict is settled and includes the creation of a Palestinian state and the Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories. This is the right approach to resolving this difficult question. One hopes he can stay the course, regardless of the strong pressure that is being mounted on him to make a spot decision.

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