Daily Times

The founding father of the nation, Muhammad Ali Jinnah extended his categorical support to the cause of the Palestine people even before the creation of the Jewish State recognizing their right to their land where they have been living for millennia. By his statement, the Quaid had determined the contours of the country’s foreign policy as far as the Muslim world was concerned. The Muslim world has since been the main plank of the foreign policy of the country.

To recapitulate, the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War; the revolt against the Caliphate in the Arab nations and the emergence of Great Britain and France as the new masters of the region in 1922 paved the ground for the creation of the Jewish state in the Palestinian land in accordance with the Balfour Declaration of November 1917 which contained an explicit scheme of a “homeland for Jewish people in the Palestinian land – pledging that nothing would be done prejudicial to the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish people”. This pledge has been never honoured.

From 1922 onwards, there was a massive migration of Jews from Europe into Palestinian land in connivance with the British rulers. Jew leaders particularly David Ben Gurion established militant organizations to support their Zionist Movement. Three militant organizations -Stern, Irgun and Haganah – were dangerously armed and acted as the militant wing of Zionism.

While Iraq is reeling under a sectarian divide, the kingdoms and Emirates have been vying with each other for having the security umbrella of Israel.

As the shameful flight of colonial powers drew closer, these militant groups created violent conditions in the Palestinian land pushing 700,000 indigenous Palestinians out of their ancestral homes where they lived for millennia. This is known as the Nakba – catastrophe.

The British leaders took the matter to the United Nations. The UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181 on 7 October 1947 approving the plan of the partition of the Palestinian land into two states with economic union. The Arabs rejected the plan. Many Jewish leaders were also dissatisfied with the plan. However, the Jewish leader, David Ben Gurion formally declared the creation of the Israeli State on 14 May 1948. The newly born state was immediately recognized by the USA and the UK. It was attacked by Arabs.

Ben Gurion, with his militia from the militant organizations named above, and the massive supply of war weapons from the US and UK repelled the invading Arab armies in 1948. The Israelis call this ‘war of independence’. For Palestinians, it is a war of occupation. He declared Martial Law in Israel for 8 years until 1966 systematically displaced Palestinians and massively increased the military prowess of his country.

Israel displayed its military power in the war with the Arab countries in 1968 occupying swaths of the territory of Jordan, Egypt and Syria. This was a decisive defeat to the Arab armies. The Arabs retrieved parts of their lost territories in the Six-Day War of 1973 but could not dent the Israeli war machine. This forced the Arabs to come around to the proposal of peace with Israel under the formula of two coexisting states of Palestine and Israel.

Egypt signed the Camp David Accords with Israel in 1978, removing effectively any collective threat to Israel from the Arab countries. Later, Jordan also followed suit in 1994. The PLO also signed the Oslo Accords with Israel in 1993 to find a solution to the Palestinian conundrum in accordance with the UN Resolution 181 and UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 but could not secure more than a little autonomy in a small strip of land.

While Israel has been relentlessly strengthening its military prowess and acquiring nuclear technology throughout the intervening decades, the Muslim world particularly the Arabs, from the Levant to the Arabian Peninsula, has unfortunately been in disarray and vulnerable to external influence. Ambassador Munir Akram once compared the Muslim world from the early 1980s with the Christian Europe of the 14th and 15th centuries – unable to unite in halting the advance of the ascendant Ottomans.

The Arab world, ruled by autocrats and dynastic Kings and Emirs, was hamstrung by the intense political and ideological rivalry between Arab nationalists and moderates with receding support for the Palestinian people. This rivalry openly manifested itself in the so-called Arab Spring. The Arab monarchs and Emirs loosened their purse strings to fund rebellions in the lands of their perceived political foes or Arab nationalists in Syria, Libya, South Yemen, Egypt and the earlier wars in Iraq.

Today, the Arab landscape presents a painful scenario. Egypt is ruled by a military leader propelled by the US and Saudi Arabia for his act of overthrowing Ikhwan-linked Muhammad Morsi with Syria, Libya, and Yemen devastated by civil strife. While Iraq is reeling under a sectarian divide, the kingdoms and Emirates have been vying with each other for having the security umbrella of Israel. Israel feels no security threat from Arabs. It has security concerns with the diffuse militant organizations existing in the Arab world – Hezbollah and Hamas or the Palestinian Intifadas.

After the Two Camp David and Oslo Accords, now comes the new trap of the Abraham Accords pushed by Jared Kushner, son-in-law and advisor of President Donald Trump. These are bogus and farce agreements to concretize the US plan to expand the sway of Israel all over the Arab lands by coercing Arab monarchs and Emirs to recognize Israel.

These are simply bilateral accords between Israel and the four Arab countries affirming the recognition of Israel with a slight mention of the Palestinian problem. The Accords signed by UAE and Bahrain with Israel recall the Treaties of Peace between the State of Israel and the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and committed to working together to realize a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that meets legitimate needs and aspirations of both peoples and to advance comprehensive Middle East peace, stability and prosperity.

To be concluded

The author was a member of the Foreign Service of Pakistan and he has authored two books.