Daily Times

The pledge made in the Abraham Accords for the resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict pales into eyewash when contrasted with the more forceful and compelling references to the issue in the earlier Accords which remain unimplemented. Would Israel feel any compulsion to implement its pledge this time around after achieving its purpose of securing recognition from Arab countries in advance? No, is the answer to this question keeping in view the track record of the Jewish State. Israel has never been serious about the two-state solution to the Palestinian conundrum.

After the upheaval caused by the Arab Spring in the Middle East, Israel felt the least pressure or any interest to exchange occupied lands for peace. “The occupation of Arab lands as it is now can last forever, and it is better than any alternative”, this is how Benny Ziffer, editor of a leftwing paper in Israel, has summarized the existing consensus among the Israeli leaders. I agree with him. The map audaciously waved by Netanyahu in the UN General Assembly last September did not contain the autonomous Palestinian lands.

The reaction of the Muslim world to these accords has been chillingly mute and that of non-resistance to the US strong-arm diplomacy, leaving the people of Palestine with a strong sense of disillusionment, frustration and desperation given the consistent reign of tyranny, oppression and atrocities perpetrated on them by Israel in terms of killings, displacement, dispossession and suffocating siege. The 7 October attacks of Hamas on Israeli-occupied territory could be viewed from this perspective. Hamas wanted to tell the conscience-less and soul-less West and its fellow Arabs that the lives of the Palestinians do matter.

People ask what the way forward is. There is no way forward unless the Muslim world particularly the Arab countries shows unity among their ranks and sincerity towards Palestinian brethren with the Palestinian leaders of PLO and Hamas reuniting for a greater purpose. The lip service to the Palestinian cause by the Arab League and OIC would not impact Israeli resolve to maintain the status quo. The Fahd Plan of the earlier 1980s – reaffirmed by Crown Prince Abdullah in 2000 which Saudi Arabia presented as a precondition for signing the Abraham Accords – was never taken seriously by Israel or the US.

The foreign policies of the states are formulated on the bedrock of their national interests.

The Arabs have wealth and resources. They can bring tremendous pressure on the US-led Western world to force Israel to accede to the UN Resolutions 181 supported by subsequent Resolutions 242 (1968) and 338. The Arab unity will compel Russia and China to come out openly and forcefully in favour of a Palestinian State.

Pakistan finds itself in a quandary. Pakistan’s ruling class has been inclined to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, particularly the latter’s growing bilateral and strategic cooperation with India. Their line of argument is that Pakistan would be more effective in rendering meaningful help in resolving the festering issue of Palestine by remaining directly engaged with Israel. Much water has passed under the bridge since the creation of the Israeli state. Now it has become a reality to reckon with. The Arab countries have been recognizing it. The engagement with Israel will not provide additional leverage to Pakistan to influence its policies towards the Palestinian issue. The question arises what diplomatic leverage has been bestowed on Turkey Jordan, UAE and Bahrain by their diplomatic engagement with Israel? Rather Israel, in my view, has emerged as the dominant power in the region.

Pakistan’s diplomatic engagement with Israel would not impact its deepening strategic cooperation with India. Israel has emerged as the second biggest supplier of arms, security and spying systems to India after France. The foreign policies of the states are formulated on the bedrock of their national interests. The Israeli and Indian strategic relationship should be viewed from this perspective. India has been following Israel’s policy of demographical genocide in Jammu Kashmir.

The political polarisation and economic instability in the country have adversely impacted our leeway for an independent foreign policy. We have been beholden to the Arab countries particularly the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia for the past many years for their financial aid in the repeated economic and financial crises the country has encountered in terms of our bad economic policy decisions. We have lost our weight in the Gulf States, and particularly in the OIC. Pakistan’s foreign policy has become hostage to the whims of the wealthy Gulf States so much so that we could not take a forceful stand on the Israeli bloodletting in Gaza and the genocidal attacks on the armless Palestinians. Over 23000 Palestinians including women and children have perished in the Israeli attacks and no Arab country ever thought of suspending its diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. Pakistan has been contributing modestly to the supply of food and medicine to the beleaguered Palestinian populace but this is not enough.

South Africa which remained under the repressive system of apartheid for decades and knew the anger anguish, pain and misery this system inflicts on the sieged populations displayed the gallantry to challenge the Jewish State in the International Court of Justice for genocide and war crimes. We, as a Muslim state, should have stood by the side of South Africa. We only contented ourselves by giving an ambiguous and inoffensive statement in the UN supporting the initiative of South Africa. The people of Pakistan, given their love for their Palestinian brethren, wanted a more forceful stand. But we could not have gone beyond the muted and diluted stand of our Gulf and Western benefactors.

Our current stand on the military conflict in the Palestinian land neither corresponds with our fundamental policy contours on the Muslim world as enunciated by the Quaid-e-Azam nor our traditional pro-Palestinian stand which we have been following for decades. This is quite unfortunate. We have been cutting our paws for decades. The outcome of such imprudent and non-serious political and economic policy decisions would not have been different.

(Concluded)

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