Daily Times

According to the founding father of Zionism Theodore Herzl, “the area of the Jewish State stretches from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.”

The recent episode of ‘Middle East Peace Process’ is a proposal of Greater Israel by the Trump administration to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict formally unveiled in White House on 28 January 2020.The Greater Israel strategy is not strictly a Zionist Plan for the Middle East, but is an integral part of US foreign policy.The strategic objective is extendingAmerican hegemony besidefracturing and balkanising the complete Middle East region.The plan operates on essential premise thatto survive Israel must become an imperial regional power, and must effect the division of the Arab world into numerous small states. Small, here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. The Zionist hope is that sectarian-based Arab states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation.This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking.

The World Zionist Organisation (WZO) believe that they are living today in the early stages of a new epoch in human history which is not at all similar in retrospect, and its characteristics are totally different from what have hitherto known. The State of Israel is in need of a new perspective as to its place, its aims and national targets, at home and abroad. This need has become even more vital due to a number of significant processes which the region and the world are undergoing.

The main factors preventing Pakistan from recognising and establishing diplomatic relations with Israel are solidarity with Muslim countries in general, Saudi Arab in particular, and fear of an adverse response by influential religious groups and militants from within Pakistan

The Arab Muslim Worldis not the major strategic problem for Israel given to the Middle East ethnic minorities, its factions and internal crises, as we can see in Lebanon, in non-Arab Iran and in Syria. In the long run, the present Arab worldwill dissolve within its present framework without having to go through genuine revolutionary changes. It is built like a temporary house of cards put together by foreigners, without the wishes and desires of the inhabitants having been taken into account, and arbitrarily divided into numerous states, all made of combinations of ethnic groups which are hostile to one another.

The Gulf principalities and Saudi Arabia are built upon aelusive house of sand. In Kuwait, the Kuwaitis constitute only a quarter of the population. In Bahrain, the Shi’ites is in the majority but deprived of power. In the UAE, Shi’ites is once again in majority but the Sunnis are in power. The same is true of Oman and North Yemen. Even in the Marxist South Yemen there is a sizable Shi’ite minority. In Saudi Arabia half the population is foreign, but a Saudi minority holds power.Jordan is in reality Palestinian, ruled by a Trans-Jordanian Bedouin minority, but most of the army and certainly the bureaucracy is now Palestinian. Iraq is, once again, no different in essence from its neighbours. There is a large Kurdish minority in the north, and if it was not for the strength of the ruling regime, the army and the oil revenues, Iraq’s future state would be no different than that of Lebanon in the past or of Syria today. The seeds of inner conflict and civil war are apparent already.

Alongside the Arabs, the otherMuslim states share a similar predicament.The national ethnic minority picture extending from Morocco to India and from Somalia to Turkey points to the absence of stability plus a rapid degeneration in the entire region. Half of Iran’s population is comprised of a Persian speaking group and the other half is of an ethnically Turkish group. Turkey’s population comprises some 50%, Turkish Sunni Muslim, 12 million Shi’ite Alawis and 6 million Sunni Kurds. In Afghanistan Shi’ites constitute one third of the population and in Sunni Pakistan there are approximately 15-16 percent Shi’ites.When this picture is added to the economic one, we see how the entire region is built like acard-castle, unable to withstand its severe problems.

In this giant and fractured world there are a few wealthy groups but housing a huge mass of poor people. Most of the Arabs have an average yearly income of US$ 300.All of the Arab countries have powerful armies relatively speaking, but there is a problem there too. The Saudi army with all its equipment cannot defend the regime from within against real dangers at home or abroad. The Syrian army today is mostly Sunni with an Alawi officer corps, the Iraqi army is Shi’ite with Sunni commanders. This has great significance in the long run, and that is why it will not be possible to retain the loyalty of the army for a long time except where it comes to the only common denominator: the hostility againt Israel and today even that is insufficient.

Hatred against Israel and the refusal to recognise or establish diplomatic relations with Israel is no new phenomenon to Muslim countries in Asia. This abomination is based on feelings of Islamic solidarity with Arab countries and a sense of religious belonging to the global Islamic community. The main factors preventing Pakistan from recognising and establishing diplomatic relations with Israel are solidarity with Muslim countries in general, Saudi Arab in particular, and fear of an adverse response by influential religious groups and militants from within Pakistan.

The key question is why should Pakistan restrain ties with Israel on the basis of the Israel-Arab conflict while many Arab countries have established suitable relationship with Israel?Pakistan and Israel do not have a specific hostility or conflict area. What people don’t understand is that we are losing out against India by not maintaining ties with Israel. If Pakistancarries good diplomatic relations with Israel, it can help winning unfailing support from many developed countries of the world, with which Israel has the strongest lobbying powers.We are so wrapped up in what is good for everyone else; that we are losing sight of what is good for us as a nation.Nonetheless, it is time to be practical and relook genuinely, what Pakistan is losing out by not establishingappropriate diplomaticrelations with Israel?

The writer is a retired Pakistan army officer