BY TOM ARMS
Wafting through the Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and across the parade ground of military headquarters in Rawalpindi is an interesting political rumour: Will Pakistan be the next Islamic country to recognise Israel?
If it does it will not be so much a feather in the Israeli-American cap as a full-sized Native American war bonnet. Only Saudi recognition would beat it as a diplomatic coup.
But is the rumour likely to become a reality? Diplomats say that such a move is possible. But set against the brick wall of political realities it is highly improbable.
For a start, the political, social, economic and cultural conditions in Pakistan are completely different from those in the countries that have recently recognised Israel—Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan. The UAE is an extremely wealthy states ruled by absolute monarchs. Their largely pliant population is happy to stay out of politics as long as the oil money keeps rolling in. Bahrain is not enormously wealthy, and its population is divided between Sunnis and Shias. But the ruler is an absolute monarch and in lockstep with the UAE.
Sudan is not so wealthy. But its diplomatic position has been bought by Washington. As one of the centres of Islamic terrorism, it languished for years on America’s economic blacklist. US aid and investment is now pouring in.
Pakistan, in comparison, is poor and its politics are Byzantine. The per capita income of the 212.7 million Pakistanis is below that of Sudan at $1,357 a year. They are 154th in the world wealth stakes.
Prime Minister Imran Khan is a perfectly competent and charming man, but he is politically circumscribed. The real power in Pakistan is the military—the sixth-largest in the world. The prime minister is allowed to operate freely, but only within parameters established by the military, especially the army. If he steps outside the parameters than he runs the risk of removal—even a military coup.
The army would probably support recognition of Israel if it was persuaded that such a move was in the national interest. Like most militaries, they are driven more by practical than ideological concerns. But that same pragmatism means the army has to take account of domestic Muslim sensibilities which for decades have been fed a diet of anti-Israeli propaganda through the madrassah and religious parties such as the JUP and JUI.
Set against that is the influence of 1.5 million Pakistani expatriates in the UAE, who remit more than $1 billion a year back to the home country. If they are seen as supportive of the UAE’s foreign policy then they will make their feelings known back home. The Pakistani diaspora in the UAE is the world’s third-largest after the UK and Saudi Arabia.
Then there are the international considerations, starting with Saudi Arabia. In 2019, The Saudis provided $20 billion in aid to Pakistan. Rumours of Saudi recognition of Israel have been even thicker and faster than those involved in Pakistan. But to date, Saudi Arabia appears to be using proxies rather than raising its head above the diplomatic parapet. Pakistan could be one of those proxies.
The US is Pakistan’s biggest supplier of military equipment (China is second), but America and Pakistan have suffered a roller-coaster relationship under both the Obama and Trump Administrations as distrust grew between Washington and Islamabad over differing positions on Afghanistan and the Islamic Jihad.
On top of that, Donald Trump invested considerable political capital in relations with Pakistan arch-enemy India. He and prime minister Narenda Modi shared a right-wing populist agenda. In addition, the two had the common objective of an Asian NATO to militarily contain China. Its key members would be the US, India, Japan and Australia. This clearly caused concern in Pakistan.
The position of the Biden Administration on the Middle East, South Asia, China, and Pakistan has yet to be clarified. Biden has said he wants to revive the Iran Nuclear Accord which should reduce the need for a regional military build-up and joined-at-the-hip diplomatic relations with the Gulf States. Trump’s Middle East policy abandoned the two-state Palestinian solution. If Biden revives it then the need for diplomatic Islamic recognition of Israel recedes. As for the Asian NATO, Biden appears more inclined towards restoring Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partnership than Trump’s military-based option. Indian-US relations are likely to remain cordial, but not nearly as warm as the personal chemistry that developed between Donald Trump and Narendra Modi.
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So are the rumours true? Unlikely, but never say never.
World Review
Finally, Britain is a “world-beater” in the battle against coronavirus. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been falsely claiming the title since the pandemic began, but now he is actually telling the truth. Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the first to authorise the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine. The initial vaccinations are expected within hours of my writing this report and probably after you have read it. The US is lagging about two weeks behind, as is the EU. The reason is that the MHRA conducted a rolling review of the data as each step in the development and approval procedure became available. The US and EU have waited until the entire process is complete. Of course, British success fails to make up for the fact that to date it has suffered the worst covid death rate in Europe. Then there is America where this week the number of hospitalised coronavirus patients crashed through the 100,000 barrier. So far 265,000-plus Americans have died from the deadly virus and at the moment there are 99 new infections every minute. The statistics are expected to look grimmer as soon as the consequences of Thanksgiving get-togethers become woefully apparent. Almost as bad, is the deteriorating situation in India. Overcrowded cities and some of the world’s worst pollution levels have contributed to an acute shortage of hospital beds to create crisis conditions. So far 138,744 Indians have died. India is not a candidate for Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine because of the problems of keeping it at -70 c. In fact, it is estimated that the vaccine is only applicable in about 26 countries. There are high hopes, however, for the AstraZeneca offering which can be preserved at lower temperatures and costs less to produce. That should be authorised by the MHRA next week.
The issue of who did what first has become a matter of national pride in the coronavirus race, but Britain’s success in being at the front of the queue for vaccinations has exposed some nasty characteristics. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson went on the radio this week to declare that the UK had not only the world’s best health regulatory agency but that it was simply “The Best Country in the World.” This is dangerous nationalist talk of the sort that led to colonialism and two world wars in the last century. If one country is best than it does not take a giant mental leap to argue that the others are worse and by implication should be led by the country that is best. It is one thing to be proud of your country is good. It is called patriotism. To say it is in some way inherently better or best is called nationalism. That is bad.
US Attorney General William Barr has a well-deserved reputation as President Trump’s faithful legal protector, henchman and attack dog. He has defended using federal troops to quell domestic riots; demurred on the possibility of delaying November elections; urged a lenient sentence for Trump acolyte Roger Stone and dropped the prosecution of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn (subsequently pardoned by Trump). All of this is important because Barr this week joined the chorus of leading Republicans who are reluctantly admitting the indisputable fact that Trump lost the election and that the vote was scrupulously free and fair. Trump, for his part, continues to damage the transition process and American democracy by continually reasserting that he was cheated. Extreme Trump supporters are using the president’s Alice in Wonderland view of the election result to resort to death threats. Popular targets are elected Republican officials responsible for organising and overseeing the counting of votes in the swing states that have gone to Joe Biden. Social media is thick with these threats. So far Trump has failed to disassociate himself from any of them. As Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s Election Manager, said, someone could very well die and the president will be complicit by his silence.
No telephones. No internet. No journalists. No international observers. And, according to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, no— or at least very few– civilian deaths. In fact, according to the Ethiopian government, there has been only a minimum amount of disruption as a result of the fighting in the rebel province of Tigray. But then, how are we to know if the only information available to the outside world is provided by those conducting the attack? The whole affair reminds me of when I was in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) covering the civil war between the White Ian Smith regime and the Patriotic Front of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. Every day the ruling Smith regime issued war communique about how hundreds of “terrorists” were being killed while only a handful of Rhodesian soldiers were suffering flesh wounds. Shortly into my Rhodesian sojourn, I was declared Persona non Grata for an article I had written before arriving in the country. As soon as the word went out that I was to be deported unofficial doors opened in all directions. They were mainly from the medical profession who were keen to provide me with an accurate picture of casualties. It made gripping but unattractive reading. It is interesting to note that the one report that has managed to emerge from the Tigrayan capital of Meke’ele is that the hospital has run out of body bags.
Some of you may know that I do a weekly world affairs radio broadcast for US Talk Radio. My co-host is keen Trump supporter Lockwood Phillips. This week I reported that France was suffering race problems following the assault by four policemen on a Black music producer. The policemen were all suspended, arrested, detained and will stand trial. President Emmanuel Macron has denounced their actions as unacceptable. But that was not what Lockwood took from the story: “Aha, he exclaimed. So you Europeans have race problems. I thought it was only Americans, but no, it is just Americans that are always attacked for their alleged prejudice.” Well, the fact is that there is hardly a country in the world that isn’t plagued by the evil of objectionable prejudice either based on race, national origin, gender, sexual preference, religion, culture, or even language. In Papua New Guinea, for instance, a tribe will regularly fight another tribe only a few miles away simply because they do not speak the same language. And there are 839 languages in PNG. Jews and Muslims are virtually identical in appearance. They have the same religious roots and eat similar foods but regularly drag the world to the edge of the abyss. The Chinese look down on everyone who is not Han Chinese. South Asia’s Hindus and Muslims are constantly at odds. Zimbabwe’s Shonas and the Ndebeles are regularly at each other’s throats and the Argentines are very disparaging about the Brazilians. The treatment of women in Saudi Arabia is well known and in Uganda being gay is a death sentence. So, Lockwood may have a point. Why pick on the poor Americans? Unless it is because the United States holds itself up as a political and social paragon based on the praiseworthy principle that all men are created equal.
Stay Healthy,
Tom Arms
