An Interesting Question
Three diaspora Indians wrote this interesting piece about Pakistan’s recent overtures towards Israel (exemplified in a handshake between their FM’s hosted in Turkey while I, coincidentally, was also in Turkey).
They are clearly correct that Pakistan’s primary reason lies in Israel’s budding friendship with India. They are also clearly correct that Pervez Musharraf’s regime is illegitamite and morally bankrupt. But are they correct in suggesting that Israel should have nothing to do with it? Should India sever whatever ties it has with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Syria because they too are illegitamite and morally bankrupt? And what of Indai’s recent rapproachement with China? Such questions have no easy answers--but they should cause us all to think. When a large, powerful, corrupt state like Pakistan approaches a small liberal state like Israel, what is the appropriate response? Can a liberal state deal with an illiberal one without losing its moral compass? Can a small state afford to pass up an opportunity to establish ties with a big one?
No one ever said that the world was an easy place. The authors’ concerns are legitimate, but impractical. We can only hope that whatever ties Pakistan does establish with Israel does nothing to derail the growing cooperation between the world’s only two consistent post-colonial democracies.
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The ties seem to me to be motivated more by Gen Musharraf’s attempt to liberalize his nation’s polity and improve its image --- it’s a PR move on his part. I am still unsure of his true intentions --- the authors do have a point when they note that he supported the Taliban, which was a patently less liberal regime than his own. Is he merely throwing a sop to his fundamentalists or playing some elaborate game of realpolitik?
I agree that Israel can’t afford to turn away a hand proffered in friendliness. The authors forget that Gen Musharraf has also made similar gestures to India that have been accepted wholeheartedly by our previous government as well as the current one. They conveniently forget to chide their own country for what would be even more irrational behavior on its part, by their political yardstick.
Is there an article by Natan Sharansky that talks about Israel losing its “moral compass”? The reference in the article you blogged is too vague --- did he say this in a book?
Sameer,
There’s little doubt that Musharraf does things for his own reasons--after all, why should he differ from everyone else. I think that there is a huge difference, though, between trying to liberalize his polity (a great thing) and trying to clean up its image (a negative unless accompanied by real reforms).
I doubt that the authors seriously think that Israel should refuse to meet Pakistan--a huge nuclear power, after all. I take their position as a warning that Israel--and all decent countries--needs to remember: KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE! There is a world of difference between the people with whom you deal out of shared interests and values and those with whom you deal out of necessity.
India is a stable liberal democracy. Nehru, unfortunately, tried to found the country with a combination of Anglo-style liberalism, Soviet-style planning, and Nasser/Castro-style post-colonial solidarity. Fortunately for India (and the world), Vajpayee and Singh seemed to have moved both major parties beyond the debacles of the latter two ideas. What remains is a true addition to the liberal world--an addition of more than a billion people. This victory for the “forces of good” is hard to underestimate. It is not a coincidence that India has recently overcome its history of rocky relationships with both Israel and the U.S. I favor doing anything and everything to accelerate the positive trends.
As to Sharansky, I’m not certain precisely what the authors were citing, but his book is wonderful and well worth reading (I rate it with Hayek’s Road to Serfdom and Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism as one of the great expositions of freedom). Sharansky has long argued, though, that the Palestinians, as essentially wards of the world, are perfectly positioned for reform. He believes that if the EU in particular were to press them, the Palestinians could develop free, transparent, democratic procedures to serve as a model for the rest of the Arab world (and beyond). He believes that Israel’s fundamental morality and strategic interests combine to push the Palestinians in this direction. Any steps that shore up the leadership without pressing reform--including unilateral withdrawal from Gaza--are steps in the wrong direction.
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