Pakistan fears 'political suicide' over Israel
Pakistan’s government will eventually have to recognise Israel, but it would be political suicide to do so today, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has said.
Such recognition would end any hopes of Pakistan serving as bridge between the Muslim world and the West, Musharraf said yesterday.
Musharraf, who addressed the UN General Assembly last week and is promoting his new autobiography in the United States, said his considerable skills at walking a tightrope would not enable him to negotiate the firestorm that recognising Israel would cause, particularly after its recent attacks on Lebanon.
“We cannot do something that sidelines us from the Muslim world,” Musharraf said after a speech to the Weill Cornell Medical College.
Musharraf said his country would consider formally recognising Israel only after the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
“It must be done eventually,” Musharraf said. But he reiterated that the Palestinian issue must be resolved, calling it a major contributing factor to every conflict in the Middle East.
He also touched on the anti-terror fight, saying that Pakistan was largely abandoned by the West in 1989, after playing a key role in ending the Soviet occupation of neighbouring Afghanistan.
“Everyone left us high and dry to deal with 20,000-30,000 mujahedeen fighters holed up in Afghanistan and four million refugees who crossed the border into Pakistan,” Musharraf said.
“The mujahedeen coalesced into al-Qaida,” he added.
Then came the September 11 attacks, and Pakistan found itself thrust back into the spotlight as a key supporter of the US invasion in Afghanistan and the war on terrorism.
He said it was “disappointing” to hear criticism that Pakistan is not doing enough to fight terrorism.
“If we’re not doing enough, I don’t know who is,” he said. “I don’t know who is doing more than us.”
Musharraf said al-Qaida’s back had been broken, but that small pockets of its fighters and Taliban sympathisers remain in the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghan border.
“They are militant. They are aggressive,” he said, describing how they are attempting to foster a people’s movement.
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