Comparing Pakistan and Israel

TAUNTON: Both Ayesha Siddiqa and Khaled Ahmed in their recent articles on comparing Israel and Pakistan have tried to malign the latter. I say this because Israel is an apartheid state whose odious occupation of Palestine and wars against its neighbours are now finally bringing about its deligitimisation, even in the West.

What are the spurious similarities that the writers claim between Pakistan and Israel? They were founded on the basis of religion; they are national security states; they have illegal nuclear weapons. Pakistan was founded on the basis of self-determination, mostly for and by Muslims. Israel was conceived as, and founded as a colonial-settler state by European Jews of European race and ethnicity.

Pakistan is not a colonial-settler state and it seems that the writers, in their eagerness to demonise Pakistan, have ignored this fundamental distinction.

Israel is a garrison state, whose society, economy and military are organised — with massive support from the US, organised Jewish Diaspora and other Western powers — to maximise its military strength, all in support of endless warfare against the Palestinians and their Muslim neighbours, and in support of regional hegemony. If the military dominates Pakistan, it is because of the weakness of Pakistan’s civil society, and because Pakistan faces a much larger and hostile India.

As for ‘illegal’ nuclear weapons, since both Pakistan and Israel are not signatories to the NPT, their weapons cannot be illegal. Siddiqa and Ahmed should focus on the fundamental differences between Pakistan and Israel, not on their superficial similarities.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2010.