Never say never

Within the first year of its emergence as a state Turkey had recognised Israel and established diplomatic relations with it. This was in 1949. Turkey continues to retain that relationship and immensely benefit from it. Turkey’s defence industry was almost entirely triggered around initial Israeli support; Israeli tourists travel into their Mediterranean neighbour most frequently. When Recep Tayyip Erdogan warns UAE of breaking diplomatic relations with it he makes no mention of Turkey first breaking her relations with Israel. It’s not doublespeak. It is pure economic sense which guides Turkey through the geopolitical maze. Erdogan’s war and peace go side by side without as much as a blip in the Bosphorus.

Egypt retrieved the Sinai from Israel in 1978 in return for recognising her and established formal diplomatic relations — embassies and all. Anwar Sadaat did the honours at Camp David. Jordan followed Egypt in 1994 under the late King Hussein. Both nations, Egypt and Jordan, were thoroughly vanquished at Israeli hands in consecutive wars. Jordan lost Jerusalem to Israel in 1967 and 1973 wars and was only able to retain an access to a part. In return it had to recognise Israel. The rest of the Muslim world has generally kept away from any formal recognition even as they have interacted informally with the Jews of the world for their advances in military technology, finance, medicine, agriculture and in the academic world. A lot of this work is based in Israel.

China, our iron-brother, has had a longstanding and a fruitful relationship with Israel. A lot of the technology that finds its appearance in military hardware in China is sourced in Israel or built around reverse-engineered understanding of it. From modern fighters and avionics to modern airborne radars there is significant Israeli input in the shape of technology that Israel sold to China. It is best left there else we may begin categorising the equipment we carry as kosher or non-kosher.

Three nations have in particular benefited from their relationship with Israel: Turkey, South Africa and Singapore. Their respective defence industries were built around Israeli support and technology transfers. Number of countries, including Pakistan, have benefited from these indirect sources of technology and weapons. UAE has for a couple of decades now been working to develop into a technological hub. It seeks technology triggers which can catapult it into that direction and help diversify its economic base for continued growth. A number of Israeli specialists work in the UAE under different nationalities and run companies with Emirati front-men. Most of the Middle East and Asia utilises these goods and services so conveniently located. UAE has only formalised what was already existing. The world was changing even as the Muslim world held tight the facade of non-recognition.

Dominoes will fall now that a Gulf nation has formalised an existing contact because it is in the nature of dominoes. Saudi Arabia may yet not be one of them but don’t count on that for too long. The new generation of Princes feels unnecessarily shackled by emotive shackles and wishes to break free to pursue independent pathways. Not immediately but there will be a progressive settlement of most of the Muslim world with Israel around mutually acceptable adjustments. The trick for each will be to work the perfect time for a transaction and win for each their Sinai. Israel, desperate for formal acceptance, will happily oblige.

The new order in international relations of essence is different from the system of alliances that came forth at the end of WWII. That too dissolved with the end of the Cold War and for some time a uni-Polar world existed. The rise of China has given fillip to an old idea. But the retraction of the United States from its global eminence — shedding the weight of singly carrying the global order at considerable financial cost — and the relatively pacific rise of China belie the possibility of the world being divided into two or more security alliances. The notion is antiquated and regressive in conception. It fails to factor-in how the world has restructured over the last three decades. It is also a convenient fall-back to the more known comfort of geopolitical division than understand the complexities in new light.

Those that still harbour war as the ultimate binary invoke the older construct without acknowledging the inherent independence in the new world. China is as much as an economic certainty as the US is a militarily one with intertwined interests and trillions of dollars worth of trade and investments. It isn’t going to fly way in an imperious moment of ecstasy. Nor is Europe ready to tow a dictated line from the US to shun China even if it still relates to the US in strategic terms. Relations between nations are increasingly multi-spectral and multi-planar in construct. You could have a Ladakh going in parallel even as you trade a 100 billion dollars worth with each other. And so much more.

Pakistan is unlikely to break relations with the UAE or even cool those off in spite for latter’s friendly overtures to a common Muslim bogey. Saudi Arabia will not break away from the GCC and its eminence because one or more members would have a formal relationship with Israel. The world will learn to coexist along various planes, competitive, cooperative and sometimes conflictive. It will need a new orientation in how the world has come to be and its new ways. Those that see alliances or blocs emerging around the ‘recognition of Israel’ factor are on the wrong side of history and international framework. Blocs and groups remain a self-defeating proposition. Turkey, China and Russia have a fulsome relationship with Israel; how can they take up binary positions against it? Most of the Muslim world has chosen silence or supported the UAE initiative. That should be instructive.

Pakistan’s position on Israel is principled and based around larger sentiment of the Muslim world. The sentiment itself is changing. Here on it shall need a nimbleness to adjust to an evolving framework of relations between states. As more Muslim nations tow the recognition line Pakistan must continue to evaluate her position. There may not be much to lose in the short-to-medium term if we keep on the rejectionist track but there must come a time of diminishing returns. Before such a moment we may flip the odds to judge if more is to gain by keeping from being the last ones to hold aloft the banner of principles. On the contrary we may build in a major gain leveraging a vital interest if we can judge the moment perfectly. I don’t know how desperate is Israel for Pakistan to accept it or how pushed is the US to make it happen for them but if indeed the moment arrives and Jared Kushner comes calling we may better have our marbles in order. Geopolitics is patently secular and adjusting to it isn’t as ungodly as it is made to be.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2020.

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