Pakistan’s military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said the Istanbul meeting would be followed by a Pakistani delegation to Jerusalem “where it will be welcomed by Palestinians and Israelis.” “We are talking about a tremendous significance, not just in regards to our relations with Pakistan, but the entire Muslim world,” Shalom told Israel Radio after the Istanbul meeting.

“This is the time for all Muslim and Arab countries to reconsider their relations with Israel,” the Israeli foreign minister said. “We think it will be a very positive signal to Israeli and Palestinian public opinion that there are some fruits from this withdrawal from Gaza.”

Tel Aviv completed the withdrawal of some 8,500 Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip last month, ending a longtime security headache for the Israeli rulers. In the three years leading up to the withdrawal, Tel Aviv wiped out the central leadership and much of the leading cadre of Hamas and other groups that waged armed campaigns against Israel from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The Israeli rulers used these moves to consolidate their grip on the settlements on the West Bank, which have a population 25 times greater than those previously in Gaza.

Shalom described the meeting with Kasuri as “historic” and a “huge breakthrough” that would open the door to other Muslim countries establishing relations with Israel. “One has to remember that until 2000 there were representations here in Israel from Morocco, Tunisia, Qatar, and Oman,” Shalom said. Israel currently has diplomatic relations with 11 largely Muslim countries, three of which—Egypt, Jordan, and Turkey—are in the Middle East.

On September 17, Musharraf addressed a conference in New York organized by the American Jewish Congress, a group that supports the Israeli government.

Musharraf told the gathering that the Pakistani government had already “come a long way” in accepting Israel’s right to exist, the Jerusalem Post reported. Once the Israeli government moved toward the establishment of a Palestinian state “side by side with a secure Israel” that would “allow us the flexibility” to fully normalize ties, he said. Following the Istanbul meeting, Shalom met informally with his counterpart in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. The Indonesian government does not currently recognize Israel.

Prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Musharraf government in Pakistan stood at odds with Washington. It had served as the protector of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and was exporting nuclear technology to governments such as Libya that Washington has targeted in its drive against “nuclear proliferation.” Following the rout of the Taliban by Washington in 2001, Islamabad did an about-face and became a staunch ally of the U.S. government.

The Musharraf regime has since worked hand-in-glove with the Pentagon in efforts to flush out the final remnants of the Taliban and its allies in a border war along both sides of its more than 1,500-mile-long frontier with Afghanistan. At home Pakistani and U.S. spy agencies have worked together to arrest hundreds in a joint “anti-terror” campaign. And Musharraf has curtailed his government’s once-brisk nuclear trade at Washington’s behest.

Musharraf has faced dwindling opposition from the faction of the Pakistani ruling class that was previously allied with the Taliban. At the time of the Istanbul meeting, much was made in the press of threats by leaders of a six-party alliance of Islamic parties in Pakistan that Musharraf would face massive street protests for his rapprochement with Israel. According to Reuters, “street protests planned by Islamist parties were poorly attended.” Less than 100 reportedly gathered in Islamabad.

The Pakistani rulers’ rivalry with India is also one of the forces impelling Islamabad toward establishing relations with the Israeli regime. New Delhi has had close diplomatic and military relations with Tel Aviv since 1992, including a brisk trade in strategic weapons. In March 2004 the Indian government finalized a $1 billion deal for advanced radar technology from Israel.

The News, a prominent Pakistani daily, said that the new relations between Islamabad and Tel Aviv “will be a blow to the growing Indo-Israeli nexus” and will bring “credible advantages for Pakistan within the American political system.”  
 
 
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