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| India-Pakistan |
| Recognition of Hamas - Communal Indian foreign policy |
| 2006-03-30 |
| On the 29 March 2006: In May 2005, the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, visited India, after discussions with the Pakistani president, General Parvez Musharraf. Despite the late Yasser Arafat’s attempts to play a good friend of India and balance relations with Pakistan, the Palestinians have not always been able to take away the Islamic element from their state relations in this region, and consequently, they have been closer to Pakistan. But such things are not usually one-sided, the Israelis have found a more natural alliance with India, relations picked up in the late-Seventies, dipped in the Eighties, were rescued by P.V.Narasimha Rao in the Nineties, and have grown solid and deep in subsequent years. The best testimony to our relations with Israel, military-strategic relations, with a very strong component of defence acquisitions, is that neither side wants to talk about it very much. Within the forces, they are among our most valued allies, their assistance to us in the time of our need, especially the May 1999 Kargil War, has been extraordinary. Because of the very sensitive nature of relations, little more can be said about it. But despite knowing this background, Mahmoud Abbas, the PNA president, was astonishingly frank in his discussions with the Indian leadership, which we had reason to focus in one of our commentaries of that time (“ The Hamas connection,” 31 May 2005). What Abbas disclosed was fairly shocking, the Hamas, behind the Intifida and suicide bombings in Israel, was training the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the notorious Pakistani terror group operating in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere. The reason for the training was both to update Jaish cadres in military fighting after the Jaish’s centres in Afghanistan were wound up following the ouster of the Taliban regime, and second, the group and its Pakistani military patrons wanted a Palestinian-type Intifida in J and K. Acting on the intelligence passed on by Abbas, our own agencies went to work, identifying the possible Jaish cadres trained by Hamas, and so on, and there was also some visible toughening of the government’s stand against Pakistani terrorism. The reason for picking Jaish and not Lashkar-e-Toiba, the more active terror group in J and K, was because of its links to the Saudi royal family, while the Hamas has connections with opponents of the Saudi royalty, including the Al-Qaeda. But personally for Musharraf to countenance the Hamas-Jaish connection is still strange, because the Jaish-Al-Qaeda combination had made two unsuccessful attempts on his life in December 2003-January 2004. Yet, perhaps, with the larger goal of wresting J and K from India, Musharraf was willing to overlook this rather touchy, personal connection. However, the strangest aspect was the PNA president, Abbas, ratting against the Hamas, and yet, it is not so strange, he and Hamas have opposed each other, and since January this year, when Hamas won a landslide victory, his position has grown even more shaky. But it was beyond Hamas, as officials on our side understood, Abbas was trying to get the PNA closer to the US, and India was becoming a good bet in that direction. This was in May last year, two months before the 18 July Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement was signed, but it was fairly clear India was well on its way to having a special relationship with the United States. And Abbas wanted to be at hand to extract some advantage from it. So much so he was willing to turn over some of the Hamas dirt, and he was also risking relations with Pakistan in doing so. But in international politics, none of this should surprise, there are, as diplomats like to say over and over again, no permanent friends, only permanent interests. Of course, subsequent to the publishing of the commentary, Palestinian diplomats posted here denied that the PNA president had disclosed anything about the Hamas-Jaish connection, such disclaimers are routine, and anyhow it looked the Pakistanis were more outraged by the leak than anybody else. But we stood by our report then, and we have no reason to change our stand now, but unfortunately, the Indian government seems preparing to amend our position with regard to the terrorist Hamas that has come to power in the Palestinian territories. As we have published the relevant intelligence today (“ India may recognise Hamas government,” 29 March 2006), the government is testing the waters to follow the Russians in recognising the terrorists who are running the Palestinian Authority now. The elections which brought them to power were indisputably fair, but neither is Hamas willing to give up its terrorism against Israel, an all-weather friend of India, and there is the Hamas-Jaish connection that we can hardly shut our eyes to. It is not clear what great compulsion we have to rush and recognise the Hamas government, Russia sees the need to fill in in the Middle East and recover its old Cold War role now that the US is weakened in Iraq, and as a great power, the Russians have played these games for decades. But we are not in that league, we have no roadmap for Middle East peace and for our own role in the region, and it is downright dangerous to interfere in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute when we have our own tinderbox in J and K. What if somebody in the region demands a similar role in our J and K dispute with Pakistan? As such, Musharraf never passes up an opportunity to liken J and K to the Palestinian dispute, and here, we are giving him tinder-dry fodder. But the funny thing is, nobody has asked for our recognition, certainly not the Hamas terrorists. Early this month, a Hamas cabinet minister was feted by Pakistani terror groups, including the Jaish, in Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province. The Hamas-Jaish terror link continues, and outrageously, the government pushes for recognising the Hamas terror regime. A senior foreign office official who was sent to sound out the Israelis got an earful. The Israelis shot him so many questions he had no answers to them. Hamas wants to destroy the Israeli state, and they are training the Jaish for terrorism and Intifida in J and K. Should we close our eyes to all this, and extend a friendship hand to them? If we cannot, why are we doing it? You know it, bad old vote bank politics. The government believes it can win over the Muslim voters from the Samajwadi Party and other appeasers. This is sick. This is communalising our foreign policy. |
| Posted by:john |