Israel's relationship with Pakistan warms
02-09-
2005
Israel hailed a diplomatic breakthrough
Thursday
with Pakistan as the first fruit of its Gaza pullout
and a
harbinger of warmer ties with other Muslim nations,
after
the first public meeting between the foreign ministers
of
the two
countries.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan
Shalom met publicly for the first time with Foreign
Minister Khursheed Kasuri of Pakistan, a Muslim country
that has long taken a hard line against the Jewish
state, a
development that both ministers linked to Israel's
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The meeting took place
in
the neutral site of Istanbul, Turkey. Shalom hailed
the
meeting as a ''historic first'' and said that with the
Gaza
withdrawal, it was ''time for all of the Muslim and
Arab
countries to reconsider their
relations with Israel. In
Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack
called the meeting a positive development, saying the
United States was encouraging countries to establish
relations with Israel.
Speaking about these
developments Pakistan’s President felt that the
relationship talk is prematured. Palestinian officials
insisted Arab countries should not reward Israel for
emptying the Gaza settlements as long as it still
controls
Palestinian movement in and out of Gaza, expands West
Bank
settlements and is fencing off Jerusalem from the West
Bank. If the Palestinians feel that way, Israel should
think about her sister nation.
The Muslim
countries
must also think about encouraging Israel to form Eretz
Ephraim as a sister nation to Israel. If the Americans
are
truly encouraging the Muslim nations to establish
relations
with Israel it is the time to spread the word about the
formation of Eretz Ephraim as a sister nation to
Israel.
That will minimize the problems in the Middle East
peace
process hopefully.
Shalom has put a high
priority on
forging relations with the Islamic world, saying he
hopes
10 countries from the Persian Gulf and North Africa
would
now set up diplomatic representations in Israel. He has
not
named the countries. Those 10 countries can propose the
formation of Eretz Ephraim for the Jewish diaspora
communities in the UN in order to establish even better
relations with Israel. The diaspora Jewish communities
had
extended their support to Israel as individuals,
families,
organizations but now they can support Israel as a
sister
nation if they form Eretz Ephraim.
The Pakistani
president accepted an invitation to address an
interfaith
conference this month organized by the Council for
World
Jewry while he is in New York to attend the U.N.
General
Assembly. That would be the right time for the diaspora
Jewish communities to encourage him to propose this
idea of
forming Eretz Ephraim as a sister nation to Israel. The
diaspora communities must think about the urgency of
forming Eretz Ephraim and pursue this issue by making a
louder sound by all means.