eNewsletters |
January 2, 2008
Israel Office
SHATIL
Weekly Message
Happy New Year! 2008, undoubtedly, will be a consequential year for the United States, Israel and the world. The presidential election season in the US officially opens tomorrow in Iowa and will continue for much of the next 10 months. President Bush’s trip next week to Israel and Palestine, hopefully, will provide much needed impetus to the US peace initiative, which now seems stalled less than five weeks since the Annapolis meeting.
Before we could welcome 2008, the December 26 assassination of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto provided this year’s pre-New Year tsunami. I had met Bhutto a couple of times when I served as an observer of Pakistan’s 1988 and 1990 election, but I certainly did not know her well. Nonetheless, I mourn her death as a serious loss both for Pakistan and for those who care about democracy in the contemporary Moslem world (an admittedly dwindling group here in Washington).
Pakistan’s accommodation of terrorist organizations on its territory and status as a nuclear power pose serious threats to stability in South Asia and to the broader international community. While these geopolitical realities creates obvious discomfort for US and Israeli diplomatic and military planners, readers of this column may wonder of what relevance the Bhutto assassination is to the New Israel Fund.
Ever since my first visit to Pakistan, I have been intrigued by parallels between Pakistan’s and Israel’s emergence as sovereign states and by the different political evolutions the two countries have experienced. Both Pakistan and Israel derive their international legitimacy from partitions sanctioned by the United Nations in 1947. The establishment of both countries was designed to provide a religious minority with majority status in a defined territory – Pakistan as an independent state for the Moslems of South Asia and Israel as an independent state for Jews in their historic homeland. Both countries have experienced periodic military confrontations with more populous and hostile neighbors throughout their 60 years of independence; consequently, they have built powerful military forces to protect their independence and they have relied on the United States to provide critical military, economic and diplomatic support.
Pakistan, sadly, has evolved into a military dominated, Islamic republic. The rule of law is under permanent threat, whether from declarations of martial law or from attacks on the independence the judiciary. Bhutto represented perhaps the last best chance for the country to revert to at least a shadow of the secular democracy envisioned by its founders. Whether she could have succeeded will be the subject of much debate, but today’s Pakistan, where military and mosque work together in a tenuous but often frightening alliance, is politically unstable and a cause for much concern.
Israel, although self-identified as a Jewish state, remains a dynamic multi-party democracy, with a vibrant civil society and an independent judiciary. Even after accounting for the debilitating consequences of a 40-year occupation of the West Bank, comparisons with contemporary Pakistan seem surreal. Pakistan, nonetheless, poses a cautionary reminder of the negative consequences of mixing too closely nationalist politics and religious fundamentalism.
In 2008, Israel looks to crown the celebration of 60 years of independence with the adoption of the country’s first constitution. The government also has committed to pursue this year a peace process, which will require withdrawal from a majority of the West Bank, considered by many on the Israeli right view as part of the national patrimony. Thus this year in particular, those who care about democracy in Israel must remain vigilant as Israel’s conflicted national and religious identities become an essential part of the constitution drafting and the peace negotiations. We must constantly remind ourselves that the outcomes of such processes are not always victories for the causes of freedom and equality.
We begin 2008 with stories that focus on coexistence between Jews and Arabs within Israel, progress in recognizing the adoption rights of same sex couples, the launch of SHATIL’s new financial management assistance program and the politics of the State’s budget process.
|
