Author: Pinhas Inbari
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: June 27, 2002
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jun/27guest.htm
The head of the Israeli Council
of National Security, Uzi Dayan, was very cautious when he came back to
Israel from another Indian tour some time back. "Our developing relations
with India are not against anybody," he said, meaning Pakistan.
He also recalled that after Pakistan
President Pervez Musharraf came to power there were modest attempts to
improve Israeli relations with Islamabad.
Nevertheless, nobody believes that
the Israeli-Indian relationship is a platonic one. In the world after September
11, local conflicts like Kashmir, the West Bank or Kosovo have assumed
new dimensions that have a direct implication on Indo-Israeli relations.
The Kashmir issue is no longer a local dispute.
Sources in the Israeli military
intelligence feel that Kashmir and Jenin have turned into two fronts in
the same global war. It's no coincidence that the Palestinian defenders
of the Jenin refugee camp called it "Kandahar", with Al Qaeda starting
to raise its Palestinian profile. The commanders of the Jenin fighters
were in Damascus, they said. Syria and Iran are allies, with links to arch
terrorist Imad Fayez Mugniyah, known to be close to Al Qaeda.
Just three years ago, everybody
was wondering how Yasser Arafat was going to declare a Palestinian state
-- after a negotiated process with the Israelis or unilaterally? Today,
the issue has gone beyond Palestinian independence to the Islamic notion
of liberating Jerusalem and the Al-Aqsa mosque. It is strange that the
US is trying to push the problem back to the secular course of establishing
a state, while Arafat is reluctant to co-operate.
It was not Israel and India, but
radical Islam that made the choice. Radical Islam could not tolerate a
Jewish state dominating Muslim territory, while Indians are regarded as
pagans, war with whom is obligatory. Jews are tolerated only as "Ahl a-Dhimma"
-- the people under protection, which is to say that Jews can be tolerated
only under Muslim rule, not vice-versa.
As the somewhat vague term of "radical
Islam" started getting a sharper definition, India and Israel realised
that they had a common enemy in the Wahabi school of Islam, the dominant
religious theology of Saudi Arabia and the most fundamental Muslim thinking
and practice today. Sources in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office say
they are wary of Riyadh's peace plan for West Asia, given that Saudi religious
societies still finance terror in the West Bank.
The obvious fingerprints of Wahabism
can easily be discerned both in Kashmir and the West Bank as well as in
other fronts of the global war like Chechnya, Kosovo and other places where
Al Qaeda has a presence.
In fact, there are growing doubts
now among experts whether bin Laden is truly a "Saudi dissident" as described
by the formal government in Riyadh, or still a part and parcel of the Wahabi
clergy that dominates the oil kingdom.
Keeping this in mind, the fact that
President Musharraf hurried to Saudi Arabia the moment India and Pakistan
eased the tension of war brinkmanship assumes extra meaning. Arafat too
has an invitation to visit Riyadh the moment the tense relations with Israel
ease enough to permit him to leave.
Why Riyadh? Is it to get Saudi help
in dismantling the Wahabite madrassas in Musharraf's case, or gathering
Saudi help in a possible attempt to stop the suicide bombings in Arafat's
case?
In both cases India and Israel are
facing similar problems -- whether to believe the Saudi rhetoric of peace
initiatives, including fatwas or religious decrees against suicide bombings,
or the actual continuing financing of madrassas and the families of suicide
bombers.
A realistic examination of the situation
leads us to believe that the Saudi rhetoric, including the famous peace
plan of Crown Prince Abdullah, is only a smokescreen for the real policy
of spreading Islam.
What brings India and Israel even
closer is the fact that Arabs are now found on the frontlines in Kashmir
and the West Bank, and elements at the top of the Saudi regime are increasingly
seen as the strategic depth of both lines of confrontation.
Musharraf and Arafat are both very
shrewd. They conceal their relations with extreme Islam with one hand,
while wooing their Western "friends" -- the US in Musharraf's case and
the European Union in Arafat's case -- with the other.
Although there are many differences
between Arafat and Musharraf, their policies have similar characteristics.
Both are despots who need conflicts with neighbours to shift attention
away from them -- Arafat because of his corruption and Musharraf because
his swift shift towards the US has angered radical groups who prefer the
Taliban.
Both use terror as a tool, which
pose the same problems to India and Israel.
And while India faces a nuclear
threat from Pakistan, Israel faces a future nuclear threat from Iran, which
already supports terror against Israel, both inside the West Bank and from
Lebanon.
But while India is probably hoping
for Israeli assistance to neutralise the nuclear threat posed by Pakistan,
she is trying to convince Israel that the threat from Iran is not imminent,
and it is better to wait until internal developments in Iran ensure that
Israeli concerns are assuaged. Anyway, it is strange to perceive that Iran
is no longer regarded as the main threat to global stability.
Israel can contribute to India's
defences from its long experience with terror and atomic threats. The Arrow
missiles and the Green Pine radars, which together form an effective anti-missile
system, are a case in point. Though Israel needs a battery of these systems
to defend itself against Iraqi threats, security sources said India's request
for more is likely to be considered favourably. Other force multipliers
sold to India include the advanced unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, with
sophisticated cameras and capable of firing missiles, one of which was
shot down by Pakistan recently.
New Delhi and Jerusalem are also
keen to prevent nuclear know-how from reaching terror groups. Will the
growing co-operation between Israel and India push Musharraf to transfer
such know-how to Al Qaeda? He probably will do it if he's convinced that
Israel might help India bomb Pakistani nuclear installations. This is most
probably why Uzi Dayan calmed Pakistani concerns. There will be a limit
to how far Israel can go hand in hand with India. Defence? Okay. Offence?
Probably not.
(Pinhas Inbari is a senior Israeli
journalist, analyst and author.)
