Israel & Pakistan - Defining Problems in Unsolvable ways.

There is nothing that focuses your mind like a crisis. One often thinks of intractable international problems like the situation of Israel and as an Indian, one cannot but think a lot about the Pakistan question both in terms of persistent realities as well as in hypotheticals : retrospectively and futuristically

And always these problems are fundamentally complex because they involve emotional and historical elements that do not lend easily to political and economic compromises.

Israel, was created as a homeland for Jewish people who were traumatized by the holocaust experience, primarily by European powers, in a land smacked right in the middle of Muslim Arab nations and created by displacing a large Muslim Arab population that was living there for centuries. One does not automatically become an anti-Semite by stating the obvious.

This was done in an era and place where the colonial powers were winding up, there was no consultative process before the creation of Israel with nations around it. Because there were no autonomous powers to deal with or the existing ones were weak ones that were overruled easily by colonial powers. Instinctively incensed by this, the Arab nations tried to destroy Israel in its infancy. Resolved to not let their enemies dictate Jewish life after WW II, Israel fought heroically and survived and thrived. Repeatedly humiliated by defeats and thwarted by American support for Israel the Palestinians methods have become more non-traditional may I say. Both sides have got more reasons to hunker down and fight as history has progressed from 1947.

Respecting the religious choice of the Jewish people and welcoming and honoring their contribution to World culture, science and arts at the same time questioning the ways in which Israel was formed should not make one automatically anti-semite, that vile word thrown around so easily these days. This is the crux of the problem. How does a Jewish state formed in opposition to and displacement of its Muslim Arab neighbours live in peace and security? This reminds me of a corny school days joke. How do you get an elephant inside a cycle rickshaw? With great difficulty! Israel has tried to “creatively” tackle this problem by occupying and creating buffer zones. Gradually the buffer zones become unsafe, so they had to be extended. Southern Israel is not safe, occupy Gaza. Jordan is threatening from the east, occupy West bank. This is patently absurd in the long term, because the farther you go, you are extending and redrawing the front line of hostilities, not reducing them. For e.g Israel says now that it wants a 14 mile buffer in Southern Lebanon. The rationale is Haifa is not safe, go up to Litani river. Now Hizbollah has rockets that can reach up to 40 miles. In farthering the line, Insrael is intensifying and increasing the hostile intent of its antagonists. This is such a patently intractable problem.




Another problem that is a familiar and nearer one to me is the existential question of Pakistan. Why was it created? Whose interests was it supposed to serve? The British Empire had the framework of partition plan long before the idea was concrete in Jinnah’s minds. Though not explicitly spelt out, British wanted to keep their options open, by
conducting an explicit strategy of legitimizing Muslim Interests in British India vis-à-vis interests of “others” in India starting from various administrative setups to a disproportionately large contingent of Muslim members in the British Indian Army.

If you go at the crux of the problem and ask Why Pakistan, it is because the perception that Muslims cannot live with a Hindu majority in the same nation. Since national boundaries have become less central to questions of life such as economic prosperity, this translates basically to saying that Muslims cannot be too close to Hindu neighbours. The patent absurdity of this thesis is on everybody’s face. Even if one concedes the legitimacy of Muslim concerns, the solution provided for those concerns is a singular blunder of the millennium. Because the nation state Pakistan has to defend itself against the larger, more powerful “Hindu” India! Instead of fighting with swords and small arms, we have nuclear bombs and missiles to fight over other concerns that are exacerbated by the same underlying emotional and historical differences that set us apart as separate nations in the 1st place! But I am also frequently torn between making my peace with Pakistan’s existence as we have had relatively few and far between conflicts. One can argue that if we had been one nation, there would have been a distinctly weaker India, there could have been constant internal low intensity skirmishes that would not have let the level of development India has achieved without Pakistan’s territory and population in its midst.
But in essential terms, I don’t think the fundamental structural problem of Muslim minority in Hindu Majority in India-Pakistan put together has been solved by partition. It has given a false respite locally in the 2 countries but the underlying powder keg is still dry and ready to explode any time.


If you observe Pakistan and Israel were the first among the modern states that were pried away based on a religious basis by colonial powers. Both are struggling with existential questions of security. Pakistan has been wrecked by internal schisms as well regarding its political structure. And these problems have affected far beyond their respective regions engulfing the security of the whole world. The way how the question of Jewish state in Middle east and the question of a homeland for Indian Muslims were framed in reality has led to dead end solutions. May be if the questions were framed differently and less positioned on a religious basis, there could have been some scope for political compromises. But alas! That is not the case!