AJCongress Welcomes Musharraf Statement on Israel

October 9, 2006- American Jewish Congress President Jack Rosen welcomed the statement last week by President Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan would eventually recognize Israel.   

“During a private meeting in New York a few days ago, President Musharraf and I discussed the Middle East situation,” Mr. Rosen said.  “President Musharraf thinks the Palestinian problem has become a global one and we discussed Pakistan-Israel relations in the wider context of the Moslem world.”   Mr. Rosen continued: “I am pleased that President Musharraf has now repeated publicly what he said to me privately during that conversation.  He has also clarified his new approach to Israel and Jews in his just-released memoir, In the Line of Fire.” 

President Musharraf told the Associated Press that recognizing Israel at this time would dangerously isolate his government from the mainstream of Moslem public opinion, thereby undermining Pakistan’s ability to bridge differences between the Western and Moslem worlds.  “It must be done eventually,” President Musharraf said, reiterating his position that Pakistan would only do so following the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.  

Mr. Rosen has met with President Musharraf in Pakistan three times during the past year-and-a-half and several additional times in New York. One year ago, the Pakistani leader delivered a historic address to the national leadership of the American Jewish community gathered together under the AJCongress-Council for World Jewry banner.

“While we don’t share the view that Pakistan-Israel relations should be hostage to a solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, we think it is helpful that President Musharraf clearly and publicly envisions future diplomatic ties between Pakistan and Israel,” Mr. Rosen said.   “He is willing to come closer, in a gradual way, and this is important from the point of view of internal Moslem public opinion.”   Mr. Rosen also noted that, from a demographic and military vantage point, Pakistan is a counterweight to Iran.   “Pakistan’s position is as different from that of Iran’s as day is from night,” Mr. Rosen concluded. 

The American Jewish Congress is a membership association of Jewish Americans, organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad, through public policy advocacy, in the courts, Congress, the executive branch and state and local governments.  It also works overseas with others who are similarly engaged.

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