Things that Don't Go Together, Ch. 14

Israel and Pakistan.

-Pakistan was founded in 1947.   Israel in 1948.

-Both nations originated with the end of British mandates in their respective territories.

-Both nations came into existence accompanied by violence.

-Both nations came into existence because their founders were not willing to live as a protected or tolerated minority in a post-British settlement. Just as the Zionists rejected the idea of a federal Palestine, the Pakistani's turned down suggestions of autonomous Muslim units within a unified India.

-Both nations expelled indigenous peoples from their territory when they were created.

-Both nations were nations founded out of religions:  "Pakistan is like Israel, an ideological state. Take out the Judaism from Israel and it will fall like a house of cards. Take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state; it would collapse."  Zia ul-Haq, 1981.

-In both countries, few spoke the language that served as official tongue. Hebrew, revived from millennia past as a vernacular, had to be learned by nearly everyone. In Pakistan, Urdu -- spoken primarily in the Gangetic belt that lay outside its borders became the country's official language.

-Both nations inspire great loyalty in their respective diasporas.

-Both nations originally emphasized religious freedom, perhaps as a result that denziens of each were repressed religious minorities in their prior habitations: "You are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan.... You may belong to any religion or caste or creed -- that has nothing to do with the business of the State.... Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims --not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State."  Jinnah (1947).

-Both nations have now changed all that.

-Both nations are involved in more or less constant turf battles with their neighbors.

-Both nations are victims of terrorism.

-Both nations probably sponsor terrorism (depending on who you ask and how it is defined:-))

-Both nations received F-16 fighters from the United States.

-Both are nuclear powers.

-Both nations are hurting morally and spiritually in ways that only millions of people sharing the same space can.

-The hurt these nations feel is probably not their fault.

-Both nations make lousy vacation destinations.