The Ugly Ducklings Growing Approval

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Since Israel was created in 1948, after UN Resolution 181 partitioned the territory of the British Mandate for Palestine into two states for Jews and Palestinian Arabs, Israel has been the ugly duckling of the international community. This has mostly been driven by a historical general hatred of the Jewish people. The creation of Israel on “Arab soil” has only exacerbated the world’s hatred of the Israeli’s. In the eyes of those who would rather see the Jews, “pushed into the sea,” the fact that they handily won the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, The 1967 Six-Day War, and of course the 1973 Yom Kippur War, so soon after first the Holocaust and then their recent establishment of a country, has only reinforced said peoples desire to bomb Israel back to the Biblical Age.

While it is common knowledge that the US has had diplomatic relations with Israel since its creation, China, Russia, The European Union, Turkey and many African nations such as South Africa also recognize Israel. By the same token, historically, Israel was not formally recognized or actively boycotted against by most if not all of the Arab League Countries. However, over time, other than Iran and to a lesser extent Saudi Arabia, most of the Middle Eastern countries have either abandoned the boycott or just don’t enforce it anymore.

Though the creation of Israel is the result of a UN Resolution, there is a considerable anti-Semitic component behind the policies pursued there and expressed without challenge. On most occasions the US will stick up for Israel, but not all the time and certainly with our close relationship to Saudi Arabia, the US has done its fair share of playing both sides to our own advantage.

However, the ugly duckling of the global community, Israel, as a result of the recent Gaza pullout, has been making some fairly positive headlines, especially with respect to the UN. According to several sources, including The Independent, “Israel is seeking to capitalise on what it sees as an increase in international contacts - including with Muslim countries - by seeking a place on the UN Security Council.

It has indicated that it wants to join other countries in being allocated a rotating place on the Security Council for the first time in the 57-year history of the state. The move follows contacts including an unprecedented meeting between the foreign ministers of Israel and Pakistan, which both countries said was partly in recognition of Israel's withdrawal of troops and settlers from Gaza.”

I fully support the Gaza pullout despite being very much pro-Israel. One of the many reasons I thought it was a good idea, no matter what happens to that area, is that within all reasonable arguments, pulling out of Gaza and firmly supporting an equal Palestinian state wipes the political crud off of Israel’s face. I know many pro-Israel hawks believe that the Palestinians can’t be trusted and this only exposes more Israeli’s to death and destruction but for lack of a better phrase, so what? Israel needs to be concerned with how it looks to the global community, not how the Palestinians will squander their latest chance at stability. There’s nothing stopping Israel from defending itself when it has to but in the meantime, the devils must be given their due. This gesture will and already has begun to reframe Israel’s image in the global community, for the better.

Recent meetings between Pakistan and Israel are just the latest piece of evidence that pulling out of Gaza supports the bigger picture in establishing stronger international relations. Though Pakistani President Musharraf isn’t exactly throwing his arms wide open to Ariel Sharon, comments like this, “Pakistan and Israel need to talk about how the sides can move toward establishing formal relations,” are cause for hope that Arab-Israeli tensions will thaw as time moves on.

On September 3rd, a self-described meeting between Silvan Shalom of Israel and Khurseed Mahmoud Kasuri of Pakistan, was seen as historic as it began to cement, at the very least, economic relations between Pakistan and Israel.

Iran Emrooz, a Persian-language Internet news website based in Germany, wrote that, "The meeting between Pakistan and Israel is a great blow to the policies of the Islamic republic based on an unabated antagonism with Israel and the 'Palestiniation' of its diplomacy which, in the past two decades, were the cause of many crises in Iran's foreign relations and increases in tensions with the United States, resulting in huge damage to our national interests."

With the Israeli’s seeking a seat on the UN Security Council and the recent changes for the better in relations between the greater world community and Israel itself, it makes the tensions between Jerusalem and Tehran that much more tenuous, for the mullahs that is.

For example, “Israel and Iran clashed at the UN General Assembly, accusing each other of threatening Middle East and world peace with their respective nuclear programs.

Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom took the floor to denounce what he called the "evil regime" in Tehran and urged the UN nuclear watchdog agency and the Security Council to stop it from acquiring nuclear weapons, AFP said.

As Shalom spoke, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board of governors met in Vienna to discuss a draft resolution by Britain, France and Germany urging that Iran be reported to the Security Council for breaching international atomic safeguards.

"I call on them to stop this evil regime (Tehran) from acquiring nuclear weapons," Shalom told assembly members, referring to the IAEA governors.”

The Israeli’s are also once again accusing Tehran of having the, “know-how” to make nukes in a relatively short period of time. In the past this sort of rhetoric may have been seen as Zionist propaganda but now that the world is starting to see Israel in a positive light, it may seem more like good old common sense.

Obviously anti-Semitism is wrong and treating the sovereign nation of Israel like it’s a colonial empire when its very existence is at the satisfaction of the United Nations itself is an exercise in trite hypocrisy. I often argue that the United States must alter its way of dealing with the global community. The global community, especially the Gulf States, must alter their way of dealing with Israel because endless condemnation and support of terrorism isn’t going to make them go away. Israel may be the world’s ugly duckling but there’s a lot of potential for them to become something resembling a swan.