The Deal and Its Details

This week I look first at the Gaza agreement and next at ominous hostilities on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. 

Many longings for Gaza remain unfulfilled, but thankfulness was felt worldwide as hostages returned to their families in Israel, hundreds of imprisoned Palestinians returned to their families in Gaza or the West Bank (or were transferred to Egypt), and for perhaps the first time in two years hundreds of thousands of Gazans went to bed in their tents or damaged homes without fearing they would be bombed while sleeping or trying to sleep. 

These blessings are of immeasurable worth. All who worked for them deserve praise. There is no certainty, however, that the ceasefire will hold. It seems that the fact that Hamas has not so far returned all the bodies of the 28 hostages who were killed could be one of the things that revive combat. The BBC’s Jeremy Bowen thinks that Israel may not easily accept Hamas’s explanation that identifying graves in Gaza’s sea of rubble is hard. 

FOUR GUARANTORS? 

President Trump and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, who has been his country’s president from June 2014, chaired the gala summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort, where the peace agreement was signed on October 13. According to the Times of Israel, “a Trump administration official” told that newspaper on October 12 that the summit was intended to get “the four guarantors of Trump’s plan, the US, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey, to agree to the very broad principles” of the current 20-point framework.

The phrase “very broad principles” confirms the framework’s vagueness as also the fragility of the peace for which the world right now is heaving a sigh of relief. Before looking at the framework, we can mark some interesting aspects of the summit.  Notably, Netanyahu was absent. It seems as if Trump had thought that the Israeli prime minister would join. But he didn’t. 

The story sent out by Reuters on this question is of interest. 

“An Egyptian presidential spokesperson earlier said both Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Netanyahu were expected to join the summit ‘to solidify the agreement to end the war in Gaza and reaffirm their commitment to it.’ The spokesperson also said Trump and Netanyahu spoke by phone with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi while they were in Israel on [Oct. 13]. 

“A Turkish official told Reuters that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, with the support of some other unspecified leaders, pushed back diplomatically against the idea of Netanyahu attending. Netanyahu's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the issue. Turkey has harshly criticised Israel's operations in Gaza in the last two years, but took part in negotiations in recent weeks over Trump's plan to end the war. Erdogan arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh earlier on [Oct. 13].” 

It is interesting that the Times of Israel named the US, Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt as the four “guarantors” of the agreement between Israel and Hamas. Earlier, a number of Muslim nations (including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Pakistan) had warmly welcomed Trump’s peace initiative. The focus on Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt merits reflection. Perhaps its meaning will clarify in the days to come. 

Yes, the West Bank’s Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestine Liberation Authority, who will be 90 a month from now, was at the summit, as was Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of Pakistan. And several other heads of government. 

Listening on Oct. 14 to the House of Commons debate on the peace agreement, I came to a couple of conclusions. One, public opinion in the UK seems to favor the emergence of a Palestinian state. Two, the nature of the authority which, according to the agreement, is to govern Gaza henceforth is completely unclear. It seems agreed that Hamas is not to be allowed a say in it, but who will replace Hamas, which has been Gaza’s ruling entity thus far? And how will the transition take place? 

WHO WILL RUN GAZA? 

There are additional questions. Will Israel have a direct or indirect say in the new authority in Gaza? What roles will Trump and Tony Blair exercise? Will Egypt have a say? Will Turkey? What about Saudi Arabia? How much of a say will Palestinians have in the future of what after all is their Gaza? Will the UN be given a role? 

Although immediate interest is naturally focused on food, water, medicines, doctors, and nurses arriving quickly in Gaza, and on aid reaching the neediest, the composition of the authority that will govern the Palestinian territory, and of the authority that will rebuild flattened Gaza, are matters of critical importance. Then there is the question of possible blasts any time in the near future from unexploded Israeli bombs that may be lying all across Gaza. 

Unless addressed in imaginative but also practical ways, these issues could cause friction and invite fresh fighting. Steps taken could also revive memories of an earlier age when strong countries openly ran the governments of weaker countries. There was a time when Ottoman Turkey ruled over Palestine. After World War I, Britain and France displaced the Turks. Later Israel emerged and seemed to give Palestinians a choice between serfdom and exile. 

Equal rights along with Israelis within a single state or full independence in a viable Palestine is what the 21st century expects Palestinians to obtain. If Trump and his national and global teams can assist in turning either dream into a reality, they will deserve more than the Nobel.

A remark by a BBC commentator stays with me: “Trump is a man of deals, not of details.” An excellent summing up. However, the “details” involved in his Gaza “deal,” a few of them touched on above, are major challenges. They could continue to make headlines long after applause for the deal has died out.

I took some little hope from Starmer’s word to the House of Commons that he supported the return of international media to Gaza. Coercion, suppression, and cruelties are a little harder when the world is watching.

PAKISTAN VERSUS KABUL 

In 1947, when Pakistan emerged from India’s division as a separate country, only one country opposed its admission into the UN. Afghanistan took that stand in part because Peshawar, the largest city in Pakistan’s northwest, had belonged to it until the 19th century.  Peshawar fell from Afghanistan’s hands first to the Lahore-based Sikh kingdom of Ranjit Singh and then to the British who had ousted and replaced the Sikhs. From the 1890s, the so-called “Durand Line,” drawn on a paper map by a British frontier officer, separated the Pashtuns of Afghanistan from the Pashtuns of British-controlled India, who from 1947 became Pakistan’s Pashtuns.

Across Asia and Africa, international boundaries drawn by European powers have remained essentially unaltered despite the decolonization of the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Which does not mean that populations living close to those boundaries have always been comfortable with them. In particular, this did not mean that Afghanistan wholeheartedly accepted that Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province or KPK (the North-West Frontier Province of undivided British India) belonged to Pakistan and not to Afghanistan. Ditto for Pakistan’s federally administered “tribal” areas adjacent to KPK.

As the 20th century drew to its end, Pak-Afghan relations were massively affected by Pakistan’s alignment with Washington as against Moscow’s wish, which would prove unrealistic, to control Kabul. Pakistan’s role as facilitator in the Pentagon’s wars in Afghanistan sharpened Afghan-Pak differences. 

In the last few years, Pakistan has accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of supporting the extremist organization Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has been charged with a series of terrorist crimes in Pakistan. In the last few days, bombings and shootings have replaced charges and counter-charges, and scores if not hundreds of Afghans and Pakistanis have been killed.

Also in the last few days, the foreign minister in Kabul’s Taliban regime, Maulana Amir Khan Muttaqi, has been receiving a high-level welcome in India. If you thought that the BJP government’s Hindu nationalist ideology would dictate great caution towards a set-up known in the world for its extreme version of conservative Islam, you thought wrong.

Its negative stance towards Pakistan makes Kabul worthy of New Delhi’s full support. India is now upgrading its relations with Kabul, and Muttaqi has been feted and honored in India even as the drive to make life difficult for India’s Muslims shows no let-up.

COMMON FAITH ENOUGH? 

Writing in India’s esteemed daily, the Hindu, D. Suba Chandran, professor at Bengaluru’s National Institute of Advanced Studies, makes the following points about the Pak-Afghan conflict:

One, for Pakistan, the clashes started on October 11, with “unprovoked” attacks from the Afghan side. For the Taliban, the border clashes were a response to an earlier attack by Pakistan on October 9, inside Afghanistan in the Kabul and Paktika province.

Two, there is speculation that the target of Pakistan’s attack in Kabul could have been Noor Wali Mehsud, leader of the Pakistan Taliban. The two attacks on October 9 could also have been a warning to Afghanistan to not get close to India.

Three, Pakistan should confront its own weaknesses. Blaming Kabul and India for its internal violence will only worsen Pakistan’s relationship with Afghanistan.

I will end by picking up a simple point. For neighboring nations, a common religion may not be an adequate cement. That the great bulk of Indians and Nepalis are Hindus has not resolved India-Nepal differences. Not only are Pakistan and Afghanistan both Islamic, Pakistan backed the Taliban when many other Muslim lands did not. Sameness in faith has not proved a substitute for respect, or for a real wish to be friends.