President Yasser Arafat’s visit to Pakistan, India and China is part of a major diplomatic push to secure further support for the Palestinians and condemnation of their current oppression by the right-wing government of Ariel Sharon.
Pakistan, which has never recognized the state of Israel, has long backed the Palestinian cause. India too was, at one time, one of the staunchest supporters of the struggle against Israeli occupation. In the 1950s, when President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India led the Non-Aligned Movement in its heady days, Delhi was the capital, outside the Arab world, most visited by Palestinian leaders. However, of late, especially after a party of Hindu extremists rode to power on a hate-Muslim ideology, Delhi’s position has become more equivocal. Nevertheless, in his meetings with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President KR Narayanan, Arafat was seeking Indian support for international processes, particularly in the United Nations, which will force the Israelis to abandon their policy of aggression against the Palestinians.
And it is in the United Nations that Arafat is clearly hoping that China will play a key role. A member of the Security Council, China has the ability to confront the Americans over their continued support for brutal Israeli tactics, and to back the proposal to send international monitors to the flash points. Beijing and Moscow acting in tandem, with backing too perhaps from the French, would be able to paint the Americans and perhaps the British, if they choose to play the role of obedient US poodle, into a diplomatic corner.
If the US is content to use the endorsement of the UN for its own international military activities, then it must acknowledge the view of the UN when that happens to go against its desires. The initial signs from Beijing are good but no one should believe that the Chinese are going to give an open-ended commitment to the pursuit of a just Middle East settlement. They will take up the Palestinian cause as part of a longer game against Washington and as a way to ratchet up their international presence and influence.
Thus no one should be under any illusions about their motives. But in a time of crisis a man must seek friends wherever he can find them, and it is right that Arafat has chosen this moment to launch his diplomatic mission. The Israelis have long conducted their own sweet-talking campaign in China. The Israeli military have worked with the Chinese armed forces on weapons programs and have, say intelligence sources, built up a cadre of supporters among the Chinese top brass. But such initiatives are finite. The Chinese are perfectly capable of taking on and developing Israeli arms technology themselves, just as the Israeli armaments and nuclear weapons programs benefited from data either readily given or outright stolen from the Americans.
When weighed in the balance, Beijing’s continued covert good relations with Tel Aviv will probably count for nothing against the chance to use a powerful lever on the international stage. Hence the warm and sympathetic reception given to the Palestinian leader by the Chinese.
