A conflict we must do without

IN AN unprecedented move, the President of Supreme Court Bar Association appeared before the apex court in the review petition relating to the appointment of judges in the Supreme Court and filed a “statement at the bar”. This was filed on behalf of the Supreme Court Bar Association and also represented the views of other bar associations, including the Pakistan Bar Council.

On the basis of the resolutions passed by these associations, the president of the Bar submitted that they have no confidence in the independence of the Supreme Court in its present composition and therefore the association refused to argue the review petition before the court.

The Supreme Court dismissed the review petition for non-prosecution as well as on merit. In its detailed reasoning by Mr. Justice Sheikh Riaz Ahmed, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, the court held that the contents of the application constituted gross contempt of court by using disparaging remarks about the judiciary. Considering two paragraphs of the application to be scandalous, malicious and irrelevant, the court also ordered those paragraphs to be struck off. It further observed that the president of the association deliberately declined to argue the case knowing full well that the review had no merit. He was motivated by malice, ill-will and extraneous considerations. The court added that it would have proceeded to take action in the matter but exercised restraint. However, it reserved the right to take appropriate action at an appropriate stage.

This episode is as unfortunate as it is unprecedented. It does not augur well for a proper relationship between the Bench and the Bar. As observed by the court in the judgment, the administration of justice rests on cooperation between the judiciary and the bar. The two are mutually dependent. Any souring of the relationship in this equation can have serious consequences not merely for the administration of justice but for the entire political system. Immediate efforts are, therefore, required to be undertaken to mend the rupture in this delicate relationship.

Unlike the executive organ of the state, the judiciary has neither military force nor the power of the purse to ensure compliance with its edicts. Its majesty rests solely on its moral authority. That in turn rests on its independence or at least the perception of its independence in the public eye.

One such moment came when the legitimacy of General Musharraf’s regime was challenged before the Supreme Court in the case of Syed Zafar Ali Shah vs Pervez Musharraf, PLD 2000 SC 869. The Supreme Court not only legitimized the military takeover by him but also conferred on him the authority to amend the Constitution. However, it circumscribed his authority by retaining the power of judicial review over all his actions and also limited the life span of the regime to three years.

Referring to this judgment while dismissing the review petition of the Bar Association, the court observed that the unanimous verdict of the court in Zafar Ali Shah’s case was universally acclaimed and had been described as a landmark judgment. It was because of this judgment and the oath taken by the judges under the provisional constitutional order that a time schedule was given and elections were held on October 10. The oath had saved the independence of the judiciary as well as the administration of justice by preserving the Bar as well.

Indeed, it can be argued that we owe this election and the expected transfer of power to the judgment of the court in Zafar Ali Shah’s case. Had the Supreme Court not limited his tenure, there was little compulsion for General Musharraf to held election prepatory to restoring democratic rule, however, imperfect and flawed the process. The banal consequences of not imposing such a term limit in Nusrat Bhutto’s 1977 case was used by General Zia as a licence to continue his absolute rule for a much longer period than enjoyed by General Musharraf. Similarly, if all the judges had refused to take oath under the PCO, it might have resulted in a dangerous judicial vacuum with unimaginable consequences. To its credit, the court saved what it could despite overwhelming adds.

However, an equally plausible argument may be advanced for the contrary view. The refusal of the five judges of the Supreme Court to take oath under the PCO had provided a potential catalyst for the reversal of General Musharraf’s military take-over. It was because of the oath and the judgment in Zafar Ali Shah’s case, that his overthrow of an elected government was provided the semblance of legitimacy. It can also be added that empowering the military regime to amend the Constitution proved disastrous. Had this power not been conferred on General Musharraf, he would not have found it that easy to make the very many political constitutions changes that he has made.

There are conflicting interpretations of Zafar Ali Shah’s case through. It is a little too early to reach any definitive conclusion on whether the judgment and fresh oath under the PCO saved the system of justice or General Musharraf. What would have happened if all the judges of the Supreme Court had refused to take oath and declared him a usurper? History will no doubt give its own verdict in due course. However, it is perhaps a little too unfair to doubt the motives of those judges who took the oath as it was equally unfair for the Supreme Court in its judgment in Zafar Ali Shah’s case to question the motives of those judges who had refused to take the oath. They all acted in good faith to protect and preserve the rule of law but each group in its own different way.

Thus, the judgment of Supreme Court in Zafar Ali Shah’s case can hardly be said to have been universally acclaimed as a landmark verdict. Only the passage of time and arrival of a new generation of judges would render the final verdict as to whether Zafar Ali Shah was a landmark or it should join ranks with the Dosso and Nusrat Bhutto cases.

Though all constitutional problems have legal overtones, the fact remains that the judiciary is not the best forum to resolve contentious political issues and that too where politicians themselves have failed to reach a settlement. As observed by the Supreme Court in the recent referendum case of Qazi Hussain Ahmed vs Pervez Musharraf, PLD 2002 SC 853, all political questions which should have been dealt with and resolved elsewhere have been brought to this court.

Returning to the unpleasant incident involving the Supreme Court Bar Association, there may be profound disagreement with the choice of language used by the association in expressing its disappointment. However, the issue raised by it can hardly be brushed aside on grounds of inept language alone. It was the core issue directly affecting the highest judicial institution itself: the confidence reposed by the legal fraternity in the independence of the judiciary. As to the motive of the party before the court, it may be said that this is hardly of material importance. The motive of the petitioner in the first Judges Case, PLD 1996 SC 324, was also questionable and was indeed questioned but that did not deter the court from advancing principles which promoted the cause of independence of the judiciary.

As to the merits of the second Judges Case, it may be difficult to disagree with the immediate reasoning of the judgment. The first Judges Case primarily determined the applicable principles when there was disagreement between the Executive and the Chief Justice on the issue of appointment of judges. No such issue was involved in the second Judges case. It was convincingly established that there was no convention of seniority with regard to the elevation of judges from High Court to the Supreme Court as claimed by the Bar Association. But then there were no such conventions in the first Judges Case either.

Thus, no fault could be found with the court’s reasoning on the strength of precedents and conventions. Nevertheless, the broader issue of the independence of the judiciary which animated the reasoning in the first Judges Case was not fully addressed by the Supreme Court in the second Judges Case. There was enough material in the first Judges Case as well as the case of Malik Asad Ali vs the Federation of Pakistan, PLD 1999 SC 161, which dealt with the issue of seniority of former Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah, that could have been used here to vindicate the principle of seniority and legitimate expectancy.

Immediately after the second Judges Case the senior judge of the Lahore High Court was bypassed in the appointment of the Chief Justice of Lahore High Court without any explanation. All these deviations remain unexplained. The surreptitious manner and motive with which the age of retirement of the Judges has been increased by amending the Legal Framework Order on the eve of the recent elections has further created doubts in the minds of the legal fraternity.

The independence of the judiciary is the cornerstone of the system of justice. If that comes to be questioned by a representative body of the legal fraternity, it is an occasion for circumspection rather than contempt proceedings as a possible response. A situation of confrontation between the judiciary and the legal fraternity is the last thing that the country needs at this time.

The legal fraternity also needs to realize that the judiciary does not exist in a vacuum and wholly outside the political system. When there is haze all around, how can one institution remain insulated from its darkening effect. Just as a flower does not bloom in a desert, the judiciary cannot continue to glow amidst the shadows of authoritarianism. The legal fraternity cannot choose to vindicate its position on any given issue by attacking the very institution which, despite all darkness, has still been a source of much enlightenment during the last three years. Had the judges not been vigilant during this period, much more would have been lost.

Rather than assailing the institution of the judiciary, they should assail Bonapartism which weakens the role and independence of the judiciary. The legal fraternity should also be prepared to make personal sacrifices. How many members of the Bar Associations who passed the resolution expressing lack of confidence in the apex court have refused to accept briefs in private cases before that very court on the ground that they have no confidence in the court in its present composition? The lack of confidence cannot be selective and pitched to vary with the personal interests of the members of the Bar.

The Bench and the Bar are indispensable for the successful administration of justice. One cannot exist without the other. An independent judiciary is anathema to most governments be they elected or military. The judiciary is the most effective and reliable check on the arbitrary exercise of power by governments. From a wider perspective, it is part and parcel of the democratic process. When all other institutions of the state fail the judiciary remains the only beacon of hope for the people.

Elusive foreign investment

This year China will receive 50 billion dollars as foreign direct investment which will be ten times more than the investment of 5 billion dollars that it got in 1991. That will happen despite the fact that this year global foreign direct investment (FDI) will decline by 27 per cent to 534 billion dollars — the second decline in FDI in two years.

In fact, foreign investment in China will this year be far more than in the US and more than the investment in Germany and France put together, which will be 45 billion dollars according to the projections of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.

How has China been able to get such record investment which has increased ten times in ten years despite its communist ideology in the political sphere and severe western criticism of that set-up? And why has Pakistan, which has been close to the West and trying hard to attract foreign investment, not been able to get only under 500 million dollars a year as foreign direct investment for many years together?

At the best of times we did not hope for more than 2 billion dollars or target that much. But the achievement was far below. Last year the target was 600 million dollars but what was achieved was 484.7 million dollars. And that was an improvement of 50 per cent over the previous year’s investment of 322.5 million dollars. During the financial year 1999 the FDI was 472 million dollars and in 2000, 470 million dollars.

China has the advantage of not only having a population of 1.1 billion but also of having achieved and maintained an economic growth rate of 10 per cent for the last decade or so. That growth figure had come down marginally as happens when an economy grows steadily and becomes very large.

While the political system in China has remained socialist the economic system has been becoming increasingly capitalist, along with a large public sector. And the world’s large investors have been anxious to take full advantage of its expanding economy and its ability to honour its commitments to western investors. As a result, overall foreign direct investment in China now totals 600 billion dollars.

In the better days of our economy Pakistan was able to sustain an average economic growth rate of 6 per cent while population increased by 3 per cent. And yet we had not been able to get large foreign investment while rhetorically we wooed it all the time. Most of our foreign investment in recent years has been coming for the development of oil and gas sectors and that has proved rewarding to the investors.

The Oil and Gas Development Corporation has been able to strike oil or gas or both six times in recent weeks and that is regarded as a very creditable achievement. So this year finance minister Shaukat Aziz is hoping for a total foreign investment of one billion dollars. He says foreign direct investment in the first quarter of the current financial year ending September 30 totalled 167.4 million dollars, an increase of 69 per cent over the investment of the previous quarter.

Earlier foreign investors had come in considerable numbers to invest in the power sector, and independent power producers as a whole, including Pakistani entrepreneurs, had invested 4 billion dollars in it. But the investment of Hubco and some other foreign power companies became controversial leading to litigation and that discouraged foreign investors significantly.

The approaches of foreign investors who come here and those who go to China are far different. Those who went to China have made that country an expanding export base, while those who come to Pakistan produce goods largely to meet the limited internal demand of the country.

The Philips Electrical Company of Holland went to China in the 1980s hoping to sell their products to a billion consumers. But now Philips has 23 manufacturing units in China with a total output of five billion dollars a year. Nearly two-thirds of its output is exported.

Before the global recession hit China marginally, its exports had risen to 275 billion dollars, and half of its goods are made by foreign companies in China like Motorola and Philips. About 10 billion dollars worth of goods sold by the Walmart chain in the US are of Chinese origin.

Economic factors in China are so helpful to exporters that the prices of Chinese goods have declined by 20 per cent in seven years. The price of a 21-inch colour TV set in China a decade ago was over 400 dollars but now it is 80 dollars and continues to fall. Such developments are ideal for exporters including foreign investors.

China has the world’s fourth largest economy today — after the US, Japan and Germany — and produces more than 50 per cent of the world’s cameras, 30 per cent of the world‘s airconditioners and television sets, 25 per cent of the world’s washing machines and nearly 20 per cent of its refrigerators.

Chinese export prices have fallen by 15 per cent in recent times, says a report by BCA, a Canadian market research firm.

These are the ideal conditions which foreign investors want and which the local producers too can take full advantage of. As a result Chinese products are able to enter the world market in a big way, including western markets such as that of the US.

What foreign investors want is economic expansion in the countries in which they invest, low taxes, high profits, if not immediately but assuredly in the near future. They want stable economic conditions and political stability. And they should be able to sell their products not only in western but also in the countries in the region. Now how do we compare conditions in Pakistan with those in China or other countries which are able to attract large foreign investment?

To begin with, in the earlier years it was the overseas Chinese who were making investments in China. They came in large numbers and made major investments. And they were followed by foreign investors including from the West. In Pakistan,the overseas Pakistanis have been reluctant to make major investments. When foreign investors saw that both domestic investors and overseas Pakistanis were reluctant to make larger investment in the country, they became even more shy, or preferred lucrative areas like oil and gas here which attracted small investments and yielded small rewards.

The list of factors discouraging foreign investment in Pakistan is too long. To begin with the cold war between Pakistan and India is perpetual and threatens to burst into a shooting war from time to time. And since 1998 the threat of a nuclear war is quite often there.

Political uncertainty in Pakistan is endemic with frequent and prolonged military rule. As the governments change there is a great deal of witch-hunt of the supporters and friends of the fallen regime and even of investors assisted by the previous government.

Along with change of governments, the financial and investment policy can also change. Old projects promoted by fallen regime may be abandoned and new projects promoted in their place. The new regime may also have new priorities which may hit those associated with the old priorities.

New governments may go on a spending spree and cause larger budget deficits and heavy public borrowing, and inflate the national debt. All that can result in the shrinking of the purchasing power of the consumer and of the rupee as well.

Infrastructure is vastly inadequate and what is there is often not properly maintained. The cost of power keeps on rising and so also of petroleum products due to not only world prices but also the heavy petroleum surcharge. Companies have to set up their own generator units and they find water often hard to get.

Security is a major problem. Foreign investors have to be protected in their homes, factories and as they travel around. All that costs money and inflates the cost of production and doing business here.

Foreign investors find it hard to get suitable Pakistani partners. They want more open-minded partners who are ready to accept international norms in such areas.

When it comes to workers too many of them are uneducated and unskilled and there is a great deal of indiscipline in their ranks compared to Chinese workers. The labour laws are also lax and are often enforced whimsically.

Corruption is a major complaint of foreign investors which also results in the massive smuggling of the goods they produce. On one side taxes are high and on the other the cost of production is exorbitant. And if the goods produced on that basis meet competition from smuggled goods, the local manufacturers are bound to suffer. Toilet goods-makers like Lever Brothers and the tea manufacturers have been protesting against this kind of massive smuggling.

The middle class in Pakistan which consumes much of the manufactured and packaged goods is small. Prolonged inflation beats them down and bars them from consuming much. The 15 per cent general sales tax which is too heavy reduces consumption further. All that is not helpful for industrialization, while the cost of manufacture keeps the exports down.

When the economy of the country is small and too many of Pakistanis are poor and in fact poverty is on the rise, the foreign investors would not be excited about making large investments in Pakistan.

Clearly we have to make improvements in the external political, economic and social fronts to attract far larger foreign direct investment. It is easy to blame foreign investors for not being eager to make investments in Pakistan, but currently we have no alternatives to making special efforts to attract them.

China has done that despite being a communist country. And the world’s investors are rushing to China despite its communism as they find their investment exceedingly rewarding along with great growth prospects.

We have to identify the deterrents to foreign investment and factors which can help promote that in a big way. China offers a great lesson. We should profit by that instead of being too timid about breaking out of conventional and exceedingly cautious ways.

Information vendors & spin

PAKISTAN with its “crumbling infrastructure” is being called a “nuclear Yugoslavia” because Islam has had “no more success in quelling ethnic and tribal animosities than Communism had in Yugoslavia,” and the “Punjabis, through military and civil service, run the other provinces in imperial fashion much as the Serbs did.”

Furthermore, it has the “bomb.”The raison d’etre for the above epiphanies by The New York Times reviewer are anchored in the two latest books on Pakistan by a BBC correspondent, Owen Bennett Jones and Mary Anne Weaver, the inexorable Pakistan-watcher since Zia’s era.

In today’s multiplicity of moral certitude that competes for attention, it does the heart a world of good to hear yet some others speak well of Pakistan. Particularly when they happen to be a best-selling author, a talented artist and a professor of an Ivy League school of journalism.

Mark Hertsgaard has come to launch his latest book, The Eagle’s Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World, and with him has come his wife and mother from California. It’s Halloween, so Mark’s wife sportingly shows up in a pink hairpiece and Lolita-like dark glasses. “I like Pakistan and would want to write for Dawn, Mark, the intrepid journalist, tells me before the event.

Larry Rinder is the Curator of Whitney Museum of American Art on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Easy-going and earnest, he’s the host. “I was so looking forward to my trip to Pakistan, but we have a travel advisory. Anyway, I have already selected a Pakistani artist for our exhibition next year and may invite some more... they are so talented,” he says as I leave.

Anne Nelson is the director of Columbia School of Journalism. She is the moderator. At the end of the discussion, I am told by her, “I am very fond of Pakistan.”

These random testimonials are enough to make you walk six feet tall. The warmth and respect with which they are uttered is unconditional and unorchestrated.

On another level, they shine in comparison with the State Department’s stultified effort to win over a billion Muslims via paid ads costing the $15 million. Clumsily packaged by its Wisenheimers (who perhaps have never left their shores) under the stewardship of Ms Charlotte Beers, the high priestess of spin, slicked away from the ad world of Madison Avenue by chief Colin Powell and installed as his undersecretary, Beers has been told to inject Botox-like properties on the wrinkled face of America’s ugly unilateralism.

Drawing pointed criticism, officials here say that in initial focus group testing, some Arabs and Muslims found the videos so offensive that the US embassies there sent urgent messages to the State Department, urging not to release them.

But the indefatigable Ms Beers has reportedly tweaked the videos, insisting the ads are just one piece of a much broader media campaign, including websites and even a new radio station, all designed to tell what they call the real American story.

In a shoulder-to-shoulder contest, Karen Hughes — the woman who gave up Bush for her husband and son, jettisoning a job which no woman had ever held before and go back to live in Texas — monitors long distance the Office of the Global Communication housed in the White House.

Word has it that a strenuous search is under way thumbing through the nation’s rolodex for Muslim names smelling of sweet success. And sure enough, profiles of prominent Pakistani-Americans (many professional hustlers) are trickling in to be short-listed, selected and sounded. Others are more wary and not biting. “It’s a tough sell,” says one, “especially when the US wants to go into Iraq caring two hoots about Arab and UN wishes.”

“Remember the first rule of marketing?” mulls another Pakistan-born American, while preferring to sit this one out, “the product that you sell has to be good.” Carrying medicines and food to the Muslims of the world is not enough.

So what’s the great rush?

Well, Bush wants to light a fire under the Islamic world to behave and fall into line with the US, ideally to fall in love with Uncle Sam and its “liberties”. The rising anti-US crescendo is making the Texan president’s patience wear thin. While publicly he’s demanding results, privately insiders confide “the president is a very worried man.”

“Globalization is actually Americanization,” says Mark Hertsgaard, “McDonalds, the NBA and MTV are all over the world.” Writing for America’s most respected independent journal, The Nation, Mark has earned recognition as an investigative journalist with his earlier book, On Bended Knee about the manipulation of the press during the Reagan period.

“Today we are the American empire. We do not colonize countries, instead we colonize minds through our powerful technology — in the beginning were the large screens showing American movies, then came the television and now we have the video and the Internet.”

Over a dark canopy punctuated with sepia spotlights falling oblong on the shiny slate floors enfolded with black walls, serious-minded New Yorkers silently listen to: ‘How the World Looks at America: A Conversation Between Art and Journalism’.

The centrepiece of the evening is an exploration of how the world sees and represents America — a topic that grows more important by the day as the US prepares to make war against Iraq.

Gauging by the numbers seated around the podium, Americans want to know why they are unloved.

Jumping in is Larry, the curator: “Apart from the military and economic empire, we colonize through global consciousness.” Larry would know because of his journeys around the world exploring expansively the insights and psyche of artists elsewhere. “The Whitney Museum is unique in allowing non-Americans to work under its roof, to create and share their works of art.”

Anne Nelson speaks of how America is ridiculed by other networks like the BBC which like depicting the unflattering side of America — its crassness, obesity and the rampant provincialism.

The common refrain heard throughout the evening is to hear what the rest of the world is saying. “Everybody has opinions — good or bad, but never indifferent. Surprisingly, most are sophisticated,” Mark says.

Unlike these speakers, a slew of authors, reporters and advertising kingpins like Charlotte Beers are information vendors with their own individual spin.

e-mail: anjumniazusa@yahoo.com

The legal status of Jerusalem

THE Zionist case for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, based on the claim that throughout most of the last 1,200 years of the pre-Christian era the Jews constituted the main settled population of what in Roman times became known as Palestine, does not stand up to scrutiny.

The Jews were only one of many Semitic tribes who had intruded into the region in ancient times. They were neither the descendants of the original inhabitants of the land nor were they ever in majority there.

Moreover, the Jewish States were relatively short-lived and never, at any time, extended to the coastal plains which were inhabited by the Philistines from whom the name ‘Palestine’ is derived. If such a transitory occupation can give the Zionists a ‘historic right’ to Palestine, then the Arabs who occupied Spain and ruled it for 800 years can also claim that country today. If all nations were to adopt this strange Zionist logic, the world would be in utter chaos.

The Jewish state of Judaea was overthrown by the Roman emperor, Titus, who captured Jerusalem, destroyed the Jewish Temple there in 70 AD and took a large number of Jews to Rome as captives. After repeated rebellions by the remaining Jews against them, even Jerusalem was razed to the ground by the Romans in 135 AD and most of the Jews in Palestine were expelled. During the following centuries the Jews were scattered throughout Europe. Their dispersion in the second century AD actually marked the end of the so-called Jewish connection with Palestine. The Jews, who remained there, converted to Christianity and then to Islam.

Thus, today’s Palestinians are their descendants. The Jews who migrated to Palestine in the twentieth century and established the state of Israel are mostly the descendants of Khazaes, who inhabited the Volga region and were converted to Judaism in the 16th century. They have no racial links with the Israelites or Hebrews who lived in Palestine in biblical times.

The Zionists have also invoked the concept of religious association of the Jews with Palestine. They quote God’s promise to Abraham: ‘To your descendants I will give this land’ — the land of Canaan. The Zionists, however, deliberately ignore the fact that the term ‘descendants’ is not restricted to the Jews. It also includes the Arabs, both Muslim and Christian, who constituted most of the descendants of Abraham today. The Jews may have only the right of peaceful free access to Jerusalem and not the right to occupy it. They cannot claim any title to the Holy City (Jerusalem) only because of their religious association with it.

It would also be pertinent to recall that when, in 1929, the Jews claimed ownership of the Wailing Wall and the courtyard adjacent to it, the Palestinian opposed it. Britain, with the approval of the League of Nations, appointed an International Commission to examine the question of ownership of the Wall and the area adjacent to it. The Commission, after hearing the representatives of the parties concerned and examining the historical records, gave the verdict that the Wailing Wall, itself a part of the Haram Sharif, belonged to the Muslims.

The Jews did not pursue their claim and only asked for permission to visit the Wall. The present-day Zionist claim of ownership of Jerusalem on religious ground is, therefore, in conflict with the decision of the International Commission and is tantamount to re-opening a settled issue.

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the victorious Allied Powers established the League of Nations which set up a mandate system to administer the territories taken from the defeated powers. Palestine was entrusted to Britain. During its mandate from 1922 to 1948, the British permitted a large-scale immigration of Jews into Palestine despite opposition from its native population. In 1947, the United Nations, which had no mandate to do so, approved the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.

This decision was immediately rejected by the Palestinians who found it contrary to the principles of the UN Charter and the international law. Israel, however, accepted it as the means of achieving internationally recognised statehood which otherwise was totally devoid of legal sanctity. Since Israel opened its doors to the Jews living anywhere in the world, yet another upsurge of the Jewish migration to the newly created state took place. The process reversed 1,800 years history of Palestine and substantially changed its demographic character.

As a result of the six-day Arab-Israel war in June 1967, the entire West Bank, which included Jerusalem, fell under the control of Israel. Immediately after the occupation of Jerusalem, General Moshe Dayan, the then defence minister of Israel and a self-proclaimed agnostic, declared: “the Israeli defence forces have liberated Jerusalem. We have reunited the torn city, the capital of Israel. We have returned to this, most sacred shrine, never to part with it again”. Subsequently, Israel took a number of measures to extend its jurisdiction over East Jerusalem and declared that this process of integration was irreversible.

The UN Security Council, in its landmark resolution 242 of November 22, 1967, as well as in subsequent resolutions, emphasized the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and reaffirmed the principles of the UN Charter. It also called upon those states that had established diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw them from the Holy City. Accordingly, even those countries which, prior to the 1967 Arab-Israel war, had maintained their embassies in Western Jerusalem, recalled them. Based on the UN Security Council resolutions, the majority of nations, including the United States, which is a leading supporter of Israel, took the position that East Jerusalem is an occupied territory and that the status of that city cannot be changed arbitrarily by actions of any one party to the conflict.

Regrettably, however, the United States, apparently under the influence of the Zionists, has recently caved in and abandoned its long-held principled stand on Jerusalem. The US congress passed a law in 1995 authorizing the US administration to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This law, however, included a clause allowing the US president to temporarily suspend the implementation of this decision on the grounds of security.

During his tenure, the former US president, Bill Clinton, postponed the move by signing the six-monthly security waivers. Similarly, the present US President, George W. Bush, has been invoking the stipulated escape clause. However, the new legislation on the subject passed by the US Congress now, while urging upon the US administration to start the process of moving the embassy to Jerusalem, has added three mandatory provisions to the law.

These mandatory provisions are: Firstly, the administration cannot spend money on the US consulate in Jerusalem unless it works under the supervision of the US ambassador to Israel. Previously, the US consulate in Jerusalem was under the direct control of the State Department. Secondly, any US government document which lists countries and their capitals will have to identify Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Thirdly, in the official documents such as passports, birth and nationality certificates, etc., the US citizens born in Jerusalem should record the place of birth as Israel.

Ironically, on the one hand, the United States claims that there has been no change in its policy that the status of Jerusalem must be resolved through negotiations between the parties concerned and, on the other, it has been taking steps which indicate its keen desire to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The United States, however, ought to know that the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Israel and attempts to transfer its embassy there would not only be a gross violation of the United Nations resolutions but jeopardize the prospects of a negotiated settlement between the PLO and Israel on the permanent status of Jerusalem. The United States should also not lose sight of the fact that unless it guards its neutrality, it cannot act as an honest broker in the Middle East.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan