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by asiaobserver.com
Thirty-five years ago, in September 1968, when the Research
and Analysis Wing was founded with Rameshwar Nath Kao at its
helm, then prime minister Indira Gandhi asked him to cultivate
Israel's Mossad. She believed relations between the two
intelligence agencies was necessary to monitor developments
that could threaten India and Israel.
The efficient spymaster he was, Kao established a clandestine
relationship with Mossad. In the 1950s, New Delhi had
permitted Tel Aviv to establish a consulate in Mumbai. But
full-fledged diplomatic relations with Israel were discouraged
because India supported the Palestinian cause; having an
Israeli embassy in New Delhi, various governments believed,
would rupture its relations with the Arab world.
This was where the RAW-Mossad liaison came in. Among the
threats the two external intelligence agencies identified were
the military relationship between Pakistan and China and North
Korea, especially after then Pakistan foreign minister
Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto visited Pyongyang in 1971 to establish a
military relationship with North Korea.
Again, Israel was worried by reports that Pakistani army
officers were training Libyans and Iranians to handle Chinese
and North Korean military equipment.
RAW-Mossad relations were a secret till Morarji Desai became
prime minister in 1977. RAW officials had alerted him about
the Zia-ul Haq regime's plans to acquire nuclear capability.
While French assistance to Pakistan for a plutonium
reprocessing plant was well known, the uranium enrichment
plant at Kahuta was a secret. After the French stopped helping
Islamabad under pressure from the Carter administration,
Pakistan was determined to keep the Kahuta plant a secret.
Islamabad did not want Washington to prevent its
commissioning.
RAW agents were shocked when Desai called Zia and told the
Pakistani military dictator: 'General, I know what you are up
to in Kahuta. RAW has got me all the details.' The prime
minister's indiscretion threatened to expose RAW sources.
The unfortunate revelation came about the same time that
General Moshe Dayan, hero of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, was
secretly visiting Kathmandu for a meeting with Indian
representatives.
Islamabad believed Dayan's visit was connected with a joint
operation by Indian and Israeli intelligence agencies to end
Pakistan's nuclear programme.
Apprehensive about an Indo-Israeli air strike on Kahuta,
surface-to-air missiles were mounted around the uranium
enrichment plant. These fears grew after the Israeli
bombardment of Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981.
Zia decided Islamabad needed to reassure Israel that it had
nothing to fear from Pakistan's nuclear plans. Intermediaries
-- Americans close to Israel -- established the initial
contacts between Islamabad and Tel Aviv. Israel was confidant
the US would not allow Pakistan's nuclear capability to
threaten Israel. That is why Israeli experts do not mention
the threat from Pakistan when they refer to the need for
pre-emptive strikes against Iraq, Iran and Libya's nuclear
schemes.
By the early 1980s, the US had discovered Pakistan's Kahuta
project. By then northwest Pakistan was the staging ground for
mujahideen attacks against Soviet troops in Afghanistan and
Zia no longer feared US objections to his nuclear agenda. But
Pakistani concerns over Israel persisted, hence Zia decided to
establish a clandestine relationship between Inter-Services
Intelligence and Mossad via officers of the two services
posted at their embassies in Washington, DC.
The ISI knew Mossad would be interested in information about
the Libyan, Syrian, Jordanian and Saudi Arabian military.
Pakistani army officers were often posted on deputation in the
Arab world -- in these very countries -- and had access to
valuable information, which the ISI offered Mossad.
When young Israeli tourists began visiting the Kashmir valley
in the early nineties Pakistan suspected they were Israeli
army officers in disguise to help Indian security forces with
counter-terrorism operations. The ISI propaganda inspired a
series of terrorist attacks on the unsuspecting Israeli
tourists. One was slain, another kidnapped.
The Kashmiri Muslim Diaspora in the US feared the attacks
would alienate the influential Jewish community who, they
felt, could lobby the US government and turn it against
Kashmiri organisations clamouring for independence. Soon
after, presumably caving into pressure, the terrorists
released the kidnapped Israeli. During negotiations for his
release, Israeli government officials, including senior
intelligence operatives, arrived in Delhi.
The ensuing interaction with Indian officials led to India
establishing embassy-level relations with Israel in 1992. The
decision was taken by a Congress prime minister -- P V
Narasimha Rao -- whose government also began pressing the
American Jewish lobby for support in getting the US to declare
Pakistan a sponsor of terrorism. The lobbying bore some
results.
The US State Department put Pakistan on a 'watch-list' for six
months in 1993. The Clinton administration 'persuaded' then
Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif to dismiss Lieutenant
General Javed Nasir, then director general of the ISI. The
Americans were livid that the ISI refused to play ball with
the CIA who wanted to buy unused Stinger missiles from the
Afghan mujahideen, then in power in Kabul.
After she returned to power towards the end of 1993, Benazir
Bhutto intensified the ISI's liaison with Mossad. She too
began to cultivate the American Jewish lobby. Benazir is said
to have a secret meeting in New York with a senior Israeli
emissary, who flew to the US during her visit to Washington,
DC in 1995 for talks with Clinton.
From his days as Bhutto's director general of military
operations, Pervez Musharraf
has been a keen advocate of Pakistan establishing diplomatic
relations with the state of Israel.
The new defence relationship between India and Israel -- where
the Jewish State has become the second-biggest seller of
weapons to India, after Russia -- bother Musharraf no end.
Like another military dictator before him, the Pakistan
president is also wary that the fear of terrorists gaining
control over Islamabad's nuclear arsenal could lead to an
Israel-led pre-emptive strike against his country.
Musharraf is the first Pakistani leader to speak publicly
about diplomatic relations with Israel. His pragmatic corps
commanders share his view that India's defence relationship
with Israel need to be countered and are unlikely to oppose
such a move. But the generals are wary of the backlash from
the streets. Recognising Israel and establishing an Israeli
embassy in Islamabad would be unacceptable to the increasingly
powerful mullahs who see the United States, Israel and India
as enemies of Pakistan and Islam.
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