Give them what they want, Musharraf suggested, and they will stop murdering you. Yet would not such an outcome actually reinforce the idea, so recently reinforced in Gaza, that terrorism works?
From Reuters, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told U.S. Jewish leaders on Saturday that granting the Palestinians statehood would help stop Islamic terrorism and lead to full diplomatic ties between Pakistan and Israel.
Speaking to the American Jewish Congress at a groundbreaking dinner that opened with the sharing of bread and Koranic prayers, Musharraf said his Muslim country had “no direct conflict or dispute with Israel” but that Pakistanis had deep sympathy for Palestinian aspirations for a separate state.
“Israel must come to terms with geopolitical realities and allow justice to prevail for the Palestinians,” he said, describing a Palestinian settlement as the key to security for Israel and an end to Middle East terrorism.
“As the peace process progresses toward the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, we will take further steps toward normalization and cooperation, looking to full diplomatic relations,” Musharraf said to lengthy applause….
Pakistan has been one of Israel’s harshest critics in the Muslim world. But Musharraf said the strife since the creation of Israel in 1948 was an “aberration in the long history of Muslim-Jewish cooperation and coexistence.”
For details about that cooperation and coexistence, see Islam and Dhimmitude by Bat Ye’or.
Islam, Judaism and Christianity shared prophets and spiritual practices, but were now needlessly “pitted against each other” — a situation it would take courage to reverse, he said. His remarks received several standing ovations from the audience of about 350 people.
Musharraf said suggestions that Islam rejected tolerance and promoted terrorism amounted to a “hate campaign” against the faith. But he acknowledged that most people involved in terrorism, and most who suffered from it, were Muslims.
Come on, Pervez. If what you are saying is true, Osama and Co. are leaders of that “hate campaign.” For it is they, not non-Muslims, who are preaching intolerance, hatred and violence and justifying it all in the name of Islam.