Moulana Ajmal Qadri has revealed that for the last many years he had been regularly visiting Israel with his followers and that Israel should be recognized. As far as his contention that Israel should be recognized is a real need of time. The fact should remain that it was Begum Abdia Hussain who as Pakistani Ambassador to US had the vision, boldness and courage to raise her views openly that Israel is a reality and should be recognized. I agree to Ajmal Qadri that if Arabs are sitting in lap of Israel why should we not recognize it. Last month by a Gulf state Bahrain has imported medical machinery made in Israel.
I respect religious leaders. I do not hate them as a fashion as mostly we hear and read criticism against them. They may be too rigid to their believes, divided into their own small sects but the true fact is that unlike our other leaders mostly they are not turncoats and have not been found indulged in mass scale irregularities or corruption. This is admirable. The worst critics of religious parties like columnist Ayaz Amir etc have recently openly and in large scale acknowledged and praised that before the Government these people came without caring for their publicity to the aid of earthquake victims.
However, with my due respect I cannot even for a single minute believe on statement of Ajmal Qadri that he had regularly been visiting Israel. Pakistanis visit to Israel is very rare. Many years back I read how one or two Pakistani students studying in USA were part of a students official group visit to Israel and how both of them were under constant high scrutiny during their visit as they narrated in an article later. A Pakistani’s visit to Israel could never had been so secret particularly when he claims visiting regularly with group of followers. There is no dirt of enemy of Pakistan who had not spare even a single such visit making it a political and propaganda extent through world media. It is also unbelievable that the world media for the last 15 years remained so ignorant. Our religious parties are most equipped to have access to information of other religious parties to make score over others. One can see eg. Jamat-e-Islami in Pakistan is so source full that publications attached to this party always publishing revealing stories. It cannot be believed other religious parties for all these years could know visit of a Ajmal Qaadri or knowing well these alleged visits these parties remained silent by not declaring Ajmal Qadri “something”. I can not believe even for a minute.
Giora Becker of the India and Pakistan desk at the Israeli foreign ministry has described persistent reports of a Pakistani delegation visiting Israel as an “urban legend that refuses to die”.
Barry Jacobs, director of strategic studies at the American Jewish Committee, told Daily Times on Monday that confused by contradictory reports of a 174-member delegation having gone to Israel, he had finally approached the Israeli foreign ministry at the weekend and been told that the reports were baseless and in the nature of an “urban legend”, the name given to stories that many people come to believe but which have no basis in fact. A report run in this newspaper on Monday said doubts had been cast on Maulana Ajmal Qadri’s claims that he had visited Israel after his mobile telephone records revealed that he had been making calls from various Pakistani cities over the last four days. Pakistani intelligence agencies placed Qadri’s cell phone number on a Call Tracking System and the calls were found to have been made from Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Lahore on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week. That Qadri has been lying was proved when while calling from Lahore, he told an intelligence official that he was at Amman airport.
Al-Jazeera TV, on which Qadri claimed to have appeared, said, “The story quoted Qadri, the self-proclaimed head of a 174-member Pakistani delegation in Israel, as saying that he was given 67 minutes of coverage by Al-Jazeera. His claim is hilarious, devoid of truth and grounded only in his self-created imaginative world.
Israel is very much aware of the problems that a Muslim faces with an Israeli Immigration stamp on his passport, specially when travelling to the middle east.
Hence they issue a Travel Permit, which does not have to be stamped on the Passport, also some secular Countries issue a seperate Passport for travel exclusively to Israel.