In a space of just two weeks, Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia have all held high-level public meetings with Israel — a rare event for Muslim countries. The president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, who had long taken an especially hardline stand against the Jewish state, even shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, in front of a host of delegates to the world summit.
Arab countries like Qatar are encouraging efforts to renew and expand peacemaking as a way to ease the Palestinian conflict and to blunt the influence of Islamic militants, who are using discontent about the Palestinians and the war in Iraq to stir up unrest worldwide.
They have also concluded that Israel is not going to be destroyed — and that it might be in the Muslim nations' best interests to be involved in the Mideast peace process.
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