Monday, April 17, 2023

Confronting problematic tenets of religious law: In Judaism

 


JAMES M. DORSEY:APR 17 2023;

 

 In the case of Judaism, that has become more evident. This is not just with the rise of the most far-right, ultra-nationalist, and religiously ultra-conservative government in Israel's history.

 

It has also become more evident in how Israel confronts the reality that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has no shelf life and that a one-state solution is all that remains on the table and is already a reality.

 

That reality is unlikely to change. It is not temporary; it is permanent. So what needs to be decided and what is at the core of today's struggle is what the nature of that state should and will be.

 

Scholars Michael Barnett, Nathan Brown, Marc Lynch, and Shibley Telhami argued in a recent Foreign Affairs article entitled ‘Israel’s One-State Reality: It’s Time to Give Up on the Two-State Solution’ that “a one-state arrangement is not a future possibility; it already exists, no matter what anyone thinks. Between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, one state controls the entry and exit of people and goods, oversees security, and has the capacity to impose its decisions, laws, and policies on millions of people without their consent.”

 

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s vision of Israel may be grounded in militant nationalism rather than militant religion. This is despite paying lip service to a two-state solution and trying to project himself as the moderate voice in the extremist government he heads.

 

Even so, Mr. Netanyahu’s vision, at the very least, does not challenge militant religious Jewish claims to Palestinian lands. “Israel is not a state of all its citizens” but rather “of the Jewish people—and only it,” Mr. Netanyahu asserted in 2019, a year after the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, passed a law to that effect.

 

Moreover, the likelihood of the one state’s permanence has been decided by Israel’s self-defeating creation of facts on the ground, foremost among which Israeli Jewish settlements that make sustainable and legitimate Palestinian carve-outs impossible and lay the groundwork for the exercise of de facto Israeli sovereignty justified by an ultra-religious, nationalist, and supremacist interpretation of religious law.

 

When it comes to discriminatory and repressive policies towards the other, militant religious Zionism’s interpretation of Jewish religious law resembles in many ways the precepts of a militant Islamic state, even if it does not endorse or advocate the extremes of the Islamic State group whose murderous brutality, including beheadings and enforced slavery, shocked Jews and Muslims alike as well as adherents of other faith groups.

 

The religious Zionist concept of one state in Israel/Palestine is diametrically opposed to traditional notions of either a bi-national state in Israel/Palestine in which communities enjoy cultural autonomy or a civic state in which all have equal rights irrespective of ethnicity, race, or religion.

 

The religious Zionist approach to a one-state solution brings into sharp relief problematic tenets of Jewish religious law, the Halakha.

 

In effect, the emergence of a halachic approach reinforced by the rise of the current Israeli government is also a reflection of the failure of Zionism to create a state that caters to all Jews irrespective of their religiosity or social, political, and religious views rather than a state populated by a Jewish tribe that, perhaps necessarily, charts a course different from that of the majority of Jews who are not part of the state.

 

The focus on Jewish religious law further explains the seemingly arbitrary, humiliating, and unnecessary brutality and harshness of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. This can only be understood by tracing its roots to religious Jewish legal concepts.

 

Like various forms of ultra-conservative Islam such as Wahhabism, jihadism in the shape of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, and Hindu and Christian nationalism, militant, supremacist expressions of Judaism represented by religious Zionism in the way it is currently expressed demonstrate the risk of leaving unaltered problematic tenets in religious law.

 

"Language has weight. It matters," said Foundation for Middle East Peace president Lara Friedman. Ms. Friedman countered arguments that the persecution of Jews was exceptional rather than on par with the oppression of other religious and ethnic communities, including the Palestinians.

 

Failure to reform religious jurisprudence allows religious militants, irrespective of faith, to justify their militancy, supremacy, and violence in theology and religious law.

 

In a seminar on religious law's role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Mohammed Abdelhafez Yousef Azzam, a Palestinian Sharia court judge, appeared to confirm Ms. Friedman's assertion that words matter.

 

Applying supremacist concepts, the judge, wearing a red-topped white felt hat of a graduate of Al Azhar, the Cairo-based citadel of Islamic learning, argued that Islamic law precluded concluding a peace deal with Israel.

 

“There is no way to asserts there is something in Sunni doctrine to make peace,” Mr. Azzam said.

 

The judge was criticising the title of the seminar, ‘Building Peace Between Palestine and Israel, on the Basis of Sunni Islamic Jurisprudence for a Global Civilization (fiqh al-hadara ahl al-sunnah wa'l-jamaa'ah) and Jewish Law (Halakhah)’, because of its reference to Sunni Muslim jurisprudence as a basis for peace.

 

Mr. Azzam quoted Verse 4 of the Al-Isra Sura, also known as Bani Israel, of the Qur’an, viewed by Muslims as the word of God, which says: "You will surely cause corruption on the earth twice, and you will surely reach (a degree) of great haughtiness."

 

The verse may refer to Jewish exceptionalism but prominent scholars interpreted it in starker terms.

 

Syed Abul A'la al-Maududi, a prominent 20th-century Islamist scholar, defined the Sura’s significance as admonishing disbelievers “to take a lesson from the miserable end of the Israelites and other communities and mend their ways within the period of respite given by Allah, which was about to expire….

 

"The Israelites…were warned, ‘Take advantage of the Prophethood of Muhammad (Allah's peace be upon him) because that is the last opportunity which is being given to you. If even now you behave as you have been behaving, you shall meet with a painful torment," Mr. Maududi said.

 

Like in the case of Mr. Azzam, whose views reflected problematic tenets of Islamic law, elements of the influence of equally problematic Jewish legal concepts were embedded in Zionist and Israeli attitudes towards Palestinians from day one. They also were entrenched in long-standing notions of Jewish identity.

 

“The Jewish people was always ethnocentric. It believes in the supremacy of its ethnic collective over other nations. This is a blatantly hierarchical conception, according to which the Jew is superior to the non-Jew. But throughout history, this was a supremacy that lacked the force of a state and an apparatus for wielding control over non-Jews,” said political scientist Menahem Klein.

 

Mr. Klein is one of several scholars who have charted the emergence of contemporary expressions of militant Judaism. Mr. Klein labels it Jewish messianism and categorises it as “a new Judaism.”

 

Mr. Klein argued that “this new Judaism was not shaped in the beit midrash (study hall of the Torah) as classical Judaism was, but within the framework of a dominant Israeli regime in general and rule over the Palestinians in particular. The ethnocentrism evolved from a form of self-awareness into a modus operandi, from a universal mission into oppression and occupation.”

 

“Jewish messianism has undergone a transformation. Classic Jewish literature depicted the advent of a messianic age following a catastrophe or great crisis, the birth pangs of the Messiah, a war of Gog and Magog. All those elements are part of the messianic transition from the realm of history into one that transcends history,” Mr. Klein said.

 

“In contrast, the new Jewish messianism is a product of historical success, the achievement of Jewish sovereignty, and the wielding of power over non-Jewish surroundings,” the political scientist went on to say.

 

Israeli-born sociologist Gideon Shafir has charted what he describes as an evolution from a perceived secular Jewish privilege that justified a claim to Palestine based on religion, ethnicity, and/or race to notions of Jewish supremacy rooted in Jewish religious law as articulated by members of Israel’s current government and proponents of militant religious Zionism.

 

Both scholars' research is significant as religion and religious law take centre stage in Israeli claims to all of Palestine. The territorial claims and treatment of Palestinians shine a spotlight on Jewish religious legal precepts, much like the 9/11 attacks did with Islam.

 

For now, religious Zionism informs Israel’s militant nationalist, ultra-religious, and settler communities. The degree to which that reflects sentiments among a majority of the Israeli public remains unclear. This is even if recent mass protests against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul failed to take into account Palestinian concerns.

 

A recent Israeli television Channel 13 opinion poll suggested that if elections were held today, Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party would lose 12 of its 32 seats in parliament. Seventy-one percent of those polled said Mr. Netanyahu performed poorly as prime minister.

 

Ultra-nationalist and ultra-religious parties would fare better, losing only five of their 25 seats in parliament. In other words, they represent a committed minority of 20 per cent of the Israeli primarily Jewish public, a substantial minority but a minority.

 

Even so, according to the polls, Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition would not emerge from new elections with a parliamentary majority.

 

The numbers are significant beyond the perspective they cast on the trajectory of Israeli policies hardening on the occupied West Bank and Israel’s borders with Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.

 

For now, the numbers suggest that religious ultra-conservatism has made significant inroads in reshaping religious Zionism but has yet to secure buy-in from Israel’s majority secular and traditional electorate.

 

It may also have yet to secure acceptance among more moderate religious Zionists. This is even though religious Zionists agree, in the words of Israeli religious Zionist writer Ehud Neor that “Israel is not a nation-state in Western terms. It's a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy that Jewish people were always meant to be in the Holy Land and to follow the Holy Torah, and by doing so, they would be a light unto the world."

 

Speaking to the author, Mr. Neor went on to say that “there is a global mission to Judaism. We've been forced to think of it that way because of the exile and the trauma of 2000 years of persecution. The idea is that there is an ideology behind this religious belief. It's a religious approach that is also a political ideology.”

 

Nevertheless, the emergence of religiously anchored concepts of Jewish supremacy has potentially far-reaching consequences for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly as the fiction of a possible two-state solution sinks in and Israelis and Palestinians accept that they are condemned to live in one state.

 

The question is what impact that realization will have on Israeli public opinion and, more importantly, what kind of state it will imagine.

 

“In the 21st century, the expansion of the settlements and the transformation of the Palestinian Authority into a subcontractor of Israel has resulted in a single regime between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The settlements are not built ‘there,’ far away; they are ‘here.’ This is, in effect, a regime of Jewish supremacy. The number of Jews living under that system is roughly equal to or slightly less than the number of Palestinians,” Mr. Klein noted.

 

“Jewish supremacy is also the response to the challenge posed by Palestinians who are Israeli citizens. Their increasing integration into the Jewish-controlled public domain and labor market, even as they emphasize their indigenous Palestinian identity, and their collaboration with Jewish civil society organizations, are giving rise to a hybrid reality for them as well. This is an ethnic-civil hybridity,” Mr. Klein went on to say.

 

“Although these Palestinians are discriminated against, their citizenship is secure and thus threatens the ethnic underpinnings of the regime,” he added.

 

Men like Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich envision a religious Jewish state grounded in Jewish religious law where, ideally, Palestinians would disappear but, more realistically, be discriminated against, politically repressed, second-class citizens.

 

In hindsight, the evolution from secularism toward religiously justified Jewish supremacy may have been inevitable.

 

An evolving emphasis on different religious texts characterizes the evolution. The secular Labour movement and the left, which initially dominated Israel for its first several decades, sought religious grounding in the Talmud, the primary rabbinical source of religious law and theology.

 

In contrast to the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible, the Talmud focuses less on the history of Jewish life in the Land of Israel in Antiquity. The Hebrew Bible’s focus makes it more of a guiding text for religious Zionists and ultra-nationalists like Messrs. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.

 

“A sovereign state with a large Jewish majority could not have existed without the ethnic cleansing carried out in the 1948 war and its aftermath. Back then, a new form of Judaism had already started to take on form and substance. That process was accelerated after 1967 with the establishment of the settlements. In school textbooks, the Books of Joshua, Judges, and Kings supplanted those of the prophets who had preached social justice and a moral regime – Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Amos,” Mr. Klein noted.

 

The transition from privilege to supremacy, described by Mr. Shafir, the sociologist, was fuelled by Israel’s 1967 conquest of Arab lands and the rise a decade later of right-wing leader Menahem Begin who envisioned the occupied West Bank as the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria rather than the building blocks of a future Palestinian state.

 

The transition raised tricky legal questions for religious Zionist rabbis and scholars. While the harsh commandments of conquest codified in Maimonides’s 12th century Mishne Torah barred a return to Arab sovereignty of occupied land, the status of the territories’ inhabitants needed to be defined, according to Mr. Shafir.

 

Did they qualify as ger toshav, resident aliens, and on what conditions? Were they idolaters, or did they observe the seven commandments of the Sons of Noah that constitute principles imposed on non-Jews? Did residents need to recognise Jewish supremacy? If so, was it still necessary to make them ‘wretched and humiliated’ following Maimondes’ commandments, and how does one do that? What is the fate of the residents if they did not qualify as ger toshav and therefore had no right to remain on the territory?

 

Israelis evaded answering these questions before the capture in 1967 of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem. They were effectively fudged as Israel tried to figure out how to deal with a non-Jewish minority within its legal borders. The willingness and ability to continue to do so post-1967 was fundamentally altered by the demographics of the conquest of land that held great significance for religious nationalists.

 

Fudging issues was no longer an option. Instead, the conquest set off a process in Judaism not unlike the impact of Muslim religious forces’ political and social involvement in the search for a social order in Muslim-majority lands that accommodated both Islam and modernity with similar outcomes.

 

Militant religious Zionism's halakhic state is not that different from concepts of an Islamic state's notions of the caliphate, and political Islamic and jihadist thinking, regarding what it means for the majority of the population as well as minorities.

 

The process of building support for notions of a Jewish or an Islamic theocracy involved ensuring that a politicized religion played an ever more important role in identity.

 

Much like in the Islamic State, politicization involved territorial ambition. In militant religious Zionist views of a Jewish state grounded in the Halakha, this meant an Israel that controlled the land of ancient Israel in which there would be no place, indeed no equitable place, for non-Jews.

 

Opportunity and necessity beckoned militant religious Zionism with the 1967 war conquests because control was no longer a theoretical issue. The commandment to inherit and settle the land of Israel could no longer be shoved to the sidelines.

 

As a result, it became the battering ram in what was a struggle between religious Zionism’s halakhic notions of the Land of Israel versus the secular Zionist concepts of a State of Israel.

 

It was a battle that was fought, unlike discussions in Islam about the nature of an Islamic state, in which legal debate about the rules that govern statecraft, warfare, and policies towards minorities had stagnated for more than a millennium because they were of no relevance to a community that did not control a state and land of its own and was a minority in its own right.

 

“There is no precedent in Jewish history for the existence of a Jewish state that constitutes a regional power and rules another people. Never before has the Jewish people possessed a combination like this of sovereignty, power, and control, which are being exploited to oppress another people,” said Mr. Klein, the political scientist.

 

American Rabbi Brant Rosen, a co-founder of the Jewish Voices for Peace Rabbinical Council and former president of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, noted that “Judaism was always a Diaspora-focussed religion. Jews have always lived throughout the Diaspora… The question is, how do we ensure Jewish safety? Is it through nationalism, through ethnic nationalism?... Jewish safety at the expense of safety of other people is not safety at all."

 

Religious Zionists had little, if anything, to help them come to grips with the immense changes in the structure and legitimacy of the state since Maimonides codified Jewish law in the 12th century.

 

The codification represented a worldview that did not bode well for Jews or non-Jews, certainly not in a 21st-century world. Yet, Maimonides' 14-volume magnus opus constituted legal ground zero for them.

 

Maimonides codified Jewish concepts that influenced Muslim legal thinking and have been retained in Judaism and Islam even though they were no longer appropriate or fit for purpose.

 

The halakhic notion of the ger toshav was not all that different from the notion of the dhimmi but suddenly had taken on a relevance it had not had for a thousand years.

 

Like the dhimmi, the ger toshav was expected to pay tribute. Also, like the dhimmi, the ger toshav did not enjoy equal rights.

 

Maimonides argued in favor of the subjugation of the ger toshav that needed to be “demeaning and humiliating.” Residents were not allowed to lift their heads against Israel or be offered preferential treatment.

 

The modern-day religious Zionist interpretation of these principles means that the Israeli government must demand that ger toshav or residents recognise Jewish sovereignty and Israel as a Jewish state. Refusal to do so would deprive them of the right to reside on the land, a principle creeping into Israeli policies.

 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become a zero-sum game; it's ‘us against them.’ A one-state solution with equal treatment and protection for all is no longer feasible if militant religious Zionism gets its way.

 

Common wisdom says what is needed is pressure on Israel, particularly from the United States and Europe. No doubt, pressure helps, but much like Nahdlatul Ulama has taken the lead in tackling head-on legal, ideological, and religious issues that make Islam part of the problem rather than the solution, Jews will have to do the same for Judaism.

 

9/11 put Islam’s problems on the front burner. Israel and Jews could face a similar situation as circumstances in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, as a result of Israeli policies spin out of control.

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Religion inspired the nation-state, but politics made the difference.

 

         

 

Religion inspired the nation-state, but politics made the difference.

JAMES M. DORSEY; APR 13 2023;

 

 

 Think that the modern nation-state originated with the emergence of the 17th-century beginnings of the era of science and reason? Think again.

 

In a recently published book, political scientist Anna Gryzmala-Busse traces the origins of the modern state to medieval Europe when religion and the church played a powerful role rather than the 16th-century beginnings of the modern era.

 

Ms. Gryzmala-Busse’s analysis is not simply academic and historical.

 

It puts in a different light notions of Christian religiosity and heritage in Central and Eastern Europe that have strained relations in the European Union between Western European states and former Communist countries like Hungary as well as secular Europe’s struggle to come to grips with the religiosity of their Muslim minorities, nowhere more so than in France.

 

Although Ms. Gryzmala-Busse’s focus is on Christianity and Europe, her analysis helps explain why the Sunni Muslim world took a different path and why the concept of a caliphate remains a hot-button issue in Islam.

 

Ms. Gryzmala-Busse asserted that secular European rulers needed to create institutions to collect taxes and have an institutional base for fighting wars and negotiating peace on a fragmented continent.

 

To do so, monarchs adopted administrative policies and approaches developed by a wealthy church that was Europe's single largest landowner. It levied taxes on its land holdings. In addition, the church boasted a highly educated elite, commanded authority, and held out the prospect of salvation.

 

As a result, “the church was an essential source of legal, administrative, and conciliar innovations… The church showed rulers how to collect taxes more efficiently, request and answer a flood of petitions, keep records and accounts, interpret the law, and hold counsels that could provide valuable consent,” Ms. Gryzmala-Busse wrote.

 

“Concepts such as representation, binding consent, and even majority rules relied on ecclesiastical precedents,” she said.

 

In short, “the medieval church was so influential because it was armed with superior organizational reach, human capital, and spiritual authority,” Ms. Gryzmala-Busse concluded.

 

Implicitly, Ms. Gryzmala-Busse acknowledged that the Muslim world travelled down a different path when she noted that there were no governance models in Asia and the Middle East that medieval European leaders could emulate.

 

Ms. Gryzmala-Busse was likely referring to Islam scholar Ahmed Kuru’s ground-breaking analysis of what he called the state-ulema alliance.

 

That alliance precluded an arrangement similar to that between the church and rulers as portrayed by political scientist Jonathan Laurence. This arrangement involved rulers successfully deploying what they had learnt from clerics to curtail and sideline the church.

 

In his award-winning book, Mr. Laurence noted that ultimately the church could no longer prevail and accepted temporal jurisdiction over what became the tiny Vatican state while reaching a modus vivendi with European governments that ensured its continued existence and enabled it to thrive.

 

“European nations strong-armed, expropriated, violated, and humiliated the Catholic hierarchy,” forcing it to “relinquish its 1,000-year claim to political rule and focus instead on advocacy, global spiritual influence, and its evangelizing mission,” Mr. Laurence wrote.

 

The political scientist argued further that European efforts to undermine the Ottoman caliphate that was abolished in 1924 in the wake of the emergence of a modern Turkish state fueled theological differences in the Sunni Muslim world.

 

While that may have been a contributing factor, Mr. Kuru’s analysis suggested that the evolution of relations between the state and religious scholars in the Sunni Muslim world would have prevented it from adopting the European model irrespective of external attitudes towards the caliphate. So did the absence in Islam of a central authority like the pope.

 

Mr. Kuru traced the modern-day state template in many Muslim-majority countries to the 11th century. This is when Islamic scholars who until then had, by and large, refused to surrender their independence to the state were co-opted by Muslim rulers.

 

The transition coincided with the rise of the military state legitimized by religious scholars who had little choice but to join its employ. They helped the state develop Sunni Muslim orthodoxy based on text rather than reason- or tradition-based interpretations of Islam.

 

It is an orthodoxy that prevails until today even though various states such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have adopted far-reaching social change as part of economic reform efforts and as a regime survival strategy.

 

The orthodoxy is reflected in reticence with few exceptions to reform outdated religious legal tenets, particularly when it comes to notions of the state.

 

In a bold move in February, Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest, Indonesia-based Muslim civil society movement argued that Islamic jurisprudence needs to be updated to introduce the notion of the nation-state and a United Nations that groups these states.

 

The movement contended that this would involve abolishing the notion of the caliphate as a legal concept.

 

“It is neither feasible nor desirable to re-establish a universal caliphate that would unite Muslims throughout the world in opposition to non-Muslims…. Attempts to do so will inevitably be disastrous and contrary to the purposes of Sharia (Islamic law): i.e., the protection of religion, human life, sound reasoning, family, and property,” the group said in a declaration on its centennial according to the Hijra calendar.

 

Nahdlatul Ulama’s reforms of Islamic jurisprudence do not bind others in a Muslim world where religious authority is decentralised.

 

However, they lay down a marker that other Muslim legal authorities will ultimately be unable to ignore in their bid to garner recognition as proponents of a genuinely moderate Islam.

 

As a result, politics rather than morality or spirituality will determine Nahdlatul Ulama’s impact beyond Indonesia, the world’s most populous and largest Muslim-majority democracy.

 

The importance of politics is reinforced by the implicit agreement between scholars Gryzmala-Busse , Laurence and Kuru that the state has successfully subjugated religious power in Europe as well as much of the Sunni Muslim world.

 

However, the difference is that in Europe the church withdrew from politics and retreated to the spiritual realm while in the Muslim world religious figures retain some clout with rulers wanting them to legitmise their authoritarian or autocratic rule.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Edible oil Local production in Pakistan

 

 


Introduction to Oil Seed Crops

Introduction to Oil Seed Crops

Oil Seed Crops are primarily grown for the oil contained in the seeds and widely used in cooking across Pakistan. The oil content percentage in oil seed crops varies from 20 % to 60 % depending upon the size and variety. Many oilseed crops are grown in Pakistan predominantly as a source of vegetable oil. The commonly grown varieties are Rapeseed mustard, groundnut and sesame, which are grown in the country for a long period. Sunflower, soybean and safflower have been introduced recently in the country. There are also some oilseed crops, which are mainly used for industrial purposes, such as linseed and castor. Presently, local production of oilseeds meets only about 32% percent of the total country's requirements for edible oil. The Benefits of Oil Seed Crops

 

Import

Edible oil is Pakistan’s largest food import commodity ranking third in the import list after petroleum products and machinery. Pakistan is dependent upon other countries to fulfill more than 80% edible oil requirement and spending a big amount of foreign exchange every year.   The country’s annual import of edible oil stands at a staggering $4 billion, causing a significant drain on the country’s economy.

 

Local production

The local production of edible oil is less than 20% of country’s requirements. The gap between production and consumption of edible oil is still increasing due to increase in population and increase in per capita consumption of edible oil in our daily diet. Directorate of Oilseeds, Ayub Agricultural Research Institute, Faisalabad (Pakistan) is carrying out research activities to develop oilseed crop varieties/hybrids including Canola, Rapeseed, Mustard, Sunflower, Sesame and Soybean having better adaptability under the scenario of climate change. As an outcome of research activities, Directorate of Oilseeds evolved more than 30 varieties of above-mentioned oilseed crops which significantly played important role in enhancing provincial and national production of oilseeds. In recent years, ORI Faisalabad worked on enhanced pace and developed high yielding varieties of Canola i.e. Sandal Canola, Super Canola and AARI Canola. AARI Canola is the Pakistan’s 1st Canola version (00) variety in Mustard group and got much popularity among farmers due to short growing period, shattering tolerance and high omega-3 oil. With the collaborative efforts of Directorate of Oilseeds and other stake holders, especially Agriculture extension wing, the farming community was inspired to grow oilseed crops which significantly enhanced crop area in the province. Use of quality seed of better oilseed varieties and adoption of appropriate production technology also enhanced the average per acre production of oilseed crops during last two years. However, mechanization in cultivation of oilseed crops can further accelerate the growth of oilseeds sector. 

: There are many benefits and advantages of growing oil seed crops such as: Grown in any Farm System: Almost all the varieties of oil seed crops can be grown in any farming system. These crops are mostly weather resistant and can be grown in all sorts of weather conditions and have the following advantages:  These crops are easy to grow and doØ not require any till farm practice.  Oil seed crops can be easily grown inØ mulch till as well as no till farms.  No specific mechanization is requiredØ and can be easily grown through conventional farming methods. Rotational Crops: Out of all the varieties of oil seed crops, some of them are summer varieties and others are winter varieties. So they can be used as a form of rotational crops between the conventional crops grown in summer and winter season which leads to soil fertility and enhances the nutrient composition of soil for other crops to be grown. Support for Pest Management: Oil seed crops are ideal for pest hit land as when grown, they change the chemical pesticide formulation to assist in weed and disease control. All the varieties of oil seed crop helps in reducing the grassy weed hence providing optimum produce. These crops are also resistant to insects. Addition to Soil Health and Quality: As these crops also serve the purpose of rotational crops, their farming helps in making the soil fertile thus increasing the soil sustainability. Oil seed crops are tap root crops so they break the tillage pans by utilizing the different moisture profiles. These crops also help in reducing the soil erosion and help in keeping it firm thus increasing the chances for soil microbial activity which is required for the optimum crop growth and production. Economic Value: The main advantage of oil seed crops is that they provide alternative opportunities in marketing in the form of oil and meal byproducts which can be used on farm after processing to reduce energy and feed costs. Additionally, the crops grown after the harvesting of oil seed crops, always give higher yield because of the soil sustainability factor gained through planting oil seed crops. Oil seed crops have diversified markets for assisting with farm sustainability. Oil Seed Crops 2 Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) Nutritional Value: Fats and oils are essential nutrients, comprising about 40% of the calories in the average diet intake. Edible vegetable oils are used as salad or cooking oils, or may be solidified (by a process called hydrogenation) to make margarine and shortening. These products supplement or replace animal products (e.g., butter, lard), supplies of which are inadequate to meet the needs of an increasing world population. Oil Seed Crop Varieties: Following are the commonly grown and used varieties of oil seed crops: Rapeseed-Mustard and Canola: Rapeseed-Mustard and Canola is a rich source of oil and protein. The seed has oil as high as 46-48 percent, Whole seed meal has 43.6 percent protein. Rapeseed meal is an excellent feed for animals. Salient characteristics of this crop is that it has high yielding potential and better tolerance to stresses like drought and extreme cold. Commonly used varieties in Pakistan are:  DGL·  Toria-A·  Raya L-18·  Poorbi Raya·  Raya Anmol·  Khanpur Raya·  Punjab Canola·  Faisal Canola· Sunflower: Sunflower has been accommodated between the two major crops in a cotton and rice-based cropping system, or on fallow land in summers. Moreover, sunflower displays good intercropping compatibility with other crops. The commonly used sunflower varieties are:  PARC-92E·  SMH-9706·  SMH-0907·  SMH-0917· Soybean: It is one of the most important oilseed crops in the world. It contains 18 to 22 percent oil and is highly desirable in the diet and have 40 to 42 percent of good quality protein. Therefore, it is the best source of protein and oil and truly claim the title of the meat/oil that grows on plants. Generally, it is used in the food industry for flour, oil, margarine, cookies, biscuit, candy, milk, vegetable cheese, lecithin and many other products. Oil Seed Crops 3 Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) Soybean is a dual season crop and a high yielding produce as well. The most commonly grown variety is:  Faisal Soybean· Sesame: It is widely naturalized in tropical regions around the world and is cultivated for its edible seeds, which grow in pods. Sesame seed is one of the oldest corn-seed crops known, domesticated well over 3000 years ago. It was a major summer crop in the Middle East for thousands of years, as attested to by the discovery of many ancient presses for sesame oil in the region. Sesame is drought-tolerant and is able to grow where other crops fail. Sesame has one of the highest oil contents of any oil seed. The commonly grown varieties SG-51·  SG-43·  SG-30· Linseed / Flax Flax is an annual plant, 18 -36 inches tall, with small and thin leaves and blue flowers. Flax is cultivated both for seed as well as for fiber. The different portions of the plant have been utilized to produce fabric, medicines, paper, dye, fishing nets in addition to soap. A vegetable oil known as linseed oil or flaxseed oil is produced by the seeds. In addition to this flaxseed meal is used as animal feed. According to researchers, there is an evidence that flaxseed is good for improving overall health or preventing diseases. The commonly used variety is:  Chandni·

 

Coastal area potential

Experts suggest that the coastal areas of Sindh have high potential for the production of palm, sesame, and canola oils, but it is imperative that the government takes swift action to increase production and reduce reliance on imports.

 

President Sindh Chamber of Agriculture Miran Mohammed Shah highlighted that the Southern Divisions of Sindh, including the areas of Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, and Shaheed Benazirabad, are already making advances in growing oilseed crops

 

Governments support

Due to non-standardised approaches, locally cultivated different edible oil plant varieties have not been able to achieve desired results. For example, in Mianwali, Canola is being cultivated significantly now, but the non-approved Canola variety of UAF-11 used by the majority of farmers contains around 20% euric acid, exceeding the maximum limit of euric acid for edible oil, which is less than 5%. This lack of standardisation has resulted in a rise in smuggling due to the hike in prices of edible oil.

“The edible oil industry doesn’t want to a pay fair price to the local farmers, but seems to be willing to pay more to foreign growers,”  

 

Local farmers are not getting any support from the government side in the development of these seeds, including incentives like subsidised rates and ensuring the availability and development of such seeds.

 

Policy

There is a huge opportunity in Pakistan to grow oil seeds with a sustained long-term policy. This policy should  include the provision of quality seeds/plants, proper pricing, and extension work so that growers can attain proper yields and return on the crop.

Despite identifying the opportunity to grow oil seeds in Pakistan for more than a decade, there is still a lack of attention from the government in agriculture to develop a long-term sustainable policy, he said.

With the country’s reliance on imports and rising prices of edible oil, urgent action is necessary to boost the local production of edible oil in Pakistan. The potential for the production of palm, sesame, and canola oils in the coastal areas of Sindh can be harnessed with the government’s intervention and support for standardized approaches and the development of quality seeds/plants. A sustained long-term policy is needed to improve the agriculture sector’s production of edible oil in Pakistan.

 

 

Thursday, March 16, 2023

China has shattered the assumption of US dominance in the Middle East

 

China has shattered the assumption of US dominance in the Middle East

Nic Robertson

Analysis by Nic Robertson, CNN

Published 12:21 AM EDT, Wed March 15, 2023

 

With a grandiose diplomatic flourish China brokered a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, in the process upending US calculus in the Gulf and beyond.

 

While the United States has angered its Gulf allies by apparently dithering over morality, curbing arms supplies and chilling relations, Saudi Arabia’s King-in-waiting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, has found a kindred spirit in China’s leader Xi Jinping.

 

Both are bold, assertive, willing to take risks and seemingly share unsated ambition.

 

Friday’s announcement that Riyadh and Tehran had renewed diplomatic ties was unexpected, but it shouldn’t have been. It is the logical accumulation of America’s diplomatic limitations and China’s growing quest to shape the world in its orbit.

 

Beijing’s claim that “China pursues no selfish interest whatsoever in the Middle East,” rings hollow. It buys more oil from Saudi Arabia than any other country in the world.  

 

Xi needs energy to grow China’s economy, ensure stability at home and fuel its rise as a global power.

 

His other main supplier, Russia, is at war, its supplies therefore in question. By de-escalating tensions between Saudi and Iran, Xi is not only shoring up his energy alternatives but, in a climate of growing tension with the US, also heading off potential curbs on his access to Gulf oil.

 

Xi’s motivation appears fueled by wider interests, but even so the US State Department welcomed the surprise move, spokesman Ned Price saying, “we support anything that would serve to deescalate tensions in the region, and potentially help to prevent conflict.”

 

Iran has buy-in because China has economic leverage. In 2021 the pair signed a trade deal reportedly worth up to $400 billion of Chinese investment over 25 years, in exchange for a steady supply of Iranian oil.

 

Tehran is isolated by international sanctions and Beijing is providing a glimmer of financial relief.

 

And, in the words of Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei last year, there’s also the hope of more to come as he sees geopolitical power shifting east.

 

Asia will become the center of knowledge, the center of economics, as well as the center of political power, and the center of military power,” Khamenei said.

 

Saudi has buy-in because war with Iran would wreck its economy and ruin MBS’s play for regional dominance. His bold visions for the country’s post fossil-fuel future and domestic stability depend on inwardly investing robust oil and gas revenues.

 

US State Department spokesman Ned Price pictured in July 2022.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price pictured in July 2022.

Stefani Reynolds/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

US influence on the wane

It may sound simple, but the fact the US couldn’t pull it off speaks to the complexities and nuance of everything that’s been brewing over the past two decades.

 

America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have burned through a good part of its diplomatic capital in the Middle East.

 

Many in the Gulf see the development of the war in Ukraine as an unnecessary and dangerous American adventure, and some of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s territorial claims over Ukraine not without merit.

 

 

What the global West sees as a fight for democratic values lacks resonance among the Gulf autocracies, and the conflict doesn’t consume them in the same way as it does leaders in European capitals.

 

Saudi Arabia, and MBS in particular, have become particularly frustrated with America’s flip-flop diplomacy: dialling back relations over the Crown Prince’s role in the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi (which MBS denies); then calling on him to cut oil production swiftly followed by requests to increase it.

 

These inconsistencies have led the Saudis to hew policy to their national interests and less to America’s needs.

 

During his visit to Saudi last July, US President Joe Biden said: “We will not walk away and leave a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia, or Iran.” It seems now that the others are walking away from him.

 

China steps up

On Beijing’s part, China’s Gulf intervention signals its own needs, and the opportunity to act arrived in a single serving.

 

Xi helped himself because he can. The Chinese leader is a risk taker.

 

His abrupt ending of austere Covid-19 pandemic restrictions at home is just one example, but this is a more complex roll of the dice.

 

Mediation in the Middle East can be a poisoned chalice, but as big as the potential gains are for China, the wider implications for the regional, and even global order, are quantifiably bigger and will resonate for years.

 

 

Yet harbingers of this shake-up and the scale of its impact have been in plain sight for months. Xi’s high-profile, red-carpet reception in Riyadh last December for his first overseas visit after abandoning his domestic “zero-Covid” policy stirred the waters.

 

During that trip Saudi and Chinese officials signed scores of deals worth tens of billions of dollars.

 

China’s Foreign Ministry trumpeted Xi’s visit, paying particular attention to one particular infrastructure project: “China will deepen industrial and infrastructure cooperation with Saudi Arabia (and) advance the development of the China-Saudi Arabia (Jizan) Industrial Park.”

 

The Jizan project, part of China’s belt and road initiative, heralds huge investment around the ancient Red Sea port, currently Saudi’s third largest.

 

 

Opinion: What to make of China's role in the handshake heard round the world

Jizan lies close to the border with Yemen, the scene of a bloody civil war and proxy battle between Riyadh and Tehran since 2014, sparking what the United Nations has described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

 

Significantly since Xi’s visit, episodic attacks by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels on Jizan have abated.

 

There are other effects too: the plans to upscale Jizan’s container handling puts Saudi in greater competition with the UAE’s container ports and potentially strains another regional rivalry, as MBS drives to become the dominant regional power, usurping UAE’s role as regional hub for global businesses.

 

Xi will have an interest seeing both Saudi Arabia and the UAE prosper, but Saudi is by far the bigger partner with higher potential global economic heft and, importantly, massive religious clout in the Islamic world.

 

Rivals share common ground on Iran policy

Where the UAE and Saudi align strongly is eschewing direct conflict with Tehran.

 

A deadly drone attack in Abu Dhabi late last year was claimed by the Houthis, before the rebels quickly rescinded it. But no one publicly blamed the Houthis’ sponsors in Tehran.

 

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A once shaky ceasefire in Yemen now also seems to be moving toward peace talks, perhaps yet another indication of the potential of China’s influence in the region.

 

Beijing is acutely aware of what a continued war over the Persian Gulf could cost its commercial interests – another reason why a Saudi/Iran rapprochement makes sense to Xi.

 

Iran blames Saudi for stoking the massive street protests through its towns and cities since September.

 

Saudi denies that accusation, but when Iran moved drones and long-range missiles close to its Gulf coast and Saudi, Riyadh called on its friends to ask Tehran to de-escalate. Russia and China did, the threat dissipated.

 

Questions remain over nuclear weapons

Tehran, despite US diplomatic efforts, is also closing in on nuclear weapons capability and Saudi’s MBS is on record saying he’ll ensure parity, “if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”

 

Late last week US officials said Saudi was seeking US security guarantees and help developing a civilian nuclear program as part of a deal to normalize relations with Israel, an avowed enemy of Iran’s Ayatollahs.

 

Indeed, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel late January, concerned over a rising Palestinian death toll in a violent year in the region, potential settlement expansions and controversial changes to Israel’s judiciary Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Blinken about “expanding the circle of peace,” and improving relations with Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia.

 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2021.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left) with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in May 2021.

Haim Zach/Government Press Office/Getty Images

But as Saudi seems to shift closer to Tehran, Netanyahu’s mission just got harder. While both Saudi and Israel strongly oppose a nuclear-armed Iran, only Netanyahu seems ready to confront Tehran.

 

“My policy is to do everything within Israel’s power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons,” the Israeli leader told Blinken.

 

Riyadh favors diplomacy. As recently as last week the Saudi foreign minister said: “It’s absolutely critical … that we find and an alternative pathway to ensuring an (Iranian) civilian nuclear program.”

 

By improving ties with Tehran, he said, “we can make it quite clear to the Iranians that this is not just a concerns of distant countries but it’s also a concern of its neighbors.”

 

For years this is what America did, such as brokering the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA, in 2015.

 

Xi backed that deal, the Saudis didn’t want it, Iran never trusted it, Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump’s withdrawal confirmed Iran’s fears and sealed its fate, despite the ongoing proximity talks to get American diplomats seated at the table again.

 

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 8, 2022.

5 key takeaways from Xi's trip to Saudi Arabia

Iran has raced ahead in the meantime, massively over-running the bounds of the JCPOA limits on uranium enrichment and producing almost weapons-grade material.

 

What’s worse for Washington is that Trump’s JCPOA withdrawal legacy tainted international perceptions of US commitment, continuity and diplomacy. All these circumstances perhaps signaled to Xi that his time to seize the lead on global diplomacy was coming.

 

Yet the Chinese leader seems to accept what Netanyahu won’t and what US diplomacy is unable to prevent: that sooner, rather than later, Iran will have a nuclear weapon. As such, Xi may be fostering Saudi-Iran rapprochement as a hedge against that day.

 

So Netanyahu looks increasingly isolated and the Israeli leader, already under huge domestic pressure from spiking tensions with Palestinians and huge Israeli protests over his proposed judicial reforms, now faces a massive re-think on regional security.

 

Pieces of regional puzzle shifting

The working assumption of American diplomatic regional primacy is broken, and Netanyahu’s biggest ally is now not as hegemonic as he needs. But by how much is still far from clear.

 

It’s not a knockout, but a gut blow, to Washington. How Xi calculates the situation isn’t clear either. The US is not finished, far from it, but it is diminished, and both powers are coexisting in a different way now.

 

Earlier this month, the Chinese leader made unusually direct comments accusing the US of leading a campaign against China and causing serious domestic woes.

 

Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission attends a meeting with Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani and Minister of State and national security adviser of Saudi Arabia Musaad bin Mohammed Al Aiban in Beijing, China March 10, 2023. China Daily via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. CHINA OUT.

Iran and Saudi Arabia signal the start of a new era, with China front and center

“Western countries led by the United States have contained and suppressed us in an all-round way, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our development,” Xi told a group of government advisers representing private businesses on the sidelines of an annual legislative meeting in Beijing.

 

Meanwhile, Biden has defined the future US-China relationship as “competition not confrontation,” and he has built his foreign policy around the tenets of standing up for democracy.

 

It is striking that neither Xi, nor Khamenei, nor MBS are troubled by the moral dilemmas that circumscribe Biden. This is the big challenge the US president warned about, and now it’s here. An alternative world order, irrespective of what happens in Ukraine.