You have no idea how many resolutions at the UN Pakistan has sponsored or co-sponsored on the Palestine issue. In the times of Nehru, India did go to bat for the Palestinians, but after him, this support has constantly been on the decline.
Zia did have a part to play in the 70s uprising in Jordan, but more than made up his relationship with Yasser Arafat who was a regular visitor to Pakistan during Zia's time.
Your fact less points are not helping the discussion much. Pakistan never diverted Israeli captured Palestinian arms to Afghan mujahideen. The Israelis offered captured inventory from Egypt and Syria from the 73 war through an intermediary and Pakistani side rejected these due to sensitivities. This is documented in Charlie Wilson's book but the detractors of Mujahideen and Pakistan keep on bringing this point up to show that these folks are hypocritical because they had no qualms accepting these arms from Israel but bad mouth it. A simple fact is that by the time the Israelis made this offer, the Egyptians were producing Soviet origin equipment in their state factories. This provided the Mujahideen a considerable source of equipment. The CIA placed multiple orders with the Egyptians for the equipment which in turn negated the need for any supply from the Israelis. There was no Palestinian connection here which you seem to have unfortunately conjured up to add to your bash-Pakistan list.
Altogether, Pakistan has always supported the Palestinian cause and continues to do so with the same gusto and vigor today which is quite contrary to India's support which is increasingly becoming marginal by the day as the GoI and the Indian security establishment tries to chummy up to Israel.
Qualitatively, Pakistan's support for the Palestinians, as compared to that of India is much better.
I agree with your point to EyelessinGaza.
I believe you may have your facts wrong there. A book review of "Charlie Wilsons War" by the Pakistani daily times is as follows.
Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan
Pakistan got Israeli weapons during Afghan war
Daily Times Monitor
WASHINGTON: Most of the Afghan war against the Soviet Union was fought using Israeli arms supplied after General Ziaul Haq entered into secret deals with Tel Aviv, says a recently published book, Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History.
The book reveals that the Pakistan Army was not averse to secret defence cooperation with Israel, although it did not acknowledge any contact with that country publicly. Congressman Charles Wilson — a pro-Pakistan activist and the central figure to get CIA-funded weapons for Pakistan — is credited in the 550-page book as the man who broke up the Soviet Union with the help of a 48-year old Houston woman “whom General Ziaul Haq fancied”.
The book claims that Wilson asked Zia to deal with the Israelis during his first visit to US after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The proposal was made at a grand dinner hosted by the Houston lady, Joanne Herring, who was later named as Honorary Consul of Pakistan.
The book says that Charlie Wilson informed Zia the Israelis had shown him the “vast stores of Soviet weapons they had captured from the PLO in Lebanon”. The weapons were perfect for the mujahideen. If Wilson could convince the CIA to buy them, would Zia have any problems passing them on to the Afghans? Zia, ever the pragmatist, smiled, saying, “Just don’t put any Stars of David on the boxes”.
“With that encouragement,” the narrative goes on, “Wilson pushed on. Just the previous month, he had learned that the Israelis were secretly upgrading the Chinese army’s Russian-designed T-55 tanks. In Islamabad, he had been startled to see that the Chinese were supplying Pakistan with T-55s. The congressman now proposed that Zia enter into a similar secret arrangement with the Israelis.
“It was no simple proposition. Three years earlier, a mere rumor that Israel had been involved in an attack on the Great Mosque in Mecca had so radicalized the Pakistani Muslim population that thousands had stormed the US embassy in Pakistan and burned it to the ground. Zia was mindful of his people’s hatred for both Israel and the United States [but] he encouraged Wilson to continue.”
The Congressman cut the Pak-Israel deal “even without CIA knowledge”. The CIA man in Islamabad, Howard Hart, when asked years later, if he knew about Wilson’s efforts to bring the Israelis into the Afghan war, dismissed the story out of hand, insisting that the Pakistanis would never have permitted it. Yet, an astonishing collection of weapons was developed for the Afghan war in no time. The Spanish mortar, for example, was designed to make it possible for the mujahideen to communicate directly with American navigation satellites to deliver repeated rounds within inches of their designated targets.
The weapon’s name was chosen to conceal the fact that major portions of the gun were being built by the Israelis, claims the book.
It was decided that a new weapon would be introduced into the battle every three months or so, in order to bluff the Red Army into thinking their enemy was better armed and supported than it was.
The book has been selling well in the USA but is still not available in Pakistan.
