I dont think so, Pakistani journalists have highlighted this matter is also being pushed by military establishment and not just external arab/saudi arab pressure. Since Musharraf there have been continuous efforts to recognize israel and there have been many meetings with the israelis, pakistan now also imports weapons from israel.
Pakistani establishment (Pakistani military) wants to have some kind of relation with Israel and has a role to play on this issue
regards
You mean 'minority'. Considering every Muslim country is running to hug Israhell these days.
No
Alright then, believe what you want. I'm not here to convince you.
Is Pakistan edging closer to formal recognition of Israel?
Prime Minister Imran Khan said in November that he was under pressure from one of Pakistan’s allies to formally recognise Israel. Photo: AFP
Pakistan has begun to take steps toward ending a decades-old diplomatic impasse with
Israel, closely coordinating with its key ally, Saudi Arabia, on the matter while settling on an unstated position of discrete contacts but no diplomatic ties. In doing so, Pakistan is reviving a covert relationship with Israel dating back to the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan
in the 1980s. As portrayed in the 2007 Hollywood film Charlie Wilson‘s War, Israel funnelled Soviet-made weapons it captured during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war to the Afghan mujahideen through Pakistan’s intelligence services.
The change in tack comes as other Muslim-majority countries have normalised relations with Israel. The United Arab Emirates did so in August and Bahrain in September through collective agreements known as the Abraham Accords, and they were followed by Sudan in October and Morocco this past week.
Nationalist academics considered close to Pakistan’s national security establishment were initially alarmed when Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced the establishment of formal relations. In articles and comments posted on online strategic affairs forums, they expressed fears that the extension of Israel’s reach into the Gulf, while primarily directed at preventing
Iran
from developing nuclear weapons, would inevitably pose at least a major cybersecurity threat to Pakistan’s strategic arsenal.
In particular, the academics – retired generals and ambassadors among them – were deeply concerned that Pakistan, a key Chinese ally, could be sandwiched by US-led security blocs involving Israel and India: the Abraham Accords bloc and the expanding Quadrilateral security alliance against China involving Pakistan’s perennial foe, India, as well as Australia and Japan.
Israel is already a major supplier of military hardware and technology to India.
“In addition to India’s consistent arms build-up, and military modernisation, the Abraham Accord brokered by the US has direct implications for Pakistan, the biggest of which is that of the encirclement of Pakistan given the prospects of Indo-Israeli proximity near our waters,” Rabia Akhtar, a nuclear historian and foreign policy analyst who is considered a rising star of Pakistan’s nationalist academia, wrote in August in Strafasia, an online forum.
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Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed Muslim state. Its arsenal numbers more than 150 warheads, compared with Israel’s estimated 90 devices, and Pakistan’s ballistic missiles are capable of striking Israel – although it makes a point of conducting tests within the lesser range required by its focus on India, which has roughly the same number of warheads and also has China to contend with.
Coronavirus health crisis forces Israel and Palestine to cooperate
Shafaat Ullah Shah, a retired Pakistan army lieutenant general and former ambassador to Jordan, said in response to Akhtar’s article that Pakistan’s interest in Israel for now is one of engagement without establishing diplomatic relations in order to “ward off any threats, appease [the] strong Jewish lobby in the US and have access to top-of-the-line Israeli technologies.”
“By engagement, we can serve the Palestinian cause better than by confrontation” with Israel, he wrote in the comments section of Akhtar’s article. “This requires a bold initiative by our leadership and to shape environments, rather than be swayed by them.”
Michael Kugelman, senior South Asia associate at the Wilson Centre in Washington, said Pakistan’s concerns about the strategic impact of the Abraham Accords are valid.
“The geopolitics of the day certainly make Pakistan susceptible to the influence of an anti-Iran coalition, of which Saudi Arabia is a part, that in some cases has pushed for better relations – even if such relations fall short of formal recognition – with Israel,” he told This Week In Asia. “Pakistan has a keen interest in making its relationship with Saudi Arabia work, even while it pursues cordial ties with Iran, in order to position itself as a neutral player in a worsening Saudi-Iranian rivalry.”
Relations with Israel did not become part of Pakistan’s political discourse until last month, when Prime Minister Imran Khan told a local news channel that he was under pressure from an unnamed friendly state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
His remarks were widely interpreted as a reference to Saudi Arabia, with which Khan’s government clashed in August over the lack of support from the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for Pakistan’s dispute with India over Kashmir.
During the ensuing tensions, Saudi Arabia prematurely withdrew half of the $2 billion it deposited with Pakistan’s central bank in 2019 to help shore up its foreign-exchange reserves.
After a flurry of diplomatic activity and military-to-military exchanges between Islamabad and Riyadh since August, however, bilateral relations are back on track and Pakistan’s strategic concerns about the Abraham Accords appear to have subsided.
Pakistan’s powerful military is now in the Saudi loop as far as Arab moves to engage Israel on Palestinian statehood are concerned, diplomatic sources in the Gulf and Islamabad revealed to This Week In Asia on condition of anonymity.
Cryptically describing Pakistan’s evolving policy on Israel, a ranking official said: “Beyond recognition and non-recognition there is a huge field. Non-recognition doesn’t mean one can’t have contacts.”
Parallel to the discreet diplomacy, Pakistan’s government introduced the public to the emotive issue of relations with Israel through pro-establishment media voices – so as to condition its people for a prospective shift in policy, while retaining plausible deniability.
Mubasher Luqman, a TV presenter who previously served as a cabinet minister in General Pervez Musharraf’s administration, made an unprecedented remote appearance on Israeli state broadcaster I24 to discuss the long-term prospects of relations with Pakistan – a violation of Pakistani law which would ordinarily land journalists behind bars.
Following the lead of nationalist academics, top-rated television anchor Kamran Khan also broke a long-standing taboo by voicing support for diplomatic engagement with Israel, arguing that Palestinian statehood was more likely to be achieved through it.
This is how it works: you feed patently wrong information to see how this kind of balloon will fly and then have clear deniability because the story wasn’t factual to begin with Anonymous Pakistani TV anchor
The waters of public opinion were tested to extraordinary lengths by Pakistan’s government. Recently, material was distributed to popular TV anchors showing that an executive jet used by Pakistan’s top generals flew into Amman, Jordan, and remained parked there while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly met with
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 21 in the nearby Saudi Red Sea city of Neom.
The implication was that Pakistan’s intelligence tsar, Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, may have been involved – an explosive revelation, considering that Crown Prince Mohammed was reportedly told at the meeting about Israel’s plans to assassinate Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizade, near Tehran on November 27.
Only one pro-establishment TV anchor, Shahid Masood, went public with the leaked material, however. He embellished it by claiming that a 52-member Pakistani delegation had recently visited Tel Aviv and called on Prime Minister Imran Khan to order an inquiry by the intelligence services.
Rather than generating a media storm, however, Masood’s story was left well alone by his peers. One of them explained why to This Week In Asia.
“This is how it works: you feed patently wrong information to see how this kind of balloon will fly and then have clear deniability because the story wasn’t factual to begin with and the fall will be taken by the idiotic anchors,” the person said. “That’s the problem when you play close to the edge as a journalist.”
Michael Kugelman, senior South Asia associate at the Wilson Centre, a Washington-based think tank, said “it’s notable that in recent days” the OIC – of which Saudi Arabia is a key member – issued a resolution that strongly condemned India’s policies in Kashmir.
“Did Riyadh decide that its support for a strong OIC statement on Kashmir would be conditioned on Pakistan’s willingness to play a role in Saudi Arabia’s recent Israel-related deliberations? The timing of it all suggests that possibility can’t be discounted,” he said.
However, this should not be read as an indication of a Pakistani policy shift on Israel, he said.
“Given how closely Pakistan links the Palestinian issue to the Kashmir cause, its advocacy on behalf of Kashmir – one of its most important policy objectives – would suffer a major blow to its credibility if Islamabad recognised Israel.”
Is Pakistan edging closer to formal recognition of Israel?
Prime Minister Imran Khan said in November that he was under pressure from one of Pakistan’s allies to formally recognise Israel. Photo: AFP
Pakistan has begun to take steps toward ending a decades-old diplomatic impasse with
Israel, closely coordinating with its key ally, Saudi Arabia, on the matter while settling on an unstated position of discrete contacts but no diplomatic ties. In doing so, Pakistan is reviving a covert relationship with Israel dating back to the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan
in the 1980s. As portrayed in the 2007 Hollywood film Charlie Wilson‘s War, Israel funnelled Soviet-made weapons it captured during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war to the Afghan mujahideen through Pakistan’s intelligence services.
The change in tack comes as other Muslim-majority countries have normalised relations with Israel. The United Arab Emirates did so in August and Bahrain in September through collective agreements known as the Abraham Accords, and they were followed by Sudan in October and Morocco this past week.
Nationalist academics considered close to Pakistan’s national security establishment were initially alarmed when Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced the establishment of formal relations. In articles and comments posted on online strategic affairs forums, they expressed fears that the extension of Israel’s reach into the Gulf, while primarily directed at preventing
Iran
from developing nuclear weapons, would inevitably pose at least a major cybersecurity threat to Pakistan’s strategic arsenal.
In particular, the academics – retired generals and ambassadors among them – were deeply concerned that Pakistan, a key Chinese ally, could be sandwiched by US-led security blocs involving Israel and India: the Abraham Accords bloc and the expanding Quadrilateral security alliance against China involving Pakistan’s perennial foe, India, as well as Australia and Japan.
Israel is already a major supplier of military hardware and technology to India.
“In addition to India’s consistent arms build-up, and military modernisation, the Abraham Accord brokered by the US has direct implications for Pakistan, the biggest of which is that of the encirclement of Pakistan given the prospects of Indo-Israeli proximity near our waters,” Rabia Akhtar, a nuclear historian and foreign policy analyst who is considered a rising star of Pakistan’s nationalist academia, wrote in August in Strafasia, an online forum.
EVERY MONDAY
This Week in Asia Newsletter
By submitting, you consent to receiving marketing emails from SCMP. If you don't want these, tick here
By registering, you agree to our T&C and Privacy Policy
Pakistan is the only nuclear-armed Muslim state. Its arsenal numbers more than 150 warheads, compared with Israel’s estimated 90 devices, and Pakistan’s ballistic missiles are capable of striking Israel – although it makes a point of conducting tests within the lesser range required by its focus on India, which has roughly the same number of warheads and also has China to contend with.
Coronavirus health crisis forces Israel and Palestine to cooperate
Shafaat Ullah Shah, a retired Pakistan army lieutenant general and former ambassador to Jordan, said in response to Akhtar’s article that Pakistan’s interest in Israel for now is one of engagement without establishing diplomatic relations in order to “ward off any threats, appease [the] strong Jewish lobby in the US and have access to top-of-the-line Israeli technologies.”
“By engagement, we can serve the Palestinian cause better than by confrontation” with Israel, he wrote in the comments section of Akhtar’s article. “This requires a bold initiative by our leadership and to shape environments, rather than be swayed by them.”
Michael Kugelman, senior South Asia associate at the Wilson Centre in Washington, said Pakistan’s concerns about the strategic impact of the Abraham Accords are valid.
“The geopolitics of the day certainly make Pakistan susceptible to the influence of an anti-Iran coalition, of which Saudi Arabia is a part, that in some cases has pushed for better relations – even if such relations fall short of formal recognition – with Israel,” he told This Week In Asia. “Pakistan has a keen interest in making its relationship with Saudi Arabia work, even while it pursues cordial ties with Iran, in order to position itself as a neutral player in a worsening Saudi-Iranian rivalry.”
Relations with Israel did not become part of Pakistan’s political discourse until last month, when Prime Minister Imran Khan told a local news channel that he was under pressure from an unnamed friendly state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
His remarks were widely interpreted as a reference to Saudi Arabia, with which Khan’s government clashed in August over the lack of support from the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) for Pakistan’s dispute with India over Kashmir.
During the ensuing tensions, Saudi Arabia prematurely withdrew half of the $2 billion it deposited with Pakistan’s central bank in 2019 to help shore up its foreign-exchange reserves.
After a flurry of diplomatic activity and military-to-military exchanges between Islamabad and Riyadh since August, however, bilateral relations are back on track and Pakistan’s strategic concerns about the Abraham Accords appear to have subsided.
Pakistan’s powerful military is now in the Saudi loop as far as Arab moves to engage Israel on Palestinian statehood are concerned, diplomatic sources in the Gulf and Islamabad revealed to This Week In Asia on condition of anonymity.
Cryptically describing Pakistan’s evolving policy on Israel, a ranking official said: “Beyond recognition and non-recognition there is a huge field. Non-recognition doesn’t mean one can’t have contacts.”
Parallel to the discreet diplomacy, Pakistan’s government introduced the public to the emotive issue of relations with Israel through pro-establishment media voices – so as to condition its people for a prospective shift in policy, while retaining plausible deniability.
Mubasher Luqman, a TV presenter who previously served as a cabinet minister in General Pervez Musharraf’s administration, made an unprecedented remote appearance on Israeli state broadcaster I24 to discuss the long-term prospects of relations with Pakistan – a violation of Pakistani law which would ordinarily land journalists behind bars.
Following the lead of nationalist academics, top-rated television anchor Kamran Khan also broke a long-standing taboo by voicing support for diplomatic engagement with Israel, arguing that Palestinian statehood was more likely to be achieved through it.
This is how it works: you feed patently wrong information to see how this kind of balloon will fly and then have clear deniability because the story wasn’t factual to begin with Anonymous Pakistani TV anchor
The waters of public opinion were tested to extraordinary lengths by Pakistan’s government. Recently, material was distributed to popular TV anchors showing that an executive jet used by Pakistan’s top generals flew into Amman, Jordan, and remained parked there while US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reportedly met with
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 21 in the nearby Saudi Red Sea city of Neom.
The implication was that Pakistan’s intelligence tsar, Lieutenant General Faiz Hameed, may have been involved – an explosive revelation, considering that Crown Prince Mohammed was reportedly told at the meeting about Israel’s plans to assassinate Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizade, near Tehran on November 27.
Only one pro-establishment TV anchor, Shahid Masood, went public with the leaked material, however. He embellished it by claiming that a 52-member Pakistani delegation had recently visited Tel Aviv and called on Prime Minister Imran Khan to order an inquiry by the intelligence services.
Rather than generating a media storm, however, Masood’s story was left well alone by his peers. One of them explained why to This Week In Asia.
“This is how it works: you feed patently wrong information to see how this kind of balloon will fly and then have clear deniability because the story wasn’t factual to begin with and the fall will be taken by the idiotic anchors,” the person said. “That’s the problem when you play close to the edge as a journalist.”
Michael Kugelman, senior South Asia associate at the Wilson Centre, a Washington-based think tank, said “it’s notable that in recent days” the OIC – of which Saudi Arabia is a key member – issued a resolution that strongly condemned India’s policies in Kashmir.
“Did Riyadh decide that its support for a strong OIC statement on Kashmir would be conditioned on Pakistan’s willingness to play a role in Saudi Arabia’s recent Israel-related deliberations? The timing of it all suggests that possibility can’t be discounted,” he said.
However, this should not be read as an indication of a Pakistani policy shift on Israel, he said.
“Given how closely Pakistan links the Palestinian issue to the Kashmir cause, its advocacy on behalf of Kashmir – one of its most important policy objectives – would suffer a major blow to its credibility if Islamabad recognised Israel.”
