Pakistan will not establish ties with Israel- Arif Alvi

In a bizarre press conference President of Pakistan Arif Alvi said that Pakistan will not establish ties with Israel. The president termed these kinds of reports “baseless and unfounded” while speaking to the media at the airport before leaving for a three-day visit to Turkey.

What is the issue?

On Friday, reports emerged on social media regarding the presence of an alleged Israeli aircraft at Islamabad airport. The plane reportedly spent 10 hours at the airport. The information was obtained by flight tracking website Flight Radar. Speculation was rife after an Israeli journalist Avi Scharf on October 25 tweeted that an Israeli business jet flew from Tel Aviv to Islamabad where it was on the ground for 10 hours, before flying back to Tel Aviv.

BBC Urdu reported that the aircraft in question was a Canadian-manufactured Bombardier Global Express with the serial number 9394. It was registered on February 22, 2017 in the Isle of Man in the UK by a company called Multibird Overseas Ltd.

Rebuttal and criticism

However, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) denied reports of the presence of an Israeli aircraft in Pakistani airspace or at any of the country’s airports and termed the reports “totally baseless” on Saturday. Social media users flayed the Pakistan government with the Opposition also joining in to demand an explanation about the "secret Israeli mission". In a tweet, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry stated that “we will not negotiate secretly with either Modi or Israel.”

However Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader Ahsan Iqbal, who earlier led the Opposition's barrage, said Chaudhry’s reaction shows that the government is trying to hide something. "The parliament should be taken into confidence over the issue," he demanded

Pak-Israel relations

Since Israel‘s establishment in May 1948, Pakistan, being a Muslim country, has refused to establish diplomatic relations with it.  Since Pakistan’s establishment, its foreign policy has been influenced by the fact that it is a Muslim country founded on Islamic religious grounds. Islamic solidarity has been a central component of Pakistan’s foreign policy in general and toward the Middle East in particular.  Sir Zafrullah Khan the main actor of Pakistan’s Israel policy, waged a struggle against the UN Partition Plan for Palestine (1947). Khan strove for the establishment of a federal state in Palestine. During Israel’s War of Independence (1947-1949), Israel’s diplomatic mission in Washington received information that Pakistan was trying to provide military assistance to the Arabs.

After became Pakistan's foreign minister in 1952, Sir Zafarullah Khan, promoted his hardliner policies toward Israel, and pressed his policies toward the unity of Arab states. Thus Khan's policy had worked to build strategic ties with Arab states.

Pakistan not only diplomatically supported Arab nation but it taken an active part in hardcore battle against Israel on many occasions.  The Pakistan Air Force participated in the 1967 Six-Day War and the 1973 Yom Kippur War. After the Yom Kippur War, Pakistan and the PLO signed an agreement for training PLO officers in Pakistani military institutions. During the 1982 Lebanon War, Pakistani volunteers served in the PLO and 50 were taken prisoner during the Siege of Beirut.

The agreements that Israel signed with Egypt in 1978, the PLO in 1993, and Jordan in 1994 brought no change in Pakistan‘s policy.  Pakistan and Israel use their Embassies at Istanbul to mediate or exchange information with each other. In 2010, Pakistan is believed to have used its embassy in Istanbul to pass on information about a terror group to Israel according to Wiki Leaks.

Example of racial hatred

According to Time, French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy said that Daniel Pearl, an American-Israeli, was assassinated by elements with backing from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence over his alleged role in gathering information linking ISI and Al-Qaeda. According to other reports from BBC and Time, Pakistani militants beheaded him because of their belief that Daniel Pearl was an Israeli Mossad spy agent under the cover of being an American journalist.

Reason behind Pakistan’s Israel policy:

According to Dr. Moshe Yegar The main reasons for Pakistan’s policy toward Israel are: (1) religious solidarity with the Arab-Muslim countries; (2) fear of an adverse response by radical Islamist groups throughout the Muslim world; and (3) concern that establishing diplomatic relations with Israel may cause instability within Pakistan.

Pakistan did not miss any opportunity to display its characteristically pro-Arab and anti-Israeli policy, which stemmed from a sense of Muslim identification but also from practical political considerations, and which was constantly becoming more extreme.

Recent developments

After establishing diplomatic relations with China and normalizing relations with India in January 1992, the Israeli Foreign Ministry started to closely monitor the large Muslim countries in Asia, including Pakistan. After General Pervez Musharraf took power in Pakistan in an October 1999 military coup, he hastened to calm Israel on the nuclear issue but also announced that there would be no progress toward relations. In 2005, the foreign ministers of the two countries held talks for the first time. However, following the meeting Musharraf said Pakistan will not recognise the state of Israel until an independent Palestinian state is established,

So there is a perpetual detest in relations between Pakistan and Israel. There was an incident on October 1, 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu avoided the fear of being potentially uncomfortable by cancelling his booking of dining in at Serafina in New York, as the Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Muhammad Nawaz Shareef too was dining in at the same time, due to his harsh opinion over "Israel's naked brutality in Palestine".

However in 2017, During an official visit to India, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed suggestions that his country's partnership with India is a threat to Pakistan, saying, "We (Israel) are not enemies of Pakistan and Pakistan should not be our enemy either."