“We cannot accept insinuations from an irresponsible rogue state that is, in fact, the perpetrator of the worst kind of state terrorism,” said Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Asim Iftikhar Ahmad, during a heated debate at a Security Council session on the Middle East. That session ended with a unanimous condemnation of Israel’s September 8 aerial assault on Qatar – a blatant violation of international law and a dangerous escalation in regional tensions.
The ambassador’s remarks came in direct response to his Israeli counterpart, who invoked the memory of Osama bin Laden on the anniversary of 9/11 in a crude attempt to smear Pakistan and rationalise an unprovoked military strike. But there is no moral equivalence between the capture of a single, targeted terrorist and Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of a peaceful capital. Bin Laden was a stateless fugitive, the target of a manhunt, not a sovereign nation. Israel, by contrast, deployed 15 warplanes to terrorise an entire city’s civilian population in broad daylight. This was not counterterrorism; it was collective punishment. A spectacle. The textbook definition of state terrorism.
Pakistan condemned the attack without delay. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif travelled to Doha in a show of solidarity with Qatar. And we were not alone. To borrow a phrase Israel itself has used in the past, “there is no daylight” between Pakistan and the 14 other Security Council members, including the United States and the United Kingdom, who all stood united in condemning Israel’s actions.
What the world witnessed earlier last month was not just another Israeli provocation mocking international law, but the behaviour of a rogue state. Since our two nations were founded nearly 80 years ago, Pakistan has never established formal ties with Israel — not out of dogma, but out of principle. When Israel invaded and occupied the West Bank and Gaza in the 1960s, Pakistan condemned it. When the UN General Assembly took up the question of Palestinian statehood in 1988, Pakistan championed it. We have always stood, and will continue to stand, with the Palestinian people in their struggle for a sovereign state.
But our quarrel with Israel has never been existential. It is rooted in grievances that are legal, moral and entirely resolvable under international law. That is why the two-state solution remains not only relevant but urgent. It offers the only path to lasting peace – for Israel to free itself from the stain of occupation and settler colonialism, and for the Palestinian people to live with dignity and self-determination. When Israel finds the courage to change course and respect the legitimate aspirations of all those under its rule, Pakistan will be ready to extend a hand of friendship.
Unfortunately, that day has never felt farther away. Gaza today lies in ruins, following a savage bombing campaign that has killed nearly three percent of its population, most of them women and children. Israel now faces credible accusations of genocide before the International Criminal Court. And yet, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presses on with annexation plans for the West Bank, defiantly declaring “this place is ours”. As extreme and reprehensible as that may seem, it is consistent with the logic of a settler colonial regime.
But even apartheid-era regimes avoided crossing certain lines. Netanyahu, by ordering an airstrike on the capital of Qatar, has taken Israel beyond those lines, into rogue-state territory. His reckless actions now threaten not only regional stability, but the very architecture of global diplomacy. Qatar, a state that has worked tirelessly to mediate regional conflicts, has earned international respect, even from Israel itself, which sent dozens of delegations to Doha in recent years to negotiate indirectly with Hamas. By Netanyahu’s own logic, does that make him a terrorist enabler? In the process of trying to rewrite the rules, he has undermined his own.
Years ago, Israel was warned: there is no military solution to a political problem. That warning has gone unheeded, especially under Netanyahu’s leadership. The Security Council was right to stand with Qatar and to uphold the principles of diplomacy. So does Pakistan. We will always join our colleagues at the General Assembly in reaffirming our support for a sovereign Palestinian State.
The world must not forget: lasting security will never come from brute force or contempt for international law. It can only come from justice.
- Anwaar ul Haq Kakar is a former caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan, a founding member of the Balochistan Awami Party, and a current member of the Senate. He has also served as a spokesperson for the Government of Balochistan.