The U.S. President, Donald Trump, recently announced that Pakistan’s Prime Minister and Field Marshal were “with us right from the beginning” and “100%” backed his proposed ‘peace plan’ for Gaza — a plan which, in reality, cements long-term Israeli control over the territory.
This declaration marks a striking departure from Pakistan’s historical position on Palestine, and raises a few critical questions: what explains this shift, and what does the new alignment with Washington signify?
The answer begins with Pakistan’s domestic politics. The current regime, having lost the February 2024 general election, faces a serious crisis of legitimacy. A government without public support at home inevitably becomes vulnerable to outside influence. That weakness gives major powers leverage.
Added to this is Pakistan’s fragile economy: Pakistan remains dependent on IMF bailouts — heavily shaped by Washington — and on financial support from Gulf monarchies, all of whom strongly back the Abraham Accords.
This is not new, of course.
In 2020, then Prime Minister Imran Khan was offered substantial financial benefits in return for joining the Abraham Accords. Khan refused. Today’s government, however, lacking legitimacy and facing frankly, subservient to the Western powers, would succumb to any pressure from outside.
But this is only one part of the picture.
Over recent months, Islamabad has revived its engagement with the U.S. through rhetoric and policy manoeuvres around Afghanistan. On April 7, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister discussed with U.S. Secretary Rubio the “situation in Afghanistan,” including the issue of American military equipment abandoned after the U.S. withdrawal. Shortly after, the American President announced in London that the U.S. seeks to retake Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan.
Such developments are alarming.
A renewed U.S. military footprint in Afghanistan would have devastating consequences for Pakistan, which is already losing soldiers in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to security failures, killing its own civilians in drone strikes, and facing mass protests in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Then there is an issue of critical minerals.
A recent photograph went viral showing Pakistan’s army chief presenting the American President with samples of rare earth minerals.
While commercial extraction may take years, even decades, the symbolism is unmistakable.
For Washington, the priority is not mining, but rather securing influence in Pakistan’s restive regions and countering China’s growing presence.
Historically, the CIA has used American mining and oil companies as covers for covert operations aimed at destabilising resource-rich nations of the Global South.
Finally, we come back to Palestine.
Pakistan’s creation was deeply tied to the idea of safeguarding the political and cultural identity of Muslims in South Asia, which makes the betrayal on Palestine more glaring.
Pakistan’s founding fathers, Jinnah and Iqbal, were fully conscious of the Zionist project to colonise Palestine in the early 20th century. It can be said that their demands for a separate Muslim homeland arose out of their experience of seeing the Zionist takeover of Palestine under British mandate.
“Nor does Palestine belong to the Jews who abandoned it of their own free will long before its possession by the Arabs. Nor is Zionism a religious movement… Indeed, the impression given is that Zionism was deliberately created, not to give a National Home to the Jews, but to give a home to British Imperialism on the Mediterranean littoral.”
“I know how deeply Muslim feelings have been stirred over the issue of Palestine… All our sympathies are with those valiant martyrs who are fighting the battle of freedom against usurpers. They are being subjected to monstrous injustices propped up by British Imperialism with the ulterior motive of placating the international Jewry which commands the money-bags.”
Against this backdrop, the Pakistani Prime Minister’s support for the U.S. President’s 20-point Gaza plan — which grants Israel permanent control, extinguishes the hope of a “unified, contiguous, independent” Palestinian state, and subjects Palestinians to perpetual domination — cannot be seen as anything but a betrayal.
It is a betrayal of the people of Gaza, who have resisted colonisation with courage and sacrifice.
And it is a betrayal of the people of Pakistan, whose illegitimate rulers are bartering away the nation’s sovereignty, principles, and historical commitments in exchange for temporary survival in power.