While Israel is selling arms to India, and with Pakistan keen to draw parallels between events in Kashmir and the occupied territories, Islamabad will not be in any rush to recognize the Jewish state

Axar.az reports citing Haaretz that as rumors circulated last week that Pakistan was getting ready to recognize Israel, the army’s head of public relations, Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor, rejected the claim as part of some fifth-generation propaganda war against the country’s armed forces. According to him, such stories were planted in order to turn the general public against the military.

The Nawaz Sharif government that succeeded Musharraf did not pursue the matter — despite the fact that Pakistan’s romance with Palestine had started to wear off among policymakers. The whispers in the media and segments of the ruling elite were that if the Palestinians had relations with India and were not standing up on the Kashmir issue, why should Pakistan bother with Palestine? Such an argument, if publicly accepted, would help the military build direct ties with Israel.

Notwithstanding that the religious-cultural discourse that evolved in Pakistan as a result of the Afghan war is much more hostile toward Israel than simply the Palestinian issue, Islamabad cannot afford to build diplomatic ties with Israel due to its high cost for the Kashmir conflict — which for Pakistanis is a life and death issue.