Pakistan’s discreet engagement with Israel signals a US-driven geopolitical shift and strategic recalibration with far-reaching regional and symbolic implications
In recent months, Pakistan’s engagement—both overt and discreet—with Israel has intensified in unprecedented ways. A pattern of public meetings, symbolic political gestures and coordinated regional diplomacy suggests the geopolitical landscape is shifting.
These developments align closely with Washington’s broader Middle Eastern strategy, particularly the quiet but persistent push toward an expanded “Abraham Accords 2.0.”
While popular narratives often cite India’s reluctance to credit Donald Trump for ceasefire claims or New Delhi’s procurement of cheap Russian oil as the main reasons for Washington’s warmth toward Islamabad, these factors alone are insufficient.
They focus too narrowly on bilateral and economic considerations and overlook the deeper strategic and symbolic calculations that the United States pursues—including Pakistan’s nuclear status, its role in shaping Muslim world perceptions and the post-Gaza regional realignment.
A more nuanced reading reveals that there are actually three key players shaping this dynamic—Pakistan, Israel and the United States—with Washington strategically nudging Islamabad toward eventual recognition of Israel while balancing its own regional and domestic imperatives.
The clearest early signs of this emerging policy shift surfaced in November 2025 through a series of unusually visible interactions between Pakistani officials and Israeli-linked figures.
On November 4, 2025, at the World Travel Market Fair in London, Michael Izhakov, the director general of Israeli Tourism, held a public and widely photographed exchange with Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, an advisor to Pakistan’s prime minister.
For two countries without diplomatic relations, the openness of this interaction was remarkable and signalled a willingness on both sides to normalize previously unthinkable optics.
A second signal emerged during Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s visit to New York for the UN General Assembly in late September 2025, when diplomatic circles in New York reported a quiet interaction between Sharif and Daniel Rosen, the president of the American Jewish Congress.
Neither Islamabad nor the AJC publicly confirmed the meeting—entirely expected given the political sensitivity inside Pakistan—but the absence of any denial reinforced perceptions that such high-level contacts were taking place discreetly. Together, these developments fit into a broader pattern of expanding back-channel engagement and quiet exploratory diplomacy.
The Sharm el-Sheikh meeting on October 13, 2025, during the Gaza crisis further underscored Pakistan’s emerging role. While portrayed as a display of Muslim unity, the meeting—excluding the main parties to the conflict, Israel and Hamas—was largely symbolic, designed to consolidate US influence and project regional coordination.
It highlighted Washington’s ability to align key Muslim states, including Pakistan, behind a US-friendly narrative, coordinate humanitarian aid and reinforce its regional architecture.
Washington’s Israel counter-narrative
The summit unfolded against a backdrop of extraordinary global pressure on Israel. There was unprecedented international public outcry against Israel’s actions in Gaza, with several European countries—including France, Spain, Ireland, Norway, and Belgium—moving to formally recognize the State of Palestine.
European governments debated sanctions, arms embargoes and suspension of trade privileges, while mass protests swept across the continent. Activist flotillas, humanitarian missions, and legal challenges targeted Israeli policies, generating a wave of civic mobilization unseen in previous conflicts.
In this highly charged environment, the Sharm el-Sheikh gathering served not just regional optics but the strategic aim of mitigating Israel’s growing global isolation and consolidating a narrative favorable to US-led diplomatic efforts, including monitoring the implementation of the Gaza ceasefire and coordinating humanitarian aid.
In the aftermath of the Sharm el-Sheikh summit, the momentum of this diplomatic pressure began to noticeably cool. Several European countries that had been accelerating toward formal recognition of Palestine slowed their pace, and the wave of coordinated diplomatic moves lost its earlier urgency. This shift was intentional.
It aligned closely with Washington’s objective of stabilizing the post-Gaza environment and preventing a snowball effect of recognitions that could have further isolated Israel. Although recognitions did not cease entirely, the sudden slowdown across Europe highlighted the effectiveness of US intervention in redirecting the international diplomatic narrative and containing fallout for Israel.
One of the most striking moments unfolded when Donald Trump paused his speech and asked Shehbaz Sharif to “say what you said to me the other day.” Sharif immediately obliged, praising Trump as a “man of peace,” reiterating his earlier nomination of Trump for the Nobel Prize and aligning Pakistan with Trump’s proposed Gaza framework.
This was not a routine diplomatic courtesy; it was a calculated moment designed to elevate Trump’s stature and signal Pakistani alignment with his position on the conflict.
The meeting also spotlighted Pakistan. Trump publicly praised Sharif and referred to Chief of the Army Staff General Asim Munir as his “favorite field marshal,” signaling an implicit endorsement of Pakistan’s military leadership and elevating Islamabad’s perceived relevance within the emerging Middle Eastern diplomatic landscape.
This recognition forms part of a broader effort to draw Pakistan closer to US regional objectives, and to integrate Islamabad into a framework that Washington considers essential for managing post-Gaza geopolitics.
In addition to official and back-channel diplomacy, some Pakistani civil society actors have engaged with Israel, signaling an emerging unofficial track of interaction.
In 2025, a 10-member group of journalists, researchers and influencers—including Shabbir Khan, Qaisar Abbas, Sabin Agha and Kaswar Klasra—visited Israel under the auspices of NGO Sharaka, which promotes people-to-people dialogue between Israel and South/South-Asian countries.
The delegation, reportedly the largest of its kind from Pakistan, aimed to gain firsthand experience and challenge prevailing narratives about Israel, although the Pakistani Foreign Office denied any official involvement.
Delegates described the visit as enlightening and emphasized cross-cultural understanding, while domestic journalist bodies such as the Karachi Press Club condemned the trips.
These civil society interactions, although limited and private, complement Pakistan’s broader back-channel engagement and suggest a cautious, exploratory approach to normalizing ties with Israel.
Why Israel needs Pakistan
For Israel, Pakistan is not just another Muslim-majority state. It is the only Muslim country with nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles and it is home to a public deeply hostile to Israel.
Historically, Israeli strategic planners have viewed Pakistan as a potential future security challenge, with some Israeli thinkers even exploring working with India to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear program—an idea India declined.
For Israel, quietly engaging Pakistan serves multiple objectives: it helps defuse a long-term nuclear concern, reduces Pakistan’s symbolic weight as a potential rallying point for anti-Israel sentiment in the Muslim world and provides political cover at a time when Israel’s international image has been severely damaged by its actions in Gaza.
It also offers Israel a pathway to reshape perceptions across the Islamic world by engaging a state with enormous symbolic influence.
Pakistan’s own motivations are clear. Heightened Indo-Israeli military and intelligence cooperation, exemplified during May 2025’s Operation Sindoor, underscores Islamabad’s security concerns.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed Israel supplied India with Harpy drones and Barak‑8 missiles, publicly praising their operational effectiveness.
Pakistani strategists may view this as a threat: India is enhancing its strike capability with Israeli weapons and deepening intelligence sharing with Israel. For Islamabad, engaging Israel may hedge against this growing Indo-Israeli axis.
Think tanks and policy analysis sources—including the Islamabad Policy Institute (IPI), Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), Strategic Think Tank analyses, Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS) and the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI)—have highlighted how Israel’s partnership with India increasingly shapes Pakistan’s security calculus and cautious but evolving foreign policy approach.
Developments inside Pakistan also reflect this shifting orientation. Recent protests by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan were triggered by rumors of Pakistan–Israel engagement, showing how deeply the issue resonates domestically.
Equally significant was Sharif’s tweet upon returning from Sharm el-Sheikh, where he expressed support for a two-state solution. For a country whose passport explicitly states it is valid for all countries except Israel, this subtle language shift carries considerable symbolic weight.
Additionally, a recent constitutional amendment that centralizes authority under Pakistan’s military leadership and grants sweeping immunity to the Chief of Defense Forces has been interpreted by some analysts as preparation for managing potential backlash against controversial foreign policy decisions.
Consolidating power ensures a stable environment in which Islamabad can navigate sensitive geopolitical realignments with minimal domestic disruption.
Viewed through this lens, US outreach to Pakistan becomes more comprehensible. The United States understands that achieving a symbolic breakthrough after the Gaza conflict requires a major Muslim state to shift its long-held position. Pakistan—because of its nuclear status and symbolic reasons—fits that requirement better than any other state.
Geopolitical shift in the making
Other strategic considerations—China’s deepening involvement through the CPEC, security concerns in Afghanistan, tensions with Iran, lucrative cryptocurrency deals, counterterrorism cooperation and resource extraction opportunities in Balochistan—play a background role.
However, none adequately explains the intensity and persistence of Washington’s recent diplomatic warmth toward Islamabad. The most decisive factor remains the geopolitical, symbolic and security value of Pakistan eventually normalizing relations with Israel.
Behind the scenes, the foundations for such a shift are already being laid. Diplomatic sources and analysts point to Israel, with US support, quietly assisting Pakistan in navigating multilateral financial institutions, showing increasing openness to Pakistani participation in international stabilization force for Gaza, and engaging in multiple back-channel interactions aimed at creating institutional trust. These steps reduce the political cost for Islamabad and create a pathway for a gradual policy shift.
Taken together, these developments suggest Pakistan’s engagement with Israel is no longer an isolated or accidental phenomenon but part of a broader strategic realignment.The Sharm el-Sheikh diplomacy, constitutional restructuring in Pakistan, public meetings and orchestrated praise from Washington all point toward a coordinated effort to integrate Pakistan into a new regional framework centered around Israel.
The push for Pakistan to recognize Israel may not be the only factor behind the renewed US–Pakistan closeness, but it is likely the most significant.
Meanwhile, because of this endorsement, Pakistan has become more assertive toward its neighbors—Afghanistan, India and Iran—as its military perceives U.S. support, given Trump’s repeated praise and reiteration of ceasefire claims.
Although this posture may be primarily aimed to align Pakistan with the Israel-Gaza diplomatic dynamics, it nonetheless emboldens Islamabad, creating challenges for its neighbours and making Pakistan more aggressive in regional interactions.
Pakistan’s eventual recognition of Israel—even if it unfolds slowly—would represent a geopolitical earthquake in the Muslim world. It would reshape regional alignments, alter global diplomatic calculations and deliver a major symbolic victory for both Washington and Tel Aviv.
The direction of recent events indicates this possibility is increasingly plausible. The momentum is building, the diplomacy is underway and the architecture for Abraham Accords 2.0 is quietly being constructed. It is only a matter of time before these efforts begin to manifest more openly on the global stage.
Imran Khurshid (PhD) is an associate research fellow at the International Centre for Peace Studies (ICPS), adjunct fellow at the Peninsula Foundation and visiting faculty at Nalanda University, Rajgir, Bihar. His work has been published in Asia Times, The Diplomat Firstpost and peer-reviewed journals focused on India-US relations and Indo-Pacific security.
