KARACHI: Pakistan’s top journalist body, the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalist (PFUJ), and its affiliate, the Karachi Union of Journalists, in a statement on Friday distanced themselves from three media personalities who recently said it was high time Islamabad considered normalizing ties with Tel Aviv.

Pakistan does not recognize the state of Israel over its thwarting of Palestinians’ aspirations for a state of their own.
The individual comments in support of normalization came after media speculations in late November that the South Asian Muslim-majority nation had been under pressure to reconsider its refusal to recognize the Jewish state. However, the Pakistani government, military and the main religious council have since rejected the possibility of establishing diplomatic ties with Israel.
“The work of journalists is to report events and facts, not running campaigns regarding policy matters,” PFUJ president GM Jamali said, adding that the three senior journalists who said Pakistan should revisit its Israel policy were sending a “wrong message.”
KUJ president Hasan Abbas said that while individuals were free to express their opinions, their views should not be seen as representative of the journalist community.
“If someone supports the idea of recognizing Israel, it’s his/her right and should express it freely. But such personal opinions should not be attributed to the journalist community,” he said.
The PFUJ said that the journalist community “strongly supports” the Pakistani government’s policy “which clearly calls for a two-state solution for resolving the Palestine-Israeli conflict in accordance with the wishes of Palestinians.”
“We endorse the statement by Prime Minister Imran Khan in which he said that he will never recognize Israel until the Palestinians get their rights,” Jamali said.
He referred to a wide-ranging interview with a local TV news channel last week in which the prime minister said that the “entire nation stands with the Palestinians ... We will never recognize Israel until the Palestinians get their rights.”