ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s energy minister Khurram Dastgir said on Wednesday Israel had “no right to lecture” Pakistan on human rights since it was guilty of pursuing brutal policies against Palestinians.
Dastgir’s comment came in response to a statement issued by Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Adi Farjon, who told a sitting of the UN Human Rights Council this week that her country was “deeply concerned” about the overall rights situation in Pakistan, including “enforced disappearances, torture, crackdowns on peaceful protests, and violence against minorities and other marginalized groups.”
Pakistan does not have diplomatic relations with Israel and its governments have repeatedly raised their voice in favor of an independent Palestinian state that is based on “internationally agreed parameters” and has pre-1967 borders.
“Israel, which has continued its cruelty and brutality against Palestinians for many decades, should not lecture Pakistan on human rights,” the Pakistani minister said in a news conference on Wednesday.
“Israel is answerable to humanity because its history has been filled with the blood of Palestinians,” he continued, adding that Israel had not only deprived the people of Palestine of their ancestral lands but also subjected them to all sorts of atrocities.
He said that in 1982, Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, for which it must still be held answerable.
Dastgir maintained Israel was “using the pretext of terrorism” to destroy the homes of Palestinians and uproot them from their territories.
The energy minister reiterated Islamabad had chosen not to have diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv since it wanted to express solidarity with the people of Palestine.
A day ago, Pakistan’s foreign office also issued a strongly-worded rebuttal against Farjon’s comment, saying that Israel’s “politically motivated statement” was at variance with the positive tone of the UN session and statements made by a vast majority of states on Pakistan.
Pakistan and Israel have never had official relations and successive governments in Islamabad have said there would be no recognition of Israel without the resolution of the Palestinian situation.
However, the two countries have maintained discreet unofficial ties for many decades, with a British government report in 2013 suggesting Israel had sold Pakistan military technology, which was publicly denied by both countries.
A delegation of Pakistani Americans went to Israel in 2022, provoking outrage in Pakistan, with then-prime minister Imran Khan accusing them of seeking to undermine the country’s diplomatic stance on the Israel-Palestine issue.
