Setting religion and emotions aside, can someone explain to me what benefit Pakistan will gain out of recognizing Israel vs what it will cost Pakistan to recognize Israel?
The arguments people usually use:
Argument: Pakistanis can finally visit Al Aqsa
Explanation: Majority of Pakistanis struggle to save up for Ummrah and Hajj as is. Current statistics show a sharp decline in Pakistanis using government facilities to do Hajj. Even middle class will find it hard to afford a visit to Al Aqsa and rich are rich enough to have other ways to visit it. Also, that’s even considering Israel will offer a special pilgrimage visa option to Pakistanis to visit Al Aqsa. Reality is it’ll be extremely difficult for an average Pakistani to get an Israeli visa even if Pakistan recognized israel. Furthermore, this doesn’t require Pakistan to recognize Israel. Pakistan can facilitate Pakistanis visiting Al Aqsa without the need if recognizing israel.
Argument: Israel will help us with agricultural tech.
Explanation: Undoubtedly israel has probably the best agricultural tech in the world. But what’s the benefit to Pakistan when its agricultural output isn’t even up to Chinese or American standards? Chinese and American agricultural tech was always available. Even if the tech from Israel was available, is the problem of our agriculture really that we aren’t using Israeli tech? The issues Pakistani farmers face is water management and using way way outdated equipment. Pakistan barely has any water storage facilities built or the national level or plans to deal and contain floods at national level so a few shiny new tractors won’t solve this. Pakistani framers still using flood irrigation while the whole world has moved on to drip irrigation. Chinese manufacturers produce the cheapest drop irrigation systems. So why doesn’t Pakistan government fund farmers to switch over to it? Advanced farming equipment was always available from China but Pakistan never facilitated farmers to switch over to it or set up such equipment manufacturing in Pakistan. So what will change now? How will Pakistan take advantage of Israel’s farming tech when it hasn’t even taken advantage of China, Europe or America’s tech?
Argument: New markets will open up to Pakistan
Explanation: European, American, African, Asian, Gulf all markets are currently open to Pakistan. Chinas market is open to Pakistan. How will Israel, which has a fraction of the purchasing power of the other giant markets, do Pakistan any good when it hasn’t even been able to take advantage of much larger market closer to it. Up until recently our pink salt was sold as Indian cuz we didn’t GI tag it. The only reason our basmati got GI tagged was because indian wanted to GI tag basmati as theirs. Our mangos aren’t GI tagged. Up until recently Pakistan couldn’t export halal meat to gulf countries because of regulation issues and our meat is only being exported to Jordan in the gulf as far as I know. Despite having such good food products the government’s incompetence causes exporters issues. For our Textiles the biggest market will remain the west. But even that we’re losing it. Because our electricity and gas issues also government policies, Pakistan is losing its textiles market share around the world. Pakistans IT exports aren’t attractive because of government restrictions on dollar and PayPal not being in Pakistan. None of these core issues will change with recognizing Israel.
Argument: Pakistan will get advanced Israeli military tech
Explanation: Pakistan will never get any big ticket weapon system from Israel. Indians won’t allow it and India is a bigger and more important ally to Israel than whatever Pakistan will ever be. Any other system can be acquired from Israel regardless of relations just how Pakistan already has acquired many defence products from Israel. You think israel will sell you iron dome lool? Have fun trying. At present even long term suppliers of military equipment are hesitant to supply Pakistan. The only place for Pakistan to build its defence industry is Turkey. Israel won’t do JV’s with you in defence sector. They’re doing those with Indians.
Argument: Pakistan will get money
Explanation: How much money? Peanuts like IMF gives? Pakistan’s already drowned in debt. Pakistan has tens of billions in interest payments alone it has to pay back soon. No money is free. Even if west have Pakistan billions for free, how will it help Pakistan when most will be used just to pay the interest on loans because Pakistan doesn’t generate enough money to pay off original loans. Also, Pakistan wouldn’t be in such situation if corrupts didn’t use the money they got through loans or aid to build property abroad. Pakistans biggest issue is corruption. Give it $50 billion for free and it’ll still be economic ventilator while elite build more mansions in Europe.
Argument: Pakistan will gain an ally on the international level
Explanation: Aren’t Pakistans current allies enough? How is its relations with many of its long time allies? It’s struggling to maintain close ties to its already existing allies so how’ll Israel benefit it in any way? China, Russia, Gulf, Europe, Malaysia, Indonesia how’s relations with them going? Pakistans blunders have caused it much harm in its relations with the Gulf and China, who were regarded as Pakistan closest allies. Even if Pakistan has warm relations with Israel it’ll die out in a few years if we look at Pakistan history. Pakistan heavily support Algeria and Indonesia in their independence and basically built up who Gulf’s military. But how’s the relations with these countries now? Pakistan can’t maintain relations so israel being a strong ally is just a dream. And Israel’s number 1 ally in the region will remain india so it’ll always support Indians no matter what.
The consequences of recognizing Israel:
Pakistan will lose all moral ground when it comes to the whole of Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan’s claim on IOJK will be contradicted by its stance on Israel. Furthermore, Pakistan will be in a position to lose AJK. Separatist sentiment has already been on the rise in AJK with the religious groups in AJK mostly being pro pak. Recognizing Israel will give them a chance to unite with AJK nationalists to call for independence from Pakistan.
Rise in groups similar to TTP and ISKP/ISPP and support for them.
Since the start of the battle against such groups Pakistan has ignored the ideological aspect. They attack Pakistan through the lens of religion but Pakistan replies with secularism. The little support from religious sections it had was because labelling those groups as Khawarij. But if Pakistan recognizes Israel then it’ll lose the little religious support it has from religious sections in this war. We’ve already seen a massive resurgence of TTP and reportedly groups like Lashkar e Islam are having massive resurrections in Afghanistan as we speak. ISKP/ISPP was already heavily spreading its propaganda in Pakistan and recruiting. This will also help them with that. If you thought post 9/11 was bad, if Pakistan recognizes Israel those times will seem peaceful to you. Furthermore, it’ll give more legitimacy to Afghan Taliban inside Pakistans border areas which leads to my third point.
Separatism in Tribal areas and KPK in general will be on the rise.
Recognizing Israel will be the nail in the coffin. Already after IK’s ouster and arrest we’ve seen a sharp spike in the separatist/pan-afghan sentiment in KPK. You’ve already had secular groups like PTM etc who were anti pak. You have TTP which fights against Pakistan. Afghanistan already claims a lot of Pakistans areas but many people in the areas preferred Pakistan over Afghanistan. However, recognizing Israel will make these areas pro Afghanistan or pro separatism as a whole because a lot of religious conservative people live in these areas too.
Now my question is, is it really worth all that just to recognize Israel which brings absolutely no benefit to Pakistan?
The only reason Pakistan is being pressured to recognize Israel right now is because Saudis and other Muslim countries want a country like Pakistan to also recognize Israel so they have an excuse. Israel only wants Muslim countries to recognize it purely for optics.