The World's Only Muslim Nuclear Power Warns Israel's War in Gaza Must Stop

Pakistan's permanent representative to the United Nations has outlined to Newsweek his country's position on the ongoing war between Israel and Palestinian factions led by Hamas, expressing the need for a ceasefire and warning of regional instability if an already devastating conflict deepens further.

"This is an obligation that devolves on all member states to prevent an escalation of the conflict," Ambassador Munir Akram told Newsweek. "We would have hoped that the conflict had not taken place, but it has, and now we have to stop it, to halt the fighting and to avoid the suffering that is happening and is likely to happen if this conflict goes on."

While the Islamic Republic he represents, one of the world's most populous countries and the only Muslim-majority nation to possess nuclear weapons, may be thousands of miles away from the frontlines of the Gaza Strip, Akram identified a direct connection between Pakistan and the Palestinian cause. This link was made all the more tangible by parallels he drew between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Indian-Pakistani dispute over the divided territory of Kashmir, to which Pakistanis commemorate a "Black Day" on Friday.

With local health officials in Hamas-run Gaza now counting deaths in excess of 7,000 as a result of Israeli airstrikes since an unprecedented Hamas-led October 7 assault on Israel in which authorities said 1,400 people were killed, Akram argued that "this is not something that should be acceptable to any civilized nation or people and we oppose it, therefore we hope it would stop."

He added: "There is an additional layer of obligation on us as an Islamic country."

"We feel that we have an obligation, an emotional commitment to Palestine and to the freedom of the Palestinian people," Akram said. "It is a principle to which we are committed politically because of Kashmir. We are heavily invested in that principle, and we would like to see the triumph of that principle of self-determination."

Common History

The Israeli-Palestinian and Kashmir conflicts are linked by history as well, both having been born out of the collapse of British colonial rule three-quarters of a century ago in the years immediately following World War II.

When the British Raj was dissolved in 1947, the previously united Indian subcontinent was divided into the new nations of India and Pakistan, with Pakistan also controlling modern-day Bangladesh until 1971. The partition resulted in massive bloodshed, especially between Hindus and Muslims on both sides of the new border. The two new states quickly went to war over the middle ground of Kashmir, which today is divided along what's known as the Line of Control.

The following year, the British Mandate for Palestine was also brought to an end during a civil war between Arab and Jewish communities, which intensified drastically amid an influx of Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust and rampant anti-Semitism in Europe. The newly formed United Nations attempted a partition plan, but it was met with fierce opposition among Arab and Muslim nations, and upon Israel's declaration of independence in 1948, the first Arab-Israeli war erupted.

Akram said the "two situations are legally and politically linked; at the core of it is the principle of self-determination. People should have the right to determine for themselves what should be their political destiny."

In the case of Kashmir, Akram said that "it has been explicitly stated" in U.N. Security Council Resolution 47 "that the future of Kashmir will be determined by its people through a free and fair plebiscite"—a direct vote, which would be overseen by the U.N., but never came to be.

As for the Israeli-Palestinian question, Akram said, "We have come to that principle somewhat circuitously through the creation of the two separate entities" in the early stages of the issue, though he asserted that the concept of a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel has become "an accepted solution that is being advocated."

"Beyond the principle of self-determination, there is also the reality of foreign occupation, which is also identical situations that both the Kashmiris and the Palestinians face," Akram said. "And thirdly, of course, there is always the case where a colonial or foreign occupation power describes the resistance as terrorists, and that is also a common feature in these two situations."

"Terrorists" vs. "Freedom Fighters"

Unlike some of the more global Islamist networks that have sought to achieve aims through violence, such as Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), Hamas is not universally designated as a terrorist organization by the U.N. While Israel, the United States, the European Union, and several other nations consider Hamas to be a terrorist group, most other countries, including Pakistan, do not.

Akram noted that "in the case of Hamas, it is actually an elected entity in Gaza." He also pointed to Hamas having both political and military wings, likening it to the Taliban, with which Pakistan has long fostered ties despite rifts that have emerged since the Islamic Emirate was established in Afghanistan two years ago amid the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

India, for its part, has long accused Pakistan of aiding and abetting various militant groups active in a decades-long insurgency in Kashmir, a claim denied by Pakistani officials, including Akram. At the same time, Pakistan has faced its own ongoing conflict with various insurgent movements with motives rooted in both religious extremism and ethnic separatism.

Some other Pakistani militiamen have sworn loyalty across the border to neighboring Iran. The Zaynebiyoun Brigade, made up mostly of Shiite Muslim Pakistanis, was formed around 2014 with the support of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force with the goal of battling ISIS and other militant groups in Syria.

At a time when Hamas is rallying Muslims across the globe to join the "Al-Aqsa Flood" it launched earlier this month against Israel, the Zaynebiyoun Brigade is one of many "Axis of Resistance" militias with the potential to enter the fight in one form or another.

Diplomacy Interrupted

As for Pakistan itself, it is among the many Muslim nations that have not established diplomatic relations with Israel as a result of the unresolved Palestinian issue. And yet, prior to the current conflict, major shifts had occurred in the geopolitical tides of the region.

In the wake of the U.S.-backed Abraham Accords launched in 2020 that ultimately saw the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco recognize Israel, quiet talks emerged with the aim of establishing diplomatic ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a nation with unrivaled influence within the Muslim world due to its hosting of the holiest Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina. The current war, however, appears to have stalled this process indefinitely.

Pakistan, too has made inroads to Israel in past years. Akram, however, argued that these overtures occurred at a time when "Israel was seeking an accommodation, was seeking political resolution. There was a commitment to the two-state formula, and everyone was hopeful that once that came about and the Palestinian state was created, then we would be able to normalize relations with Israel."

"But then things changed," Akram said. "Israel went in a different direction. Its policies have been such that they have been forestalling the creation of a viable Palestinian state through the expansion of settlements, through the evictions of Palestinians in Jerusalem, and, on top of that, the offenses within the Al-Aqsa Mosque and so forth."

"So that's why we feel that, obviously, the present is not a very good time to think about that," he added. "We need to, first of all, stop the fighting, restore some semblance of normalcy, resume negotiations toward a two-state solution, and then, of course, I think once there is normality, Pakistan will, of course, consider [normalization]. But we believe we need to stand up for the Palestinian rights and see that they are fulfilled."

Foes Coalesce

Also weighing on Pakistan's geopolitical calculations are the growing ties between Israel and India.

In decades past, India lauded armed Palestinian resistance against Israel, becoming the first non-Arab nation to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1974. In the three decades since establishing full diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992, however, official and public sentiments have increasingly shifted in the opposite direction, with Indians today having among the most positive views of Israel among any nation in the world.

This relationship, bolstered by strong personal ties between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has developed into closer military and intelligence ties as well. This, in turn, has raised new concerns for Pakistan.

"We could not be happy about the kind of relationship that has developed between India and Israel," Akram said, portraying the two nations' common ground as being based on the suppression of the very self-determination principle he said Pakistan supported.

"They are a part of occupation of foreign territories that they don't own, they are suppressing people's struggle brutally, they are both extremist regimes with extremist ideas about how to resolve internal and external problems," Akram said. "So, they share a lot in common as far as the nature of the two regimes is concerned, so we are concerned particularly in terms of Israeli support in weapons and other ways to enable to India to suppress Kashmir and to aggress against Pakistan."

Newsweek reached out to the Indian Foreign Ministry and the Israeli Government Press Office for comment.

"The Larger Fear"

Two years after engaging in their most serious cross-border clashes in decades, India and Pakistan forged a new ceasefire along the Line of Control. While significant confrontations have been avoided, instances of cross-border shelling and militant activity continue to raise tensions between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

Meanwhile, the threat of a broader regional escalation emanates from the second-order effects of the worsening war in Gaza.

"This is the larger fear," Akram said. "Apart from the suffering of the people in Gaza and the region that is taking place, the larger danger is that it could escalate, at what stage it could also escalate horizontally, geographically."

Israel, too is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it officially neither confirms nor denies it. Iran, while possessing an advanced nuclear program, is not believed to have developed any nuclear arms and has explicitly rejected any suggestions that it intended to produce any. Still, it maintains by far the largest and most sophisticated missile arsenal in the region.

There have been no indications that any actor was considering the use of such weapons. Yet, beyond the Zaynebiyoun, much larger and more powerful militias aligned to Iran's "Axis of Resistance" in countries such as Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as Tehran itself, have issued stark warnings to Israel and its allies, including the United States, whose troops have faced daily rocket attacks in both Iraq and Syria.

U.S. President Joe Biden issued a direct warning of his own to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday, asserting that the U.S. "will respond" to such actions. Late Thursday, the U.S. conducted airstrikes on positions said to be used by Iran's IRGC and affiliated groups in eastern Syria.

In a statement, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asserted that Washington "does not seek conflict and has no intention nor desire to engage in further hostilities, but these Iranian-backed attacks against U.S. forces are unacceptable and must stop."

Akram said he believed that the risk of the conflict spreading was one that many nations have come to realize, including the U.S., though it, along with Israel, have so far rejected growing calls for a ceasefire among the international community.

"The solution, we think, is not to warn and hope it will not escalate, the solution is to stop the fighting, and that is why we have focused so largely on the issue of ceasefire," Akram said. "A ceasefire, I think, has to happen immediately and unconditionally, and then we can sort out all the issues afterward."