Khawaja Asif: Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif had slammed Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel for deadly strikes on Lebanon.
Remarks Of Khawaja Asif
Asif remarked on X that genocide is being committed in Lebanon as peace talks are getting underway in Islamabad. Asif went on to write that innocent citizens are being killed by Israel, first Gaza, then Iran and now Lebanon, bloodletting continues unabated. The Pakistani defence minister also write that he hopes that the people who created this cancerous state on Palestinian land to get rid of European Jews burn in hell.
Reply By Israel
In reply, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office replied that the call by Pakistan’s defence minister is outrageous and would not be tolerated by any government, especially from someone claiming to a neutral peace arbitrator.
Gideon Sa’ar, the foreign minister of Iran, rebuked the Pakistani leadership publicly. This marked a direct, rare diplomatic confrontation between two nations that don’t maintain any form of formal ties.
Asif deleted his X post immediately after backlash from Israel erupted. The decision of the Israeli leader to publicly respond represents a significant departure from practices in the past. Historically, Tel Aviv has avoided any form of direct engagement with the terrorist state of Pakistan in the lack of diplomatic relations.
Previously, Israel’s distrust of Pakistan in any mediation effort has been greatly articulated. Reuven Azar, Israel’s envoy to India, had remarked previously that Pakistan is not considered a credible intermediary by Pakistan in peace talks. This is primarily because Pakistan has a long and crooked history of nurturing terrorists to launch attacks across the globe, especially against India that is a long-time friend of Israel.
On March 2, Lebanon was pulled into the US Israel Iran war after rockets were fired by Iran-backed Hezbollah towards cities in Israel soon after news erupted about the death of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed interestingly on the first day of war itself.
