By Pakeeza Zainab (Pakistan)

Israel, a state increasingly drunk on power and blinded by its crusade against Palestinian existence, seems hell-bent on rewriting the rules of humanity. With its finger never far from trigger, the idea of it targeting the only nuclear armed Muslim state is believed by many as a storm quietly brewing. 

Israel, with its long time backer, the U.S., has remained sceptical about the perception given off of the existence of Pakistan: the only Islamic Republic with formidable nuclear capabilities and strategic ties with China. Such representation is found nowhere else but Pakistan. 

If not within the next decade, perhaps in three or four, China appears poised to emerge as the global hegemon, backed by its immense economic strength and expanding global influence. It would be naive to think the West is oblivious to this staggering reality – a threat hanging over its head like a sword. And as China ascends to unipolar dominance, one of its closest allies would likely be the world’s only Muslim nuclear power: Pakistan. 

Pakistan’s geopolitical posture and strategic alignments offer every reason for Israel, and its all-weather ally, to view Pakistan as a serious obstacle to their expansionist agendas. Such an amalgamation raises eyebrows not only in the White House but also within the influential Israeli lobby that hovers over American policymaking. This raises a critical question: Would Israel consider a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan, a tactic that seems to have become a new normal in the Israeli playbook.

The U.S. officials have reportedly expressed concern that Pakistan might be developing a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with the range to hit the continental U.S., placing it among a few countries with such capability. Pakistan has firmly denied these reports. Even if such a claim is proved to be unsubstantiated, the question remains: Does it even need to be substantiated? Or mere speculation is enough to trigger a chain reaction – one perfectly engineered to ignite the Zionist regime’s rationale for targeting Pakistan. 

On top of that, some Iranian officials point towards enhanced cooperation with Pakistan in resisting the Zionist state. Such remarks give credence to the suspicious air in Tel Aviv, creating the perception that Pakistan’s nuclear assets could either be employed directly against Israel or passed on to its arch-rival, Iran. 

Pakistan itself has a hand in shaping this perception. The Islamic Republic has long been accustomed to crafting foreign policy through an ideological lens, its refusal to recognise Israel stands firm despite shifting dynamics in the Arab world, which has largely lost the appetite to champion Palestinian rights. 

The recent pivot towards geo-economics in Pakistan’s foreign policy does not, in the eyes of Western powers, guarantee a departure from its ideological instincts. Internal political turmoil, stretching from the birth of the Land of the Pure to the present day, continues to present formidable barriers to crafting rational and consistent foreign policy. This perception, however potent, does not necessarily translate into a probable military confrontation between Pakistan and Israel. The more realistic possibilities lie elsewhere. 

Escalation through proxies or cyber-intelligence warfare is far more plausible; a direct war is unlikely given the mutual deterrence at play. Moreover, Israel has neither geographical contiguity with Pakistan nor the advantage of a regional state to serve as a scapegoat for a Western agenda as was the case in the 1970s during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The sheer distance, with no shared borders, makes a belligerent engagement improbable. 

Even India, Israel’s strategic ally, is unlikely to offer its soil for a direct assault on Pakistan. Its geographic location complicates such calculations: it shares border with China, a key strategic partner of Pakistan with vested interests in its stability, making such an undertaking strategically reckless. 

This, however, does not close the debate on whether Israel could target Pakistan; it merely assesses the viability of such an action. In the 1970s, alarm over Pakistan’s potential nuclear program fuelled sabre-rattling among Israel’s supporters, with talk in the media of striking Pakistan from Indian bases in the 1980s to disrupt its nascent nuclear ambitions. Yet, Washington’s reliance on Islamabad during the proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan effectively muted these calls. 

Nevertheless, Israel has a long history of dismantling the nuclear ambitions of several Muslim states, or, at least, leveraging such claims to play a critical role in Washington’s decision-making, as seen in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. This record, combined with its normalization of pre-emptive strikes and its pattern of targeting alleged nuclear facilities in states like Iraq and Iran, underscores the possibility of future attempts to challenge aspects of Pakistan’s nuclear posture. 

Yet, despite a sea of possibilities that en ever-evolving geopolitical landscape may present, one reality cannot be ignored: there are critical differences between Pakistan and the states that have previously been targeted. As a declared nuclear power, Pakistan occupies a unique position in regional security dynamics, its capabilities introduce a level of deterrence that fundamentally alters the strategic calculus. The pattern of strikes that worked in the Middle East does not seamlessly translate to South Asia as confrontation between two nuclear states is unprecedented. 

This absence of precedent has been explicitly underscored by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director General Lt General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry in an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera where he stated, “We are an established and declared nuclear power, and the world has no experience of going to — or even attempting to go into — a misadventure against an established nuclear power.”

While such statements reflect Pakistan’s confidence in deterrent capabilities, the evolving nature of regional and global politics means that calculated diplomacy remains as critical as military strength in preventing miscalculations.