Mustafa Qadri

At the request of Syria, we entered a phase of working together with Israel and Syria indirectly to get them to talk with each other. We are mediators in that process. This was an example of how much importance we put on peace in the Middle East. We had done this before with Pakistan and Israel. . . .

During the tenure of [former Pakistani president] Pervez Musharraf, we brought them together in Istanbul: the foreign minister of Israel and the foreign minister of Pakistan.

This isn’t entirely a revelation. There were murmurs at the time that Musharraf had met with Israeli officials. Around the same time, he hinted that Pakistan should recognise Israel. I happened to be in the Occupied Palestinian Territories soon after that and people, when I told them I was originally from Pakistan, would say “Pakistan good, Musharraf bad.”

It should also be pointed out that Israel and Pakistan had secret dealings in support of the mujhadin fighting the Soviets in Afghanistans during the 1980s. Much of the bluster about Israel is a superficiality.