he founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, firmly and consistently supported the Palestinians’ right to a separate, sovereign statehood and opposed Zionist efforts to establish a hostile Jewish state in the Arab heartland. His support for the Palestinian people was rooted in a principled anti-colonial stance and aligned with the broader Muslim concerns. He proved to be correct in his approach. Jinnah framed the Palestine issue as symbolic of the broader, pervasive and multi-dimensional colonial oppression that Muslim majority regions were going through and in their demand for recognition to their right to self-determination. The creation of Israel proved to be a disastrous step and a tenacious vestige in the shape of settler colonialism, carried forward despite the termination of the Age of Imperialism.

Jinnah issued statements, delivered speeches, held press conferences, gave interviews and wrote many letters to unequivocally express his stance, multiple times, individually and from the platform of the Muslim League. In its 1937 Lucknow session presided over by Jinnah, the All India Muslim League passed a resolution for the Palestinians and denounced the use of force by the British and Zionists. He issued public statements in 1938 and reiterated Muslim solidarity with Palestinians, calling Zionist settlements as a grave injustice and warned the Muslims, not to remain silent on the matter. During the 1940s, he continued voicing concerns on the issue, boycotting British-organised conferences and their fundraising campaigns. He told US officials in 1945 that Pakistan would never recognise Israel. It had not yet been created.

Likewise, Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Pakistan’s national poet and ideologue, was deeply sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and remained consistently vocal in his opposition to Zionism and the British colonial policies in the Middle East. His fervent support was expressed in public statements as well as both in prose and poetry couched in Muslim unity, pan-Islamism and anti-imperialism. Viewing Zionism as a Western imperialist project backed by colonial powers, he strongly opposed the settlement of Jews in Arab lands and regarded it as a blatant injustice, brewing a threat for Muslim countries nearby. In 1931, during the famous Roundtable Conference, he met several Arab leaders and delegates and expressed solidarity with them on the Palestine issue. His speeches, statements and poetry corroborate his feelings on the issue.

After Independence, Pakistan lent full diplomatic support to the Palestinian cause. Jinnah sent Zafrullah Khan, Pakistan’s first foreign minister, to represent the country’s point of view on the issue in the United States. He soon emerged as an acknowledged spokesman of the Arab cause, says Farooq Ahmad Dar in his book, Jinnah’s Pakistan: Formation and Challenges of a State. Zafrullah Khan declared that the Balfour Declaration was invalid, presenting elaborately Pakistan’s stance of not accepting the partition of Palestine. He presciently warned the international community that the partition of Palestine would result in internecine conflict that even the United Nations would find difficult to contain.

Zafrullah Khan chaired Sub-Committee II of the United Nations General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine, recommending a unitary and sovereign state of Palestine in its report. The report stressed that, according to the charter of the United Nations, the organisation had no power to go against the wishes of the majority of the people of Palestine. Nonetheless, since the Sub-Committee I, in its report, had recommended the adoption and implementation of the plan of partition with an economic union, the Ad Hoc Committee did not accede to Zafrullah Khan’s recommendations. Jinnah openly appreciated Zafrullah Khan’s role in the United Nations and declared that he was following the policy of the government of Pakistan, writes Dar.

Later, when Jinnah came to know that Western powers had finalised their plan to divide Palestine, he made a last minute attempt to convince the main supporter of the partition plan, i.e. United States. Jinnah sent a cable to President Truman and appealed to him to uphold the genuine rights of the Palestinians to statehood. But Jinnah did not succeed in convincing Truman. The US managed to get 33 votes in favour of the partition plan on November 29, 1947. Pakistan was one of those 13 countries that cast their vote against the plan.

Zafrullah Khan was convinced that Truman had himself lobbied in the General Assembly. Therefore, he termed the partition plan a decision of the United States rather than of the United Nations. Jinnah was surprised and shocked at the serious lack of judgment at the United Nations and called the decision “unjust and cruel.” The Constituent Assembly of Pakistan unanimously passed a resolution calling upon the government not to recognise the state of Israel and opposed its admission in the United Nations as a country and declared it a threat to international peace. When Israel was admitted to the UN on May 11, 1949, Pakistan was one of the countries that voted against the motion. Later, it refused to recognise the state of Israel.

In the second OIC summit held in Lahore in February 1974, Pakistan played a key role in advocating for the Palestinian cause and strongly supported the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Pakistan also condemned Israeli aggression and continued occupation of Arab territories. This was the first time Yassar Arafat, PLO’s chairman, was invited to attend an international Islamic conference. The OIC’s united stance in 1974 significantly buoyed the PLO’s international standing and, soon after, the UN General Assembly granted the PLO an ‘observer status’ in November 1974.

Pakistan regularly voted in favour of Palestine at the UNGA and Human Rights Council throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. It also welcomed PLO’s declaration of an independent Palestinian state in 1988 and has never established diplomatic contacts with Israel. During the second Intifada (2000-2005), Pakistan condemned Israeli military action and later, unequivocally condemned Israeli assaults on Gaza, in 2014, 2018, 2023 and later. When the UAE, Bahrain and others normalised ties with Israel in the post-Abraham Accords era, Pakistan reaffirmed its consistent stance of not recognising Israel until a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian issue was achieved.

The writer heads the History Department at University of Sargodha. He has worked as a research fellow at Royal Holloway College, University of London. He can be reached at abrar.zahoor@hotmail.com His X handle: @AbrarZahoor1.