Pakistan’s abject failure to curb the extremist political party, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP), from openly challenging state authority—terrorising citizens and unleashing a wave of violence and arson for over a week—ought to set alarm bells ringing in countries seeking friendship with Islamabad, not least Israel.
For Israel, any attempt to establish diplomatic relations with a state that openly patronises Islamist groups is bound to backfire, as France has already learnt to its cost.
The TLP first came to prominence last November when it paralysed Islamabad with protests demanding that Pakistan sever all ties with France over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published in a French satirical magazine. The group’s demand included the immediate expulsion of the French Ambassador.
The ferocity of the protests, coupled with the TLP’s backing from the powerful army, forced Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government into capitulation. It accepted the party’s demands and pledged to cut ties with France—a deal negotiated by a senior officer of the ISI, the army’s intelligence wing.
The direct and open involvement of the army in managing the protests revealed the influence the extremist group wielded over Pakistan’s establishment. Indeed, the TLP itself is a creation of the army, designed to politically undermine former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his party in Punjab.
What should particularly alarm Tel Aviv is the rapid growth of the TLP and the ease with which the army surrendered to its own Frankenstein’s monster. The group, as in this case, could just as easily turn against Israel, sabotaging whatever grand strategy Israel imagines it is pursuing in befriending such an ungovernable, Islamist-dominated state.
At the heart of the present impasse is the dithering of Pakistan’s military leadership, which has allowed the writ of the state to be brazenly challenged. This humiliating surrender will, as in the past, only consolidate Islamist forces. A similar trajectory unfolded under General Pervez Musharraf when militant groups once nurtured by the army turned violently against their patron. It was only when the interests of multiple countries, including China, were directly threatened that Musharraf was compelled to deploy force to suppress the Islamist tide.
The rise of Islamist forces in Egypt, Iraq and Iran in recent years offers a stark reminder of what could take root in Pakistan, where extremist religious groups have long been employed as instruments of both domestic and foreign policy.
Tel Aviv would do well to study reports by Pakistan’s own intelligence and security agencies, including the National Counter-Terrorism Authority (NACTA). These reports conclude that the TLP has not only challenged but dismantled state authority. They warn that this new force of terror will provoke sectarian rivalries, leading to competing outbreaks of violence, alongside rising Sunni radicalisation and militarisation.
The failure of both the army and the Imran Khan government to contain the chaos unleashed by a few thousand TLP thugs suggests that Pakistan is heading towards prolonged internal conflict—a prospect likely to be intensified by the imminent withdrawal of US and allied forces from Afghanistan.
For Israel, a diplomatic relationship with Islamabad would be an albatross around its neck. Not only would it entangle Tel Aviv in Pakistan’s anarchic future, as the TLP episode forewarns, but it would also risk sowing distrust among neighbouring states that view Israel as a steadfast ally. There is nothing to gain from propping up Islamabad. On the contrary, Israel should work with like-minded nations to prevent Pakistan’s further descent into the hands of Islamist forces such as the TLP.