There is a pattern worth naming. Every time Pakistan achieves something that disrupts the regional narrative India has spent years constructing, an opinion piece appears in a Western publication reminding readers why Pakistan should not be taken seriously. The Wall Street Journal’s latest offering from Sadanand Dhume, titled “Hatred of Israel Holds Pakistan Back,” follows the pattern with unusual precision.
Dhume argues that Pakistan’s refusal to recognize Israel reflects an ideological obsession that corrupts its institutions, alienates potential partners, and holds back its economic and diplomatic development. He recommends Pakistan to follow India’s path and normalise relations with Israel as a prerequisite for meaningful progress
Former minister Shafqat Mahmood called it “A hit piece by an Indian apologist deeply concerned about Pakistan’s prominence in the peace process between Iran and US”
A Think Tank With an Agenda
Writer and Strategist and former MENA representative for WSJ Dan Qayyum’s rebuttal column “An Indian commentator at a pro-Israel think tank argues Pakistan should normalise with Israel” drew thousands of readers, He argued the piece reflects anxiety about watching a country India spent years trying to isolate become the world’s most sought-after diplomatic address.
Dhume writes from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a Washington organisation that independent media monitors consistently rate as carrying a pro-Israel bias in its foreign policy output. AEI housed Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and John Bolton before the Iraq War. Its Middle East programme was founded by figures with direct ties to Israeli military intelligence infrastructure. This is not incidental background. It explains why a column ostensibly about Pakistani economics is structured entirely around Israeli normalisation rather than, say, tax reform, energy pricing, or export competitiveness, which are the variables economists actually cite when explaining Pakistan’s structural constraints.
The Economic Argument Does Not Hold
The World Bank recorded Pakistan’s GDP growth at 3.0% in fiscal year 2025. Foreign direct investment rose 20% in the first half of the same year. Remittances reached a record $35 billion. All three major sovereign rating agencies upgraded Pakistan’s credit outlook. The Roshan Digital Account drew over $9 billion in diaspora inflows. None of this data supports the thesis that a foreign policy position on Palestine is the variable suppressing Pakistani development. Pakistan’s fiscal challenges trace to energy sector circular debt, a narrow tax base, elite capture documented by the IMF itself, and climate shocks that caused over $30 billion in flood damage. Dhume mentions none of this. A column genuinely concerned with Pakistan’s economy would start there.
India’s Own Strategic Glass House
Former media advisor to Bilawal Bhutto Omar Quraishi replied “A more realistic and apt piece would have been about India’s insane obsession with Pakistan”
The recommendation that Pakistan emulate India’s Israel relationship deserves scrutiny Dhume avoids entirely. India normalised with Israel in 1992 and has since become its largest arms customer. That relationship produced Pegasus spyware deployed against Indian journalists and opposition figures, French-built jets with Israeli avionics whose source codes Paris refused to transfer, and a sole diplomatic backer during the May 2025 conflict while sixty countries stayed silent. India’s normalisation with Israel has not delivered regional influence but a weapons dependency and a foreign policy profile that leaves New Delhi isolated precisely when it needs partners most.
The Date Was Not an Accident
The column was published on April 22, the Pahalgam attack anniversary, and a time Islamabad hosted the first direct American-Iranian engagement since 1979. Pakistan’s emergence as the indispensable mediator between Washington and Tehran represents a direct challenge to the narrative India has cultivated in Western capitals for two decades, namely that Pakistan is an unreliable state and India the region’s natural anchor. That narrative now sits uncomfortably against Iran’s ambassador saying Tehran would negotiate “in Pakistan and nowhere else, because we trust Pakistan.”
Does Pakistan see the world as it is? A country both Washington and Tehran trust enough to mediate their first meeting in 47 years clearly does. The question is whether New Delhi does.
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