ISLAMABAD - Pakistan yesterday categorically said Islamabad does not have any diplomatic or trade ties with Israel. “There is no change in the policy,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch said in a statement, rubbishing the propaganda. She said Pakistan has no diplomatic or trade relations with Israel. The debate emerged after a Jewish businessman’s tweet about exporting food samples to Jerusalem and Haifa. Fishel Benkhald, a Pakistani-Jew based in Karachi, went viral for tweeting about his first kosher food shipment to Israel. “Congratulations to me as a Pakistani. I exported the first batch of Pakistan food products to Israel market,” he claimed last week. Benkhald – who converted to Islam from Judaism in 2017- shared a video clip showing his visit to an Israeli market. He walked past grocery stalls with boxes of dates, dried fruit and spices with product tags in Hebrew. Pakistan backs a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has a longstanding position of non-recognition of Israel until an independent Palestinian state is established within the pre-1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. Pakistan’s Commerce Ministry also said rumours of bilateral trade were ‘sheer propaganda’. “Neither do we have any trade relations with Israel nor do we intend to develop any,” it said in a statement. In a previous statement, the FO had clarified that the “reported visit in question was organised by a foreign non-governmental organisation which is not based in Pakistan and that Pakistan’s position on the Palestinian issue was clear and unambiguous.” “There is no change, whatsoever, in our policy on which there is a complete national consensus. Pakistan steadfastly supports the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination,” the spokesperson had then remarked.
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