ISLAMABAD - They live under skies without safety, beneath roofs that can vanish in a single airstrike. They hold papers that carry their names but grant no freedom. They exist without a homeland to anchor them. For Palestinians, the idea of permanence feels like an illusion. Every sunrise brings the fear that what little they have could vanish, and every night is shadowed by the uncertainty of displacement.

In this fragile landscape, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has given the go-ahead for over 3,000 housing units in the long-stalled E1 settlement project, a stretch of occupied land designed to connect Jerusalem to the illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement. Smotrich claims the plan “buries the idea of a Palestinian state” and calls it “Zionism at its best.” For Palestinians, it is another wound cut into their homeland, the concrete face of a so-called “Greater Israel” that the Palestinian Foreign Ministry describes as an act of genocide, displacement and annexation. International observers warn that E1 would split the West Bank in two, destroying any hope of a contiguous state connecting East Jerusalem to Bethlehem and Ramallah.

From Islamabad, the reply came like steel striking stone. In a statement this August, Pakistan’s Foreign Office strongly condemned and rejected the Israeli occupying power’s designs. The statement was direct: “Such moves”, it said, “constitute a flagrant violation of international law” and show “complete contempt for all international efforts aimed at achieving lasting peace and stability in the region.” It urged the world to reject such provocative notions not with careful words, but with decisive action, before they harden into unchangeable facts on the ground.

This clarity of voice is not born from recent outrage alone. It is rooted in the very foundations of Pakistan’s foreign policy. In December 1947, before Pakistan had completed its first year of independence, Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah condemned the UN plan to partition Palestine as “unjust and cruel.” Speaking to the BBC’s Robert Stimson, he declared that “the Muslims of the Sub-Continent had been compelled to condemn in the strongest possible manner the unjust and cruel decision of the United Nations concerning the partition of Palestine, pledging continued support to the Arab cause in Palestine in every way that was possible.” For Jinnah, Palestine was not a distant conflict; it was a test of the Muslim world’s conscience.

That test has returned, dressed in the language of urban development but carrying the same design Jinnah warned against: dispossession repackaged as progress. Pakistan’s stance has been steady for decades. It backs a two-state solution on the pre-June 1967 borders, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as the capital of a free Palestine, and the right of return for all Palestinians driven from their homes. For Islamabad, there is no room for half measures — no handshake, no normalisation — until these rights are secured in full and justice is done.

The E1 settlement plan is not a minor zoning dispute. It is a deliberate lever to break the territorial backbone of any future Palestinian state. It is why the United Nations, the European Union, and human rights organizations have all warned of irreversible consequences. It is also why Pakistan, whether at the UN or within the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, has stood among the clearest voices in opposition.

Even as some Arab states normalized ties under the Abraham Accords, Pakistan stood apart. This was not out of stubbornness but out of fidelity to principle. The logic is clear. Just as no settlement in Kashmir can be imposed without the will of its people, no peace in Palestine can be imposed that leaves its people without a state. Justice, not convenience, must shape the terms.

The statement printed on every Pakistani passport — “This passport is valid for all countries of the world except Israel” — is not merely a diplomatic clarification, but a written pledge. These words are part of every Pakistani citizen’s travel document and serve as an open declaration that Pakistan and its people stand firmly with the Palestinian cause for freedom. It is a symbolic yet powerful stance, reflecting that Pakistan, in its national identity, foreign policy, and public sentiment, remains aligned with Palestine and opposed to Israeli occupation.

On the world stage, Pakistan has stood behind resolutions declaring Israeli settlements illegal, backed UN Security Council Resolution 2334, and called for protection for Palestinians living under occupation. But it also understands that statements alone cannot hold back concrete and steel. Islamabad has pressed for real action — sanctions, embargoes, and legal steps under international law to halt the bulldozers before they erase Palestine from the map.

But the world hesitates. U.S. vetoes shield Israel from accountability. Europe voices opposition to settlements while deepening trade. The United Nations passes resolutions but sends no force to enforce them. This paralysis emboldens projects like E1 and breathes life into the “Greater Israel” rhetoric that drives them.

For Pakistan, such inaction is not simply a diplomatic failure; it is a betrayal of the principles the UN Charter claims to defend. If the world cannot halt a settlement plan that openly declares the burial of a Palestinian state, then the international order is not merely fraying but it is failing.

Still, Islamabad’s stand remains steady. It is the same vow Jinnah made in 1947, carried forward like a flame through years of shifting alliances and changing wars. It has become part of Pakistan’s very soul — the belief that sovereignty without justice is an empty prize, and that peace without dignity is no peace at all.

So until the bulldozers fall silent, until the dust of exile settles into the courtyards of a free Palestine, Pakistan will hold its ground where Jinnah once stood, steady under pressure, unmoved by the passing winds of power, keeping faith with a promise that was never up for bargain.