Pakistan Calls Israel a Threat. Can the Muslim World Guarantee Peace?

At the United Nations in September 2024, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi made Israel an extraordinary offer.

Speaking after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Safadi rejected the notion that Israel was surrounded by neighbours committed to its destruction, as Netanyahu had declared. “We are here, members of the Muslim-Arab committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries,” he said. “And I can tell you here, very unequivocally, all of us are willing to, right now, guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state.”

Safadi then turned Netanyahu’s argument on its head. “The amount of damage this Israeli government has done, 30 years of efforts to convince people that peace is possible, this Israeli government killed it,” he profoundly said.

It was a powerful statement. It was also a sweeping promise.

Less than two years later, it deserves another look. I was skeptical of it from the beginning. Twenty-six of the 57 Muslim countries do not formally recognize Israel. Nearly half of the states supposedly willing to guarantee Israel’s security do not recognize the state whose security they would be guaranteeing.

One of those 57 countries that Safadi speaks of is Pakistan. It is also not an inconsequential member of the group. With more than 250 million people, a strong military, and an arsenal of nuclear weapons, Pakistan is among the most powerful states in the Muslim world. Now its defence minister has described Israel as a threat to the Muslim world and called for Muslim countries to unite militarily against it. This comes the day after Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey established a new security framework in Mecca, under which aggression against one is to be treated as aggression against all.

None of this means that 57 Muslim countries are preparing for war against Israel. Saudi Arabia and Turkey have their own interests and (in the former’s case, unofficial) relationships with Israel, and Pakistan’s rhetoric should not be automatically applied to them. The Pakistani minister’s statement also doesn’t negate decades of Arab diplomacy seeking a negotiated settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it does raise an uncomfortable question that proponents of a two-state solution increasingly need to answer: Who, exactly, is guaranteeing Israel’s security? As a committed, if increasingly pessimistic, two-stater myself, I would like to know, too.

The idea that Palestinian statehood could be accompanied by regional guarantees for Israel is hardly new. The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative offered Israel normalized relations with Arab states in the context of a comprehensive peace agreement, Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied in 1967 and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

More than two decades later, the same basic framework remains central to international diplomacy. The 2025 “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and Implementation of the Two-State Solution” again speaks of “security guarantees” for both Israel and Palestine. It envisions international involvement, strengthened Palestinian security institutions, and arrangements intended to ensure that Palestinian statehood does not come at the expense of Israeli security. That principle is reasonable. A Palestinian state cannot meaningfully be sovereign if Israel retains indefinite military control over it. But Israelis cannot reasonably be expected to exchange existing security arrangements for vague promises of “security guarantees” that rely on the goodwill of other states and a political willingness to enforce them.

This is particularly true after October 7.

Security guarantees cannot simply be rhetorical. They must answer the uncomfortable questions, such as: What happens if an armed Palestinian faction attacks Israel from the territory of the new Palestinian state? What happens if the Palestinian government is unwilling, or unable, to suppress it? What obligations would regional guarantors assume?

A credible peace cannot rely only on expressions of goodwill. They must be specific and have clear obligations of the guarantors. A security framework is only as strong as it is enforceable.

This is where Safadi’s 2024 statement becomes problematic. Jordan has demonstrated its willingness to coexist with Israel through more than three decades of formal peace. Egypt has done so for considerably longer, approaching 50 years. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco have established relations with Israel. Other Arab governments have repeatedly signalled their willingness to contemplate normalization under the right political circumstances (including the jewel in the crown, Saudi Arabia).

But there is no single Arab or Muslim foreign policy. Safadi can speak politically on behalf of a coalition of Arab and Muslim states, but he cannot make Pakistan recognize Israel. And Pakistan matters precisely because it demonstrates the enormous variation of views among the “57 Arab and Muslim countries.” If Pakistan regards Israel as a threat against which Muslim states should militarily unite, what exactly would its role be in the security framework Safadi described?

Would Pakistan recognize Israel as part of a comprehensive two-state settlement? Would it recognize Israel’s agreed borders? Would it commit itself to opposing armed groups that aim to destroy the peace deal? Would it regard an attack on Israel by a rejectionist organization as an attack on a peace that Pakistan itself had ostensibly guaranteed to protect? Or would Pakistan simply remain outside that framework while nevertheless being counted rhetorically among the 57 states supposedly guaranteeing it?

On matters of national survival, Israelis have good reason to be suspicious of ambiguity.

Safadi may ultimately be correct about the opportunity before Israel. The Arab Peace Initiative offered something previous generations of Israelis could scarcely have imagined: acceptance and regional integration in exchange for resolving the Palestinian conflict. A future in which Israel enjoys recognized borders, relations across the Arab and Muslim worlds, and a sovereign Palestinian neighbour would be profound. I have my critiques of the Initiative, but it’s a useful starting point.

Israel should not dismiss that possibility. But neither should its security be guaranteed by speeches at the UN. After all, Israel’s very foundational ethos, Zionism, is predicated on the notion that the Jewish people should not have to outsource their security to the goodwill of others.

If Arab and Muslim governments are serious about guaranteeing Israel’s security as part of a two-state settlement, they should be unequivocally clear on what “security guarantees” entail. Otherwise, Israelis can reasonably question whether Safadi’s sweeping promise reflects concrete commitments from the Muslim world, or diplomatic rhetoric intended to demonstrate that the obstacle to peace lies exclusively with Israel.

Pakistan’s latest rhetoric does not prove that peace between Israel and the Muslim world is impossible, nor does it erase the peace Israel already has with several of its neighbours. It does, however, expose the danger of treating “the Muslim world” as though it were a single actor capable of making a collective security commitment. In 2024, Ayman Safadi told Israelis that 57 Arab and Muslim countries were prepared to guarantee their security “right now.” Today, the defence minister of one of the largest and most militarily powerful of those countries is calling Israel a threat and urging Muslim states to unite militarily against it.

Perhaps the 57-state offer remains real. If so, those governments should be clear about what they are actually guaranteeing, what obligations they are prepared to assume, and what happens when that guarantee is tested.

Israel should be willing to take risks for a peace that preserves Israel as a Jewish state, ends the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and achieves Israelis genuine regional acceptance. But a foundational principle of Zionism is that Jewish security should not depend on the goodwill of others. Israel can accept international guarantees as part of a peace agreement; it cannot outsource responsibility for its survival to them.

If Israelis are being asked to stake their future security on the promise of 57 Arab and Muslim governments, “trust us” is not enough.