All of the British efforts to establish a single state in which the rights of the two major resident communities could be protected had met insuperable obstacles. The demand for an independent, sovereign state for the minority religion was bitterly opposed by the majority. The only remaining avenue was partition.

Partition itself, unfortunately, led to conflict. The formation of the new state heralded bitter violence, much bloodshed, and a bloody migration. Hordes of people crossed borders in panic. There were riots, arson, and pitched battles. A great many people died. And even though the war ended, the status of some territories in the area remains disputed.

The impoverished state that emerged from the contemplated partition, eventually armed with a potent army and nuclear weapons, has fought four major wars since gaining independence and engaged in several other localized conflicts, military standoffs, and bloody border skirmishes. In addition to its violent international behavior, it discriminates domestically with brutality and harshness against its remaining religious minorities, which frequently face serious violence, economic discrimination, vandalism, arson and attacks against places of worship, and blasphemy accusations that frequently lead to violence, expropriation, or death.

Yes, Pakistan, which gained independence in 1947 and officially shed its dominion status and became the world’s first Islamic Republic on March 23, 1956, is hardly a model to be emulated. One wonders whether it should have been created in the first place or still has a right to exist. Perhaps we should check with Abdulrahman el-Sayed and Mayor Mamdani, who ostensibly oppose countries that, like Pakistan, prefer one religion over another.

Wait! What? Pakistan? I thought you were talking about . . . oh, never mind.

Isn’t Pakistan the great ally of the United States that is helping to mediate the war with Iran? Yup. Also the country whose Defense Minister, Khawaja Asif, just called Israel “evil,” a “curse for humanity,” a “cancerous state,” and a “common threat,” as he rallied Islamic nations to unite against Israel and annihilate it? Also the country that just entered into a trilateral defense pact with those two other paragons of freedom, enlightenment, and democracy, Turkey and Saudi Arabia?

Some neutral diplomatic mediator. Was Tucker Carlson not available?

Yes, Pakistan, which expelled over 5,000,000 (Pause–Think–Five–Million) refugees because they were Hindu and was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands more, is viewed as a moderate interlocutor.

You may be amused (or appalled) to learn that when 15,000,000 Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were displaced in the partition, the international community played virtually no role in managing the humanitarian catastrophe. Just as was the case with the Jews displaced from Arab lands. Not a single descendant of those 15,000,000 is now classified as a refugee. When do you get a UNRWA to take care of all your needs? Under what circumstances are you granted eternal refugee status? Only when you seek to blame the Jews.

In Pakistan, the world’s first Islamic Republic, young Christian and Hindu girls are forcibly converted and forced into marriage on a regular basis. Christians in Punjab and Hindus in Sindh are frequently targeted, suffering mob attacks, discrimination in employment and education, attacks on churches and temples, and the aforementioned forced conversion and marriage, often accompanied by abduction and sexual violence.

Remarkably, it is neither the harshly treated Hindus nor the oppressed Christians that bear the brunt of discrimination in Muslim Pakistan. The Ahmadiyya community, which is discriminated against by law, gets that dubious distinction.

The Ahmadis, founded in 1889, belong to a religious movement within Islam; they consider themselves Muslims, adhere to the Koran, the five pillars, and the six articles of faith, but differ from Shi’a and Sunni Muslims in their belief that the messiah/mahdi has already come (sort of like some other religion with which you may be familiar). They believe that the messiah was sent to revive Islam’s original teachings of peace and tolerance, reject “jihad of the sword” in favor of an intellectual and peaceful “jihad of the pen,” and engage in peaceful missionary work with the motto “love for all, hatred for none.”

Obviously that cannot be tolerated in Pakistan.

Pakistani laws prohibit Ahmadis from identifying themselves as Muslims, referring to their places of worship as mosques, or practicing Islamic rituals in public. They face prosecution for performing religious practices that other Muslims perform freely. For example, they may be arrested for participating in Friday prayers or celebrating Eid.

Apartheid, anyone? Or, even better, just briefly close your eyes again and imagine how the world would react if that treatment of a minority religion prevailed in Israel.

In Pakistan’s defense, it does not only discriminate against Hindus, Christians, and Ahmadis. According to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and Human Rights Watch (the sources of substantially all the information on religious intolerance set forth above), it also discriminates against other Muslims, if they happen to belong to the disfavored Shi’a, who also experience significant religious persecution and violence. The Shi’a are frequently targeted under the extremely flexible (anyone may allege a transgression) and extremely strict blasphemy laws.

On the world stage, Pakistan is a nuclear power. While there is no evidence that it has directly sold or transferred its nuclear technology, it does appear to have turned a blind eye to the clandestine AQ Khan network that operated for twenty years, exporting centrifuge design, components, blueprints, and expertise; TIME called Pakistan a “nuclear bazaar.” It was the godfather to the nuclear capabilities of such model regimes as Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Not until 2004 did Pakistan begin to strengthen and implement export controls. Until then it was either complicit, tolerant, or negligent in supplying nuclear capabilities to rogue countries.

And it has the temerity, the gall, the brazen audacity, to criticize Israel and call it an evil curse? Pot, meet kettle.

In all candor, I, probably like you, don’t give two figs about Pakistan. I believe, without hard evidence, that Osama bin Laden could not have hidden in Abbottabad without the assistance or awareness of the Pakistan security establishment (the official Pakistan inquiry called it a “collective and sustained dereliction of duty”). It is widely accepted that Pakistan’s ISI actively helped birth, fund, and organize the Taliban movement. While ostensibly allied with the US in the War on Terror, Pakistan provided safe havens to Taliban forces.

Accordingly, in my view, Pakistan is to the civilized community of countries what the stuff you scrape off the sole is to shoes. So why take the time to write this? Because the very notion that Pakistan is a respected member of the international community, a mediator, an ally to the Western powers, a voice that is accorded any level of dignity or respect whatsoever, and a country that feels it is empowered to judge and revile Israel, while Israel, its moral superior by every conceivable standard, benchmark, or metric, is smeared and condemned, offends my soul and my intellect.

Pakistan is guilty of every charge it levels at Israel. No one seems to care.

How do you define antisemitism? See above.

The above post originally appeared on my Substack (https://garyepsteinjd.substack.com/)