Pakistan's state-run TV channel fires journalist over visit to Israel

A Pakistani journalist working for a state-run information channel has been fired after backlash over his current go to to Israel.

Pakistani Federal Info Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb confirmed on Monday that Ahmed Quraishi, a correspondent for Pakistan Tv (PTV), was sacked. The minister additionally reaffirmed Islamabad’s coverage towards relations with Israel.

Aurangzeb clarified that Quraishi’s go to to Israel was in his private capability and that it had nothing to do with the federal government or its insurance policies.

Quraishi additionally confirmed the information to Center East Eye, saying that the Pakistani authorities and former Prime Minister Imran Khan are “united in chastising a journalist doing his skilled work outdoors Pakistan, one which has no relevance to Pakistan or the nation’s Center East insurance policies”.

“I’m disenchanted by the announcement and the best way it was carried out – designed to actual public humiliation throughout [the] authorities’s primary briefing of the day by the data minister,” Quraishi instructed MEE.

Quraishi asserted that he was a freelancer and never a authorities worker or an worker of the state-run channel.

“A authorities minister publicly chastising an impartial journalist and judging his non-public work within the Center East (my space of labor for practically 25 years now) is ridiculous and worrying,” he mentioned.

The Pakistani Ministry of Info didn’t reply to MEE’s request for remark by the point of publication.

Pakistan is amongst a couple of South Asian international locations that haven’t any diplomatic relations with Israel.

Quraishi was a part of a 15-member delegation of Pakistani expatriates that travelled to Israel earlier this month, in line with the journey’s organiser Anila Ali, a Pakistani-born US citizen residing in Washington.

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She instructed The Related Press that neither Pakistan’s authorities nor the US was behind the journey, as a substitute saying the go to was to “see the Abraham Accords in motion”.

Ali mentioned the go to was co-sponsored by Sharaka, a Gulf-Israeli NGO based in late 2020 after the signing of Israel’s normalisation offers with Arab international locations. The organisation goals “to construct bonds between younger Israeli and Gulf leaders”.

The delegation additionally met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who spoke in regards to the go to on the World Financial Discussion board in Davos.

“This was a tremendous expertise as a result of we haven’t had a gaggle of Pakistani leaders in Israel ever in such scope and that every one stemmed from the Abraham Accords, that means Jew and Muslim can dwell collectively within the area,” Herzog mentioned.

Pakistan has mentioned no delegation from the nation visited Israel.

Breaking help for Palestinians

Former prime minister Imran Khan had additionally accused the incumbent coalition authorities of wanting to ascertain ties with Israel, which he mentioned was a part of a US-backed regime change conspiracy towards his authorities.

Ali instructed the AP there was no fact to Khan’s remarks, during which the ex-premier additionally alleged that the present rulers in Pakistan “are going to acknowledge Israel”.

“Now we have no intentions of talking for the Pakistani authorities whether or not to normalize relations with Israel or not,” Ali mentioned. “The matter is between the Israeli authorities and Pakistan.”

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In an interview with Geo TV, Ali additionally thanked the Imran Khan authorities for permitting Fishel BenKhald, a Jewish Pakistani, to journey to Israel.

The Abraham Accords refers to a sequence of diplomatic agreements brokered by the Trump administration in 2020 that normalised relations between Israel and 4 Arab international locations – the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.

The agreements broke a longstanding consensus within the Arab world that normalisation with Israel would solely include main concessions for Palestinians, together with Palestinian statehood.

However after the Abraham Accords, that wall of help from Arab international locations crumbled, maybe paving the best way sooner or later for different international locations to take the identical step.

Israel and Pakistan have made overtures to one another up to now, most notably when the nation’s international ministers met in Istanbul in 2005 following Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. However there has not been any main public push to carry the international locations nearer. In the meantime, Israel has tightened ties lately with India.