The Distant Threat: Is Israel Constructing a Strategic Rival in Pakistan

The conversation has shifted. Where Israeli strategic documents and doctrine, which once treated Pakistan as a peripheral and distant concern, often referred to as India’s problem, not Israel has now shifted. There is now a deliberate and systematic push to include Pakistan within the expanding circle of Israel’s threat perception. This shift is not accidental, it reflects a deepening pattern in how Israel identifies, constructs and manages distant adversaries and threats before they become immediate crisis.

The Pattern Emerges

Between 2023 and 2026, Israeli government and security institutions underwent a quiet but significant political and strategic reassessment. During this period there have been approximately 3-5 major documented instances of high level Israeli public condemnation of Pakistan. These have almost exclusively followed direct, inflammatory remarks by Pakistani officials, such as the April 2026 diplomatic row which was triggered by Pakistani Defence minister Khawaja Asif, resulting in Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, Israeli Foreign Minister and Israeli Ambassadors response on the statement given by Islamabad’s Defence Minister. In comparison to the 2023-2026 period, pre-2023 period, official public statements directed at Pakistan were negligible, estimated at fewer than 2-3 instances per decade. Most “criticism” occurred was indirect and mainly through statements on regional security partnerships with India or broader geopolitical shifts.

Pakistan moved from strategic invisibility to active discussions. Israel’s premier strategic voices began publishing analyses flagging Pakistan’s military modernization, nuclear arsenal expansion and ever lasting ideological opposition to Israel as emerging strategic concerns.

This shift from viewing Pakistan as a distant and peripheral concern, mirrors a familiar Israeli template. The same arc that characterized Israel’s relationship with Iran, from latent threat to active adversary, which is now being applied to Pakistan.

The Iran Precedent: A Blueprint for Threat Construction

Israel’s doctrine of pre-emptive threat identification emerged from the nation’s existential vulnerability as a small state surrounded by large adversaries. This crystallised during the Six Day War (1967), when Israel pre-emptively struck first to prevent coordinated invasion from the Arab nations, hence establishing the principle that the threats should be identified and neutralised before they mature and pose a serious threat rather than just waiting for an attack. The 1981 strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, further establishing this doctrine that threats should be identified and neutralised before they mature. Syria’s Al-Kibar reactor in 2007, which was destroyed in “Operation Orchard” also reinforced this principle. These responses were not to immediate military attacks but they were anticipatory actions based on accurate intelligence and perceived future capability.

But Iran represents the more instructive precedent for Pakistan analysis. Iran shared three very critical characteristics with Pakistan: no direct border with Israel, continuous radical opposition based on religious and political grounds and an expanding arsenal of unconventional weapons and delivery systems. Yet Iran’s trajectory from “distant concern” to “immediate threat” follows a precise pattern that bears examination.

During the 1990’s and 2000’s, Iran’s nuclear program received Israeli attention but remained more so manageable through intelligence operations and covert actions, cyber attacks like Stuxnet, a joint US-Isareli operation known as “Operation Olympic Games”, which destroyed roughly 1000 centrifuges and resulting in delaying the program, assassinations of nuclear scientists and strikes on proxy capabilities in Syria. The rhetoric was controlled and the threat was categorised as “future” and “manageable.”

By 2024, this changed fundamentally. Iran demonstrated capability to strike Israel directly, the April 2024 strikes on Israeli bases and the October 2024 missile attack and “12 Day War” in which Israel struck Iranian nuclear installations, hence elevating it from theoretical threat to active adversary. The February-March 2026 escalation, culminating in direct US-Israeli strikes on Iranian targets and the death of Supreme Leader of Iran “Ali Khamenei”, marked the full transition from covert containment to open and large-scale confrontation.

The template is now clear: early detection of capability to narrative construction framing the threat to proxy operations and covert action to eventually, open confrontation if the red line is crossed.

Image Source: Statista

Pakistan's Emerging Profile

Pakistan possesses several characteristics that align it with Iran in Israeli strategic thinking and one critical difference that complicates the calculus. The similarities are substantial between Iran and Pakistan. Pakistan maintains an estimated 170+ nuclear warhead arsenal, one of the fastest growing arsenals according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Its delivery systems include the “Ra’ad” air launched cruise missile with a range of 350km to the “Ghauri series” missiles with ranges reaching 1500+ km and the “Shaheen 3” missile with range reaching to estimated 2,750kms meaning the longer-range variant like Shaheen 3 missile can theoretically reach Israeli territory, which lies approximately 2,100 kms from Pakistan’s borders. More concerning for regional strategists and Israeli’s, United States intelligence reports indicate that Pakistan is actively in pursuit of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (commonly known as ICBM) capability, which would or could extend the strike range beyond just regional targets.

Image Source: CSIS

Pakistan does not recognise Israel diplomatically since its independence and maintains consistent UN voting patterns against Israeli interests. More significantly, Pakistan possesses ideological legitimacy as a major Islamic nuclear power, a status that Iran lacks to the same degree.

Pakistan’s military modernization is rapidly accelerating. Recent drone capabilities, missile development program represent expanding asymmetric potential. Military exchanges between Iran and Pakistan in January 2024 signalled a capability demonstration that Israeli intelligence services noted carefully.

But here is the critical difference between Iran and Pakistan and that is China. Pakistan’s strategic partnership with Beijing creates a constraint on Israeli options that did not exist with Iran. Direct Israeli strikes on Pakistani territory carry risk of Chinses intervention or escalation in ways that Iran strikes do not hold. This scenario shapes how Israel must approach the Pakistani threat.

The Rhetorical Shift: From Silence to Strategy

The transformation has a visible timeline. Until 2022, Pakistani military development and strategic positioning received minimal attention in Israeli strategic discourse. Pakistan was always treated as India’s problem/challenge not Israel’s.

This perception and positioning started changing in 2023. Israeli think tanks and strategic institutions started including Pakistan in threat assessments and regional political analysis. By 2024-2025 Israeli media began reporting on Pakistan’s military modernization and its implication for regional stability. In 2025-2026, the rhetoric escalated, Israeli officials and public figures began referencing and criticizing Pakistan more openly.

What is crucial here is that this rhetorical elevation could reflect a strategic communication effort, a deliberate institutional inclusion of Pakistan in Israeli’s threat disclosure. Israel is signalling to its allies, to the international community and to Pakistan itself that it views Pakistan differently than it did 3 years ago. The purpose of this signalling could be to establish early deterrence to justify expanded intelligence monitoring operations.

The Complicating Factors: China, India and Nuclear Unpredictability

Three variables complicate Tel Aviv’s approach to Islamabad in ways that differ from Iran. First is the nuclear unpredictability. Pakistan’s command and control structure is more fragmented than Iran’s state apparatus. Multiple centres of power within the Pakistan’s military and the government create uncertainty about how decisions would be made in case of a crisis. This was starkly demonstrated during Operation Sindoor, despite the ceasefire agreement being reached, Pakistan armed forces again launched an attack on the Indian territory with swaths of drone the same night, suggesting that competing military factions are operating without unified command authorization. This unpredictability cuts both ways, it could deter Israeli action but also justifies increased covert operations and monitoring.

Second is Ideological resonance. Pakistan’s Islamic legitimacy in the Muslim world makes it a potent force for anti Israel mobilization in ways Iran with its Shia revolutionary ideology cannot achieve. Pakistan can frame opposition to Israel as defending Islam itself. Pakistan could weaponize religion for anti Isarel purposes and campaigns through its nuclear backed Islamic credentials like it has been doing this with New Delhi, where it weaponizes Islamic identity and religious grievances to mobilize support against it. This could then create a military nexus that Israeli strategists could treat as distinct threat beyond Iran’s model.

Third is the alliance factor. Pakistan in September 2025 signed a Strategic Mutual Defence Agreement (SMDA) with Saudi Arabia, declaring that “any aggression against either country shall be considered an aggression against both”, creating a direct constraint on Israeli options, as hypothetically any act of military aggression against Islamabad could trigger a response from Riyadh. But this agreement was put to test during the Iran-US-Israel war, where Iran struck Saudi Arabia with drones and ballistic missiles, but did not lead to any response from Pakistan.

The India Factor: Constraint and Opportunity

India’s presence in the Israel-Pakistan dynamic complicates the picture in both directions. On one hand, Israel will benefit from New Delhi’s concerns about Pakistan’s military modernization and can leverage India-Isarel defence cooperation to gather intelligence and share threat assessments to India. Since the establishment of full diplomatic relations between India and Israel in 1992, the relationship has evolved into one of the most strategic and significant defence partnerships. Institutional mechanisms like the Joint Working Group on Defence Cooperations have enabled both the countries to have sustained engagement in intelligence sharing and counter terror coordination and technological collaborations. This trajectory has been further reinforced by the elevation of ties to a Special Strategic Partnership, signalling deeper institutional and security alliance/alignment.

This partnership is not merely diplomatic; it is very much operational. Jointly developed weapons system like Barak 8 Surface to Air missile, alongside India’s deployment of Israeli platforms like the Heron Drone and Phalcon AWACS. This illustrates a high degree of interoperability and trust.

Yet this very relationship also constraints Israeli options. India does not seek the destabilization or collapse of Pakistan because such an outcome could carry severe consequences for regional stability, which includes refugee flows, escalation risks, terror outgrow and concerns over nuclear security along its borders. Moreover, India’s longstanding doctrine of Strategic Autonomy long prevents it from being drawn in external conflicts that do not serve its own national interests. What is to note is that, while the relationship between India and Israel is a longstanding one but its is also deliberately often kept low profile to preserve both countries broader strategic goals and diplomatic engagements.

The net effect is triangular dynamic marked by both convergence and divergence. India and Israel share concerns regarding Pakistan’s military trajectory, yet they operate under different strategic compulsions. India continues to manage Pakistan as its primary and immediate security challenge because of many factors, grounded in history and geography. Israel on the other hand is beginning to incorporate Pakistan into an expanding spectrum of strategic concerns shaped by capability, ideology and long-term risk assessment and for Pakistan this creates a perception of pressure from multiple directions, even though these pressures are neither formally coordinated nor necessarily aligned in intent.

The Strategic Irony: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Here lies the central tension in Israel’s approach to Pakistan, the more aggressively Israel constructs Pakistan as a strategic threat, the more it validates Islamabad’s own security fears and hence justifying its military modernization, closer alliances with China and increased hostility towards Tel Aviv.

Pakistan’s security establishment, viewing Israeli actions through its existing lens of threat perception will interpret Israeli rhetorical escalation as confirmation that Israel is indeed a fundamental adversary, hence this would lead to tightening Pakistan’s alignment with countries, who view Israel as adversary like Turkey and Iran on Islamic issues, deepening China’s security commitments and harden Pakistan’s own deterrence posture.

The result is self-fulfilling prophecy, Israel constructs Pakistan as a threat to Pakistan responds by strengthening its capabilities and alliances to Israel's original assessment appears validated to both sides escalate within their respective threat narratives to Pakistan becomes the threat Israel predicted, not necessarily because the threat was inevitable but because the pressure applied created the conditions for it.

Conclusion: A Rivalry Without War

Pakistan is not entering Israeli “strategic crosshairs” in the sense of imminent military confrontation. Rather, Israeli is systematically constructing a threat narrative and operational posture towards Pakistan that mirrors its approach to Iran that is early deterrence, covert pressure, diplomatic isolation and proxy confrontation without direct war.

For Pakistan, this means accepting that Israel has moved from indifference to active strategic competition. The era of invisibility is over. Pakistan must now account for Israeli covert operations, intelligence gathering and diplomatic pressure as permanent features of strategic environment.

For Israel, Pakistan represents complex challenges like nuclear threats, ideological opposition, proxy networks with growing military capabilities. Preventive deterrence through covert action and strategic signalling is more feasible than direct forms of confrontation but would be more difficult to manage than Iram because of China’s protective role.

For the region, this emerging rivalry intersects with existing tensions in ways that complicate all players' calculations. India shares Israel's concerns about Pakistani military expansion but has incentives to prevent escalation. China shields Pakistan but has limited ability to protect it from covert operations. The US provides the strategic framework legitimizing this approach while managing its own contradictory interests in regional stability and containment. The question is not whether Israel will confront Pakistan. The question is how far the logic of pre-emption will drive both sides before deterrence structures and mutual vulnerability create stable, if hostile, equilibrium.

“History suggests the former is possible. But it is not guaranteed.”

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(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views of CESCUBE)

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