Palestine, Pakistan, and the Possibility of Peace at the UN

As the United Nations holds its high-level global conference on Palestine in New York, co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, the world stands at a fork in the road between declamatory solidarity and action. For Pakistan, a country that has been unshakably consistent in its support for the Palestinian nation for more than seven decades, this meeting is not a diplomatic exercise, it is a test of world conscience.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has shown guarded hopefulness, calling for “meaningful outcomes” in the midst of mounting violence and deteriorating humanitarian crises in Gaza. His call for real progress is not only a manifestation of Islamabad’s principled foreign policy but also an aspiration of the wider Global South: justice cannot be kept in abeyance while lives are lost on a daily basis under occupation and blockade.

Maybe most noteworthy in advance of the summit is French President Emmanuel Macron’s announcement that France will officially recognize Palestine as a state, something to be officially declared in the September UN General Assembly. The move represents a diplomatic break in the West’s long reluctance to follow through on its own professed commitment to the two-state solution. For decades, most European countries have been paying lip service to Palestinian independence while quietly conniving with Israel’s expansionist agenda. France’s move, albeit belated, has broken that silence.

Pakistan has greeted this move as a step in the right direction, but one that has to be accompanied by action on the international level. France’s recognition cannot be permitted to be another empty gesture floating in an ocean of UN resolutions and stalling peace negotiations. Rather, it should serve as a catalyst for wider diplomatic recognition, more humanitarian assistance, and legal accountability for war crimes against civilians in Gaza.

The humanitarian crisis is still devastating. More than 38,000 Palestinians have been reported dead in Gaza since October 2023, including tens of thousands of women and children, by health officials. Israel’s assault has destroyed schools, hospitals, and essential infrastructure. Through this destruction, millions of Palestinians still exist, and struggle, under occupation. Their existence, physical and political, is not merely a matter of alms. It is a matter of international law.

Ishaq Dar’s recent dialogue with Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi highlights the escalating need for collective regional diplomacy. The two discussed the acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza and intimated an imminent high-level visit to Pakistan, indicating closer cooperation among Muslim states. In an ever-increasingly realpolitik world, Pakistan’s foreign policy on Palestine is one of the few examples of moral continuity. Unlike others, Pakistan has never regularized relations with Israel, resisted pressures to abandon its stance, and continues to advocate Palestinian statehood as an unyielding principle.

What adds to Pakistan’s position being so crucial today is its credibility. It has no colonial legacy in the Middle East, no settler connections, and no military stakes in the war. Its solidarity is based on history, international law, and a constitutional vision that connects Muslim solidarity with world justice. That earns Pakistan the right to advocate concrete action at the summit, not ceasefire and resolutions alone, but recognition, reconstruction, and reparations.

But the world should not forget the lesson of previous conferences. Palestine has too often been made into a talking point, talked about at summits and ignored in fact. If this conference concludes without binding commitments, it risks becoming part of the very procrastination that perpetuates the occupation. Pakistan is calling for more: Palestine’s full UN membership, Israeli war crimes prosecution, global protection for civilians, and a peace arrangement on the basis of pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

Ultimately, this summit is not about Palestine. It is about whether or not the international order has any strength left to dispense justice, or if it has become so broken that even genocide goes unpunished. Pakistan has taken its position. France has made its play. The rest of the world must then decide: silence, or sovereignty.