A couple of days ago, Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir reiterated his country’s and Pakistan Army’s support for Palestinians. He had first done so publicly on October 17, 2023, just 10 days after Hamas terrorists had killed over 1,200 Israelis on October 7. It is amazing that he claimed to support Palestinians, and one wonders whether it is selective amnesia, blatant lies or a lack of knowledge that was his motivation. May be all three of these factors were in play when he claimed the support of Pakistani Army to Palestinians. It is essentially a bundle of blatant lies as Pakistani Army has only harmed Palestinians.
What has been Pakistan Army’s record in extending support to the Palestinians? The current phase of Isreal’s attacks on Gaza Strip and other areas after an attack by Hamas killing hundreds of Israelis as stated above. From October 2023 till now, April 2025, has the Pakistani Army sent its personnel or armaments to Gaza Strip to fight Israeli troops? Has Pakistani Army sent any of its medics and supplies to look after the medical needs of the Palestinians?
Of course, there have been some public displays of outrage in Pakistan against Israeli actions in Gaza Strip. The best support that Pakistanis have extended to the cause of Palestinians is ransacking of a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlet and looting it in Rawalpindi on April 13, some days ago! For good effect and making the motivation for their actions known, those who vandalised the KFC outlet were shouting pro-Palestine slogans and carrying some Palestinian flags too.
That this act of vandalism was carried out in Rawalpindi, not very far from the Pakistani Army Headquarters (GHQ), perhaps needs to be taken note of. For adding crispness to their supposed acts of valour against Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), the protestors shouted anti-Israel and anti-US slogans also. One doesn’t need to dig deep for the hatred of ordinary radicalised Islamist Pakistanis against the US as its support for Israel is more than enough to merit that.
On record, all Pakistani Army and the Pakistan government headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif done is to issue public statements. What is the past record of the Pakistani nation in supporting Palestinians?
Pak Army against Palestinians
It definitely is worthwhile to check Pakistan Army’s past record of working for, or against the Palestinians. Once this record is seen, it comes as a rude shock that General Asim Munir can even talk of the Army that he commands today ever helping the Palestinians. The blood and gore of ordinary Palestinians, refugees and armed fidayeen included, is on the hands of Pakistani Armymen. Not in single digit, or double digit numbers but one sees the answer in five digits!
What he did not say was how some men and a single officer, Zia ul Haq, then a Brigadier, had helped Palestinians in September 1970, over 54 years ago.
How did Zia help Palestinians? If truth be told, he did not and actually worked against them with King Hussein of Jordan to kill at least 25,000 Palestinians between September 16, and September 26, 1970! General Asim Munir did not mention this massacre of Palestinians that the Pakistani Army had engineered.
People in Pakistan, particularly those subscribing to Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), call General Zia ul Haq as “butcher of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’’. It was Zia who had got Bhutto hanged on April 4, 1979, after getting him sentenced to death by a kangaroo court. The Lahore High Court then headed by Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain was in cahoots with Zia and an old case was dug out to dispose of Bhutto.
Instigated and initiated by Zia, Bhutto’s journey to gallows was a long one with some twists and turns. It started in September 1977. Seven years before that, in September 1970, Zia had carried out a massacre in far away Jordan. Between September 16 and 26, a matter of just 11 days, at least 25,000 Palestinians were brutally killed around Amman and other places where they had settled, mainly as refugees.
Zia ul Haq, butcher of Palestinians
Zia, then a Brigadier, was sent by the Pakistan Army on temporary duty to Jordan, came to be known as “butcher of Palestinians’’ after these mass killings. He personally led to Jordanian troops in planning and executing attacks on the Palestinians settlers. In all, Zia spent around three years in Jordan training its troops who were in a disarray after the 1967 war with Israel.
King Hussein of Jordan lost the West Bank and East Jerusalem to Israel in this war. It also led to an influx of over 300,000 Palestinians into Jordanian territory. Over the next weeks, months and years, Palestinian fighters, of whom Yasser Arafat was a leading figure, grew in strength and began challenging King Hussein. It was against these Palestinian elements that Zia helped King Hussein to wage a war.
By May 1970, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the leading men in Syria goaded Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat into believing that they were willing to support him in overthrowing King Hussein. It was then that Palestinians started working in right earnest to depose the king, who was being assisted by Pakistani Brigadier Zia ul Haq. The PLO and some other Palestinian organisations then hatched some assassination plots against the king.
Come September and tired of foiling assassination plots hatched by the Palestinians, King Hussein then went after them with the help of Zia on September 16. He then killed more Palestinians in 11 days than Israel could kill in 20 years before that. It was Pakistan’s Zia all the way who helped King Hussein carry out the massacre of 25,000 Palestinians.
These dark days later came to be known as “Black September of 1970’’.
Jordan’s tanks lead assault
On September 16, 1970, Jordan’s tanks drove into Palestinian strongholds and bombarded them heavily. Iraqi strongman Saddam had earlier promised that Iraq’s tanks, 200 of them, and at least 20,000 armed soldiers, will help overthrow the king. However, when the Jordanian assaults began, Iraqis decided not to join the action, afraid that the US was likely to get involved!
Palestinian foot soldiers, ill-trained to take on a regular army and capable only of adopting guerrilla tactics of high visibility nuisance value, then got a thorough beating. Hundreds and thousands of them were killed, with ordinary Palestinian refugees, being pushed out of Jordan to neighbouring Lebanon.
In his address, Pakistan Army Chief General Syed Asim Munir extended “diplomatic, moral and political support of the Pakistani nation” to the Palestinians. The Palestinians need to double check on his claims as the Pakistan Army has a horrendous record against them.
