One has to ask a simple question: why are outlets like The Jerusalem Post so worried about due process in Pakistan, especially highlighting the case of former prime minister Imran Khan?
Its latest opinion piece on Imran Khan does something familiar. It begins by conceding that Khan’s 2022 removal through a no-confidence vote was constitutionally valid, but then quickly shifts to the now well-worn suggestion that the legal system is being used to sideline a political rival. That is not neutral reporting. That is framing. It invites the reader to see one man as the whole of Pakistan’s democratic story, while the state, the courts, Parliament, and the broader political order are reduced to villains in a morality play.
The first problem with this narrative is not that it raises questions. The problem is that it asks only one set of questions. It is interested in Imran Khan’s victimhood, but not in the wider context of Pakistan’s constitutional process, the volatility that followed his ouster, or the very real national trauma associated with May 9 attacks on state institutions and prolonged political destabilisation. A selective lens is not journalism at its best. It is advocacy dressed up as concern.
No serious analyst should descend into cheap conspiracy. But no serious analyst should be naïve either.
And then comes the larger question, the one many Pakistanis will quietly ask even if foreign commentators do not: why this repeated interest from an Israeli paper in rehabilitating or romanticising Imran Khan’s image?
No serious analyst should descend into cheap conspiracy. But no serious analyst should be naïve either. Media outlets do not operate in a vacuum. Editorial choices reflect strategic curiosity, ideological preference, and the desire to shape international perceptions. When a newspaper from a state that has no diplomatic relations with Pakistan repeatedly elevates one internal Pakistani political narrative over all others, Pakistanis are entitled to ask what exactly is being invested in here: principle, preference, or pressure.
There is also a history to this fascination. Years ago, the same group of media openly explored whether Imran Khan’s rise could alter Pakistan’s posture toward Israel, and in that context, it highlighted his marriage to Jemima Goldsmith and her family background. The point here is not to manufacture a grand hidden plot. The point is simpler: this is not a sudden humanitarian awakening.
There has long been a specific curiosity in certain foreign circles about whether Khan represented a more culturally legible, more internationally marketable, and perhaps more pliable face of Pakistan.
That is where the Goldsmith angle matters. Not as gossip, and not as prejudice, but as a reminder of how elite transnational networks often shape familiarity and narrative comfort. Some figures are easier for Western and pro-Israeli discourse ecosystems to package, explain, and defend.
But perhaps the timing tells us even more than the language.
Pakistan today is not being discussed only because of Imran Khan. It is also being noticed because it has re-entered the diplomatic conversation in a way that many did not expect. Pakistan’s Foreign Office has publicly stated that multiple world leaders recognised and praised Islamabad’s role in facilitating the Iran-U.S. ceasefire and subsequent negotiations, including leaders from Qatar, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Austria, and Saudi Arabia. The Associated Press likewise described the ceasefire after U.S.-Iran talks held in Islamabad as one brokered by Pakistan. Reuters has also reported a fresh $3 billion Saudi support package for Pakistan, highlighting deepening Riyadh-Islamabad ties at a critical financial moment.
This matters. States that are diplomatically irrelevant are not subjected to narrative contestation at this intensity. Countries that are strategically dismissed are not suddenly treated as battlefields for moral messaging. When Pakistan begins to host consequential talks, regain regional credibility, stabilise key external relationships, and present itself as a useful interlocutor in a fractured region, it inevitably irritates those who are more comfortable with a weaker, distracted, and internally consumed Pakistan.
That is why one should read such commentary with open eyes. The issue is not whether Imran Khan deserves legal rights. Every citizen does. The issue is not whether courts should be fair. They must be. The issue is why Pakistan’s entire democratic and constitutional complexity is repeatedly flattened into a single exportable slogan: “one leader oppressed, one nation silenced.”
Pakistan is bigger than one personality cult. Its sovereignty is bigger than one media campaign. Its diplomatic value is bigger than the fantasies of those who want it trapped permanently in dysfunction.
So yes, let due process take its course. Let the courts be scrutinised. Let power be questioned. But let us also question the questioners.
Because the real issue is not simply, “What happened to Imran Khan?” The real issue is: why do voices that never recognised Pakistan’s strategic autonomy suddenly become so eager to define Pakistan’s democracy for Pakistanis?
The writer is a freelance columnist.