When Pakistani and Israeli military officers join their international partners on Monday in exercises in the Black Sea, it will be part of the growing footprint of venues and drills where the two countries indirectly cooperate despite not entering formal diplomatic relations. It is part of a growing trend where Israeli, Arab, and Muslim militaries find themselves quietly working together in multilateral exercises facilitated by Western partners.
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Officers from Israel and eight Muslim-majority nations join the United States-led and NATO-dominated Sea Breeze 2021 military exercises that kick off in the Black Sea, in the largest version of the drills since they started in 1997, co-hosted by Ukraine. Over 5,000 personnel, 32 ships, 40 aircraft, and 18 commando teams from 32 countries are taking part.
This military event conceals a diplomatic success. The presence of Israeli officers with counterparts from Arab and Muslim nations defeats predictions that events like the Gaza-Israel conflict last month could derail cooperation between the Jewish state and major Arab and Muslim nations. Five of the eight Muslim militaries represented in Sea Breeze – Albania, Egypt, Morocco, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates – have diplomatic relations with Israel. Senegal, Tunisia, and Pakistan do not, yet. [Other militaries in Sea Breeze exercises include: the United States, Ukraine, Britain, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain, South Korea, and Sweden].
Pakistani and Israeli personnel meet again after nine years in the Black Sea. They were last part of Sea Breeze 2012, along with the UAE.
Israel's interaction with Arab and Muslim militaries is yet to expand but it no longer raises eyebrows. Israel, Turkey, and Azerbaijan have trained in the past, and security ties with Egypt and Jordan are robust.
Israeli, Pakistani, and Emirati pilots have flown together in the Red Flag air force drills in the US in 2015, with the Emirati and Israeli pilots training again in Greece in April 2021.
Last week, a Pakistani naval ship, PNS Zulfiquar (FFG-251), the lead ship of the F-22P Zulfiquar-class guided-missile frigates deployed to the Red Sea, was in the vicinity of Israeli territorial waters in the Aqaba port, joining the Royal Jordanian Naval Forces in Jordan's centennial celebrations, which included a joint drill in the area.
But the venues where Pakistani and Israeli military representatives cross paths have multiplied in recent years, especially after the 2005 first formal Pakistan-Israel foreign-minister level meeting between Silvan Shalom and Khurshid Kasuri in Istanbul.
The chances of Pakistani and Israeli military representatives bumping into each other at military installations in Turkey, Azerbaijan, and China are high. Add UAE and Bahrain to the list. Both Gulf states are developing ties with Israel and enjoy strong security relationships with Pakistan.
The Shalom-Kasuri meeting of 2005 was followed by steps like waiving import licenses to boost trade between Israel and Pakistan. But the relationship could not move forward, mainly because of Pakistani inward focus on turmoil in its neighborhood, with Afghanistan, India, and Gulf tensions with Iran.
The current Pakistani political climate has regressed further with the dominance of populist politics, allowing Hamas- and Iran-inspired misinformation to flood Pakistani cyberspace, particularly around the time of signing of Abraham Accords last year. This could have been part of organized information operations to preempt a Pakistan-Israel move.
But Pakistan has largely been a moderate state and there is a growing realization in influential policy circles, civilian and military, that relations between wider Middle East's two nuclear-weapons states are important for regional peace and security.
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