Asif Mahmood
India today stands in South Asia as Israel stands in the Middle East. Both present themselves as democracies, both enjoy Western patronage, yet both are built on occupation, dispossession and the systematic denial of Muslim rights. Kashmir has become South Asia’s Palestine, and Palestine is the Middle East’s Kashmir. This parallel is not just a rhetorical flourish. It is visible in ideology, in policy, and in the lived experiences of the oppressed.
Israel has long justified its expansionist claims under the banner of “biblical lands,” a belief that stretches from the Nile to the Euphrates. For Zionists, the Palestinian presence is an inconvenient reality to be erased. India’s Hindutva movement advances a similar fantasy through the doctrine of Akhand Bharat. Under this narrative, the sovereign existence of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and even parts of Afghanistan and Myanmar is treated as illegitimate, for all are imagined to be fragments of “Bharat Mata.” In both cases, the occupier insists that history and religion entitle them to territories that belong to others.
The occupation techniques mirror each other. Israel has pursued aggressive settlement-building in the West Bank, altering demographics to consolidate its control. India has imported this model into Kashmir, changing land ownership laws to allow non-Kashmiris to settle in the valley. Israel imposes military checkpoints, curfews, and identity card regimes that suffocate daily life. India applies similar restrictions in Kashmir, turning an entire region into an open-air prison. Where Israel carries out targeted assassinations abroad, India has attempted the same in Canada and even on American soil. Both behave as though international law is irrelevant and as though power alone defines legitimacy.
These are not coincidences. They are the reflections of two fascist projects. Each denies the right of a Muslim people to live with dignity on their own land. Each thrives because of silence, complicity and open support from the West. Palestine and Kashmir are thus not isolated conflicts. They are the twin frontlines of a global struggle where occupation is normalized and resistance is criminalized.
This is why the Pakistan–Saudi defense pact must be understood in its wider context. It is not only about bilateral security. It is about building a front against a shared threat that ties together the fate of Kashmir and Palestine, South Asia and the Middle East. The challenge is clear. Either state in the region unite to check these fascist designs or they will find themselves weakened, one by one, before powers that recognize no limits to their ambition.
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