OPINION: Abu Dhabi’s Israel Bet: Why Pakistan Can No Longer Pretend It Is Cost‑Free
How Emirati investments tied to Israel’s defence and tech networks are reshaping Pakistan’s economy, constraining its strategic choices, and eroding its claim to moral leadership in the Muslim world
There should be a growing recognition in Islamabad that Pakistan’s Gulf policy requires a fundamental rethink. On paper, successive governments have claimed to maintain a careful balance between the major power centres of the Arabian Peninsula, courting investment and political support from both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. In practice, however, a quiet but consequential drift has taken place.
Over the past decade, Pakistan’s political, business, and even media elites have increasingly framed the United Arab Emirates as a benign gateway to capital, employment, and connectivity. Dubai has been celebrated as an extension of Karachi and Lahore, a neutral commercial hub where Pakistani fortunes can be made or parked. What has been largely absent from this narrative is a serious examination of what Abu Dhabi’s evolving strategic posture actually means for Pakistan’s security, its economy, and its place in the wider Muslim world.
That posture is now defined by two interlocking trends. First, the UAE has emerged as one of Israel’s closest military and industrial partners in the broader region, moving from diplomatic normalization to deep defence and technology integration. Second, many of the Emirati entities that are embedding themselves in Israel’s defence and high‑tech ecosystem are the same actors being actively welcomed into Pakistan’s economy through special investment frameworks and flagship projects.
For a state that still refuses, at least formally, to recognize Israel and that grounds much of its political identity in vocal support for the Palestinian cause, this is not a minor inconsistency. It is a structural vulnerability. It risks tying Pakistan indirectly into a security and economic grid that runs through Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv, at the very moment when substantial segments of the Muslim world are gravitating toward a very different vision of regional order.
From Normalisation to Defence Integration
When the Abraham Accords were signed, some in Pakistan treated them as a distant development: politically controversial, perhaps, but not immediately relevant to Pakistan’s core interests. That view is no longer sustainable.
In the years since, the UAE’s partnership with Israel has moved from symbolic normalization to substantive integration. Major Israeli defence companies have opened offices in the Emirates and shifted from viewing the Gulf as a promising market to treating it as a strategic base. Elbit Systems, one of Israel’s largest defence contractors, has secured a multibillion‑dollar package to supply advanced electronic warfare and protection systems to an unnamed regional customer widely reported to be the UAE. The deal is not limited to off‑the‑shelf sales; it is designed around long‑term lifecycle support and local activity in the Emirates.
At the same time, the UAE’s state‑owned defence conglomerate EDGE has negotiated the acquisition and co‑production of Israeli‑designed Hermes 900 unmanned aerial vehicles, including technology transfer and licensed manufacture on Emirati soil. If fully implemented, this will embed Israeli design, software, and systems across the UAE’s drone ecosystem and potentially into platforms that are later marketed to third countries.
These agreements build on earlier, well‑documented acquisitions such as the Barak family of air‑defence systems from Israel Aerospace Industries and a series of equity stakes in Israeli firms specialising in counter‑drone and electronic warfare technology. Israeli and Emirati forces have exercised together under wider multilateral frameworks, and Israeli hardware increasingly features in the UAE’s integrated air and missile defence architecture.
This is not casual, reversible cooperation. It represents the steady construction of a shared security ecosystem, within which Israeli and Emirati capabilities are interdependent. The more this system matures, the more difficult it becomes to disentangle where Emirati industry ends and Israeli inputs begin.
For Pakistan, which continues to define its foreign policy in part through explicit solidarity with Palestine and legal non‑recognition of Israel, that reality should be cause for strategic concern. Yet much of the discussion in Islamabad continues to treat Emirati investments as if they were financially attractive but otherwise neutral.
The Overlap: Emirati Capital, Israeli Supply Chains
The same period that has seen the UAE embed Israel in its defence and technology base has also witnessed a marked increase in Emirati economic engagement with Pakistan. Through vehicles such as the Special Investment Facilitation Council (SIFC), Islamabad has prioritised Gulf capital, with Abu Dhabi often at the front of the line. Emirati interest has been courted in critical sectors: ports and shipping, energy, agriculture, logistics, mining, and digital infrastructure.
None of this is problematic in principle. Pakistan needs capital, technology, and market access. The challenge lies in the identity and linkages of some of the corporate actors involved.
EDGE is not a generic aerospace holding company operating in isolation. It is the central node of the UAE’s defence industrial strategy and is simultaneously building joint ventures and technology partnerships with Israeli firms. Elbit, for its part, is not simply delivering a single contract to the Emirates and walking away; it is positioning itself as a long‑term partner in the evolution of Emirati defence capabilities.
When entities like these sit at the heart of investment consortia or supply chains that touch sensitive sectors in Pakistan, the implications go well beyond the headline value of a deal. In practical terms, Pakistan may be inviting into its critical infrastructure actors whose technology stacks, corporate governance, and strategic loyalties are closely aligned with Israeli and, in some cases, Indian security interests.
The India link is not hypothetical. Israeli platforms such as the Hermes family of drones and various air‑defence and surveillance systems are also produced or co‑produced in India through partnerships between Israeli firms and major Indian conglomerates. The result is a dense triangular web of industrial and technological relationships connecting India, Israel, and the UAE.
If Pakistan is not careful, Emirati investment could become the fourth corner of that web. A Pakistani port, logistics hub, or digital system built or managed by a consortium that includes an Emirati defence entity with deep Israeli and Indian partnerships poses questions that extend far beyond economics: questions about data sovereignty, supply chain resilience, and the long‑term integrity of Pakistan’s own defence planning.
The Cost to Pakistan’s Moral and Political Position
There is also an ethical and political dimension that cannot simply be swept aside as “ideological” or “emotional.”
Pakistan’s domestic political narrative is tightly bound to the Palestinian cause. Governments of every stripe have repeatedly described support for Palestinian self‑determination as a matter of principle. Pakistani passports still exclude travel to Israel. Parliamentarians and religious scholars regularly invoke Palestine as a test case for Muslim solidarity.
The Gaza war has only intensified public sensitivity. Images of destruction, displacement, and civilian casualties circulate widely. Public protests, fundraising campaigns, and social media activism all reinforce a sense that Israel’s occupation and military actions are unacceptable and that Muslim states should not normalise such behaviour through open partnership.
Against this backdrop, Pakistan’s deepening economic reliance on a Gulf state that has deliberately chosen integration with Israel, including in the military domain, creates an obvious dissonance. The more Pakistani projects are structurally linked to Emirati conglomerates that serve as vehicles for Israeli technology and capital, the harder it becomes to claim a clear and principled distance from the very system that sustains Israel’s military edge.
There is also a reputational risk within the broader Muslim community. A substantial number of Muslim majority states and societies remain wary of normalisation with Israel without progress on Palestinian rights. Many of them are looking for alternative centres of gravity within the Muslim world that can articulate a more cautious, sovereignty‑focused approach. If Pakistan appears to be drifting into the economic orbit of the Abraham Accords without publicly acknowledging or contesting its implications, it risks losing credibility with precisely those constituencies.
This is not only a matter of optics. In the longer term, it affects Pakistan’s ability to build coalitions on issues ranging from trade to security cooperation with countries that may be more closely aligned with a different Gulf centre of gravity and a different vision of regional order.
A Gulf Rift Pakistan Can No Longer Ignore
These questions are sharpened by the fact that the Gulf itself is changing. For years, Saudi Arabia and the UAE appeared outwardly aligned on most major regional files, from intervention in Yemen to oil production decisions within OPEC‑plus. Beneath that surface unity, however, their interests have been diverging.
Saudi Arabia has launched an ambitious domestic transformation and economic diversification agenda that seeks, among other things, to reposition the kingdom as the primary commercial, tourism, and aviation hub of the region. This inevitably challenges the role that Dubai has played for decades. Riyadh has pressed multinational companies to relocate regional headquarters, adjusted visa and residency policies, and announced mega‑projects designed to draw capital and talent away from established Gulf centres.
At the same time, tensions between the two states’ regional policies have become more visible. Nowhere is this clearer than in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and the UAE have supported different local actors and appear to hold contrasting visions for the country’s future political map. Reports of Saudi efforts to curb Emirati influence there, and of open competition in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa, point to a relationship that is increasingly transactional rather than seamlessly aligned.
This emerging rivalry matters for Pakistan because Islamabad has historically enjoyed deep, multifaceted ties with Saudi Arabia: religious, financial, and military. As the kingdom reassesses its regional partnerships and pushes back against what it perceives as overreach by the UAE, states that align themselves uncritically with Abu Dhabi’s economic and strategic model may find their room for manoeuvre narrowing.
If Pakistan allows its critical infrastructure and strategic sectors to become heavily dependent on Emirati entities that are deeply intertwined with Israeli defence industries, it may, in effect, be locking itself into one side of a Gulf competition that is still unfolding. That carries obvious risks, particularly if other Muslim actors begin to coalesce around a more cautious stance on Israel and a greater emphasis on strategic autonomy.
Rethinking the “No Questions Asked” Approach
In Islamabad, the most common defence of the current approach is brutally simple: Pakistan is in no position to be selective. With recurring balance‑of‑payments crises, high external debt, and sluggish growth, the argument goes, the country must take investment where it can find it. Under this view, Emirati capital, regardless of its other connections, is a lifeline that should not be complicated by geopolitical niceties.
There is a grain of truth in this, but it is a dangerous principle on which to build a foreign economic strategy. Economic dependence almost always comes with conditions, whether stated or implied. When that dependence involves actors whose core partnerships are with states Pakistan views as adversaries, the risk is not theoretical. It is structural.
A more responsible approach would not require Pakistan to reject or demonise Emirati investment. It would demand, instead, that Islamabad move away from a “no questions asked” mentality and toward a framework guided by transparency, diversification, and strategic screening.
Transparency means that agreements involving foreign entities with substantial defence or security linkages elsewhere should be subject to serious scrutiny, including parliamentary oversight where appropriate. The public has a right to know when firms closely tied to Israeli or Indian defence ecosystems are becoming stakeholders in Pakistani infrastructure or high‑tech sectors.
Diversification means ensuring that no single Gulf player becomes so dominant in key sectors that Pakistan’s bargaining power evaporates. This implies actively cultivating a broader pool of investors from across the Muslim world and beyond, so that Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti, Malaysian, Turkish, and other capital can compete, rather than leaving the field primarily to Abu Dhabi based conglomerates.
Strategic screening means recognising that some sectors carry far higher security and sovereignty implications than others. Allowing a foreign investor with sensitive third‑country ties into low‑risk areas of consumer goods or hospitality is one thing. Granting such entities control or deep access to telecommunications networks, data infrastructure, ports used for military logistics, or critical energy nodes is another. Pakistan needs a clear, institutionalised mechanism to distinguish between these categories and act accordingly.
Critical, Not Hostile
None of this should be mistaken for a call to rupture relations with the UAE. Abu Dhabi remains an important source of remittances, a key trading partner, and a significant investor. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistani workers have built livelihoods there. In many respects, the UAE will continue to matter deeply to Pakistan’s economic health.
The argument is not for hostility, but for a more clear‑eyed, critical engagement. It is time for Pakistan to acknowledge that the UAE is not simply a neutral financial hub; it is an assertive regional actor that has chosen to embed itself in a strategic triangle with Israel and India. That choice does not automatically make the UAE an adversary, but it does mean Pakistan cannot safely treat Emirati capital, technology, and partnerships as if they existed in a political vacuum.
A more professional foreign policy would begin with the simple recognition that not all money is the same, and not all partnerships are equal. It would ask difficult but necessary questions:
What are the long‑term implications of allowing companies closely tied to Israeli and Indian defence industries to entrench themselves in Pakistan’s critical sectors via Emirati channels?
How can Pakistan reconcile its public stance on Palestine with quiet acceptance of investment structures that directly or indirectly reinforce the same industrial complex underpinning Israel’s military capacity?
In a Muslim world that is far from united on questions of normalization and regional order, which alignments best protect Pakistan’s interests, sovereignty, and moral authority over the coming decades?
These questions do not lend themselves to easy slogans. They require serious debate within Pakistan’s civil, military, and business elites, and a willingness to move beyond the comfort of legacy habits.
Thinking “outside the box” in this context does not mean chasing ever more elaborate investment headlines or rhetorical grandstanding. It means something more modest and more demanding: the discipline to align Pakistan’s economic choices with its stated principles and long‑term strategic interests, and the courage to say that some deals carry hidden costs that are simply too high.