Pakistan in the Dark

 I quote from a news item in that useless rag called the Brisbane Times on January 10th 2021: 

Massive power outage leaves Pakistan in the dark 

Islamabad: A major technical fault in Pakistan's power generation and distribution system caused a massive power outage that plunged the country into darkness overnight, the energy minister said. Hours after the late Saturday outage, Energy Minister Omar Ayub said on Twitter that power was being restored in phases, starting with Islamabad. He said later on Sunday that power had been restored to much of the country.The blackout was initially reported on social media by residents of major urban centers, including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Multan. The minister and his spokesman then took to Twitter to update the country. Ayub urged people to be patient. He said the cause of the cause of the power outage was being investigated and work was being done to fire up Pakistan's main Tarbela power station in the northwest, which would lead to a restoration of power in the rest of the country in phases. Ayub said in a news conference on Sunday that the Guddu power plant in southern Sindh province developed a fault at 11.41pm that triggered the shutdown of other power plants in seconds. Later, Zafar Yab, spokesman for the Ministry of Energy, said the Tarbela and Warsak plants, both in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, had come back online and power was being restored to the transmission system. Yab said restoration of power to all areas of the country would take some time, however.

Now let's combine that with an article from November 2020 in the Middle East Eye:

Pakistan under pressure to recognise Israel, says Imran Khan

Prime minister says United States and other countries 
ramping up pressure following Israel's deals with UAE and Bahrain

Pakistan is under pressure from the US and other countries to normalise ties with Israel, Prime Minister Imran Khan said, but insisted Islamabad will not open up relations with the "Zionists". Cash-strapped Pakistan relies on the support of Gulf Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia, who have been overtly and covertly building ties to Israel in recent years. In September, the UAE and Bahrain signed a US-brokered normalisation agreement with Israel, and have been rapidly building ties since. Sudan last month became the latest Arab or Islamic country to follow suit after heavy pressure from Abu Dhabi and Washington. Last week, Khan revealed that Pakistan, too, was being pressed to recognise Israel. Khan told local media "Israel's deep influence in the US" was behind the pressure. "This influence was in fact extraordinary during the Trump stint," he said. When asked if Muslim countries were also applying pressure, Khan said: "There are things we cannot say. We have good relations with them. "I have no second thought about recognising Israel unless there is a just settlement, which satisfies Palestine," he added. In September 2019, Middle East Eye reported Imran Khan saying that "Pakistan has a very straightforward position. It was our founder of Pakistan Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah who was very clear that there has to be just settlement, a homeland for Palestinians before Pakistan can recognise Israel." He reiterated his position this week, adding that "Islamabad would continue to follow in Jinnah's footsteps vis-a-vis Palestine." Commenting on the policy of the US President-elect Joe Biden regarding issues of Palestine and Afghanistan, Khan said: "Afghanistan is not the real issue. The real issue is Israel. It is to be seen how Biden deals with that. Whether he changes Trump's policies about Israel or continues with them." Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, sent a thankful letter to Khan following his comments. "We highly appreciate your adherence to your positions in support of the Palestinian people to obtain their legitimate rights," Abbas wrote.

So what's the connection between these two articles? Electricity is a critical component of a country's infrastructure. If that supply fails nationally, as has happened in Pakistan, then that country has problems. Russia, China and Iran are widely regarded as being the source of most cyberattacks but Israel leads the world in terms of cybersecurity. Hacking and cybersecurity are two sides of the same coin. With the Stuxnet virus that destroyed Iran's centrifuges that were being used in its nuclear energy program, Israel showed its hacking prowess. That was in 2010. Israel has come a long way since then and can impose cyber-insecurity on any country that gets in the way of what it wants.

What Israel wants of course in recognition and it's getting that with the Gulf States but Pakistan is holding out, along with many other countries. Could this blackout be a warning to Pakistan from Israel? There may be no link at all but it will be interesting to see if Imran Khan softens his position in the coming year on recognition of Israel.

The following article from The News (August 22nd 2020) contains information about countries that don't recognise Israel:

30 countries, including Pakistan, still do not recognise Israel

LAHORE: Although 163 of the 193 United Nations member states recognize Israel, there are 30 countries, including Pakistan, which still do not enjoy diplomatic relations with this Zionist state which was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. The Ottoman Empire kept ruling over Israel for 400 years till 1917, when the British finally conquered it. The Jewish State of Israel was finally proclaimed under the British Mandate for Palestine in 1948. Following the Washington DC-brokered deal between the UAE and Israel to normalise relations on August 13 this year, Prime Minister Imran Khan had also gone on to flash headlines globally by categorically stating that his country would not recognise Israel until there was a Palestinian state acceptable to the Palestinians. Having a GDP of $387.72 billion, Israel maintains full diplomatic relations with two of its Arab neighbours, Egypt and Jordan, having signed the peace treaties in 1979 and 1994 respectively. The countries that do not recognise Israel include Pakistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Mali, Niger, Bhutan, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela. The passports of some countries are not valid for travel to Israel. These include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran and Iraq. Some 14 world countries do not accept Israeli passports. These are Pakistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. A week or so ago, the United Arab Emirates was also featuring on this list.

(References: The Jewish Virtual Library, the Daily Haaretz of Israel, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post and Al-Jazeera Television etc)