Only five years after the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were annihilated by Nazi Germany, the Partition of British India in 1947 unleashed a massive wave of communal violence in South Asia. Around one million Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs were killed by members of their own communities in one of the largest episodes of mass killing and displacement in modern history. In that sense, the Partition can be described as a mini-Holocaust.

Out of this bloodshed, Pakistan came into being on August 14, 1947, as a state founded on the idea of a homeland for Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.

It is often said that there are two countries in the world founded in the name of religion: Pakistan, in the name of Islam, and Israel, in the name of Judaism. There are also striking coincidences in their dates of independence: Pakistan came into being on August 14, 1947, while Israel was established on May 14, 1948.

Thank heavens Israel was founded after Pakistan had separated from India; otherwise, some Pakistani extremists might have called Partition an “Israeli conspiracy.”

Despite these historical parallels, one-sided hostility toward Israel has continued in Pakistan, at times accompanied by violence. I have visited Israel twice and found nothing there directed against Pakistan or Pakistanis by Israelis. On the contrary, the Israelis I encountered—many of whom were meeting a Pakistani for the first time—were curious, friendly, and hospitable.

A large number of Jews lived in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Multan, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Quetta, and Peshawar in present-day Pakistan before the Partition of India. Large numbers of Pakistan’s Jewish population migrated and settled in Israel and other parts of the world during and after Partition. Remains of their synagogues, graveyards, abandoned houses and shops still somehow exist in these cities and towns of Pakistan.

Moreover, there is little in common between Pakistan and Israel beyond the fact that both were established as states with a strong religious dimension.

Israel has maintained a functioning democracy despite having no single written constitution. Pakistan, by contrast, has spent roughly half of its 78 years of independence under direct........

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