The question comes to me often, sometimes with curiosity and sometimes with suspicion.

“How can you be a Muslim and support Israel?”

For many people the assumption seems automatic: Muslim identity must mean hostility toward the Jewish state. The idea that a Muslim could openly support Israel appears contradictory in their minds.

But the truth is far more complicated and far more human.

My story did not begin in Israel. It began thousands of miles away, in Sindh, Pakistan, where I was born into a political family deeply committed to human rights and justice.

My father, Ghulam Mohammad Laghari, spent a total of 27 years in prison for his beliefs. He fought feudal oppression, defended the rights of minorities, and refused to surrender his principles even under torture and threats of death.

When you grow up watching a man sacrifice his life for justice, you learn very early that standing for truth is not always popular.

Sometimes it is dangerous.

Sometimes it is lonely.

But it is always necessary.

Living Under Extremism

Pakistan taught me another harsh lesson.

Extremism does not appear overnight. It grows slowly, feeding on fear, propaganda, and political manipulation.

Minorities were marginalized. Religious hatred was encouraged. Voices of moderation were often silenced.

As a young man I became involved in pro-democracy and anti-extremist political movements in Sindh. At the age of 18 I was arrested and tortured under Pakistan’s military regime.

Eventually the threats against my life became real enough that I had to flee my homeland in 1999.

The journey that followed brought me to the United States, where I later served in the U.S. Army and eventually built my life around human rights advocacy and storytelling.

America gave me something that every refugee from repression recognizes instantly.

And with freedom comes responsibility.

October 7 Changed Everything

Like millions of people around the world, I watched with horror as the events of October 7, 2023, unfolded.

Hamas terrorists crossed into Israel and committed atrocities that the modern world should never have to witness again. Families were murdered. Women were brutalized. Children were slaughtered.

Hostages were dragged into Gaza.

What shocked me even more than the attacks themselves was the reaction in parts of the world.

Instead of moral clarity, there was hesitation.

Instead of condemnation, there were rationalizations.

Instead of solidarity with victims, there were demonstrations celebrating the attackers.

For someone who had spent a lifetime confronting extremism, the pattern was painfully familiar.

This was not resistance. It was terrorism.

And terrorism must never be defended simply because of political sympathies.

Eventually I traveled to Israel myself.

What I found there did not match the narratives so often repeated in international media or political debates.

I walked through Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for hours alone. No escorts. No handlers. Just a visitor exploring a country that many people had warned me to fear.

What I encountered instead were smiles, conversations, and a sense of normal life continuing even under the constant shadow of war.

Israel is not a perfect country. No country is.

But it is a democracy where Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, Baháʼís, and others live side by side. It is a place where mosques, churches, and synagogues stand within walking distance of each other.

And perhaps most importantly, it is a place where the Jewish people — after two thousand years of persecution, exile, and genocide — finally have a homeland where they are not a vulnerable minority.

For anyone who understands history, that matters.

The existence of Israel is not only important for Jews.

It is important for the Middle East and for the world.

Israel represents something rare in a region too often dominated by authoritarian regimes and ideological extremism: a functioning democracy where debate, criticism, and diversity of opinion are not crimes.

Israel also stands on the front lines of the struggle against the same extremist ideologies that have devastated countless Muslim societies.

Groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and others do not simply hate Jews.

They also destroy Muslim communities that refuse to submit to their vision of the world.

The vast majority of victims of Islamist terrorism are Muslims themselves.

Moderate Muslim voices are often the first targets.

A Muslim Voice for Truth

I do not claim to speak for all Muslims.

But I know there are millions of Muslims who quietly share the same frustration.

They are tired of extremists hijacking their religion. Tired of propaganda that portrays hatred as faith. Tired of the world assuming that Muslim identity must automatically align with anti-Jewish hostility.

Our faith teaches something different.

The Qur’an itself recognizes Jews and Christians as People of the Book — part of the same Abrahamic family.

Coexistence is not foreign to Islam. It is embedded in its earliest traditions.

The real struggle today is not between Muslims and Jews.

It is between those who believe in life, coexistence, and human dignity and those who thrive on hatred, violence, and perpetual conflict.

Israel did not create extremism in the Middle East.

Extremism has been destroying the region for decades.

Standing with Israel in its fight against terrorism is not a betrayal of Muslim identity.

For me, it is the continuation of a lifelong fight against the same forces of radicalism and repression that shaped my own life.

Choosing Courage Over Silence

Supporting Israel publicly as a Muslim invites criticism.

Sometimes it invites threats.

But silence in the face of extremism is far more dangerous than criticism.

The world today needs more voices willing to say uncomfortable truths.

Muslims who reject hatred. Jews who reject demonization. Christians who refuse indifference.

And people of every faith who understand that the defense of one community’s freedom ultimately protects the freedom of all.

Because if Jews cannot live safely in their homeland, then the promise of a peaceful and pluralistic Middle East becomes impossible.

And that is a future none of us should accept.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)