Short answer: No. Imran Khan, the former Pakistani prime minister and founder of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), does not support Israel. Throughout his premiership and since, he has repeatedly said Pakistan will not recognize Israel until Palestinians receive statehood, and in 2024 he publicly denied and pushed back on reports that painted him as open to ties with Israel. He is currently imprisoned in Pakistan and, as of August 2026, is alive.
What Imran Khan has actually said and done
August 19, 2020: As prime minister, in a television interview with Dunya News, Khan said Pakistan "will not recognise" Israel until Palestinians get a state acceptable to them, adding that abandoning that stance would also force Pakistan to give up its position on Kashmir. His comments came shortly after the UAE announced normalization with Israel, according to Al Jazeera.
November 25, 2020: Pakistan's foreign ministry, under Khan's government, issued a statement "categorically" rejecting speculation that Pakistan would recognize Israel, reaffirming support for Palestinian self-determination and a two-state solution based on pre-1967 lines, per Al Jazeera.
September 4, 2024: A Times of Israel blog post, written by an outside contributor rather than Times of Israel staff, speculated that Khan, because of his Western ties including his former in-laws the Goldsmith family, could eventually be a figure who reshapes Pakistan-Israel relations if he returns to power. Even that piece acknowledged Khan's public stance had stayed pro-Palestinian and that its own premise was speculative, not a claim about Khan's actual position, according to the Times of Israel Blogs.
September 24, 2024: Speaking to media at Adiala Jail, Khan dismissed as "naive" the characterization, based on a Jerusalem Post piece, that he was an Israel supporter. He said the Israeli press had merely referenced his reputation rather than any actual advocacy on his part, restated that Israel was committing what he called "genocide" against Palestinians, and said dialogue could only follow a ceasefire. This was reported by Dawn.
April 15, 2024: Khan's ex-wife, Jemima Goldsmith, whose family is sometimes cited as evidence of Khan's supposed pro-Israel leanings, said that family arguments over Gaza, including with her brother Ben Goldsmith, who had defended Israel's Gaza operation, were part of why she launched a podcast on the conflict. That account, published by The Jewish Chronicle, shows the Goldsmith family itself is split on Israel, not uniformly "pro-Israel" as sometimes assumed.
December 20, 2025: A special court sentenced Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi to 17 years each in the Toshakhana-2 case, over the purchase of a Bulgari jewellery set gifted by the Saudi crown prince, on top of his existing 14-year sentence, per The Nation.
February 2026: Khan remained imprisoned at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, with reported vision loss in one eye that prompted a petition for release on medical grounds.
August 6, 2026: Adiala Jail officials told the Islamabad High Court that Khan is not being kept in solitary confinement, confirming he remains alive and in detention as of this date, per The Nation (Pakistan).
Where the "pro-Israel" rumor actually comes from
Imran Khan is a former Test cricketer who became Pakistan's prime minister from 2018 to 2022 and leads PTI. His public record on Israel has been consistent: no recognition without a resolved Palestinian statehood question, and criticism of Israeli military conduct in Gaza, including his September 2024 statement, made from jail, describing Israel's actions as genocide against Palestinians.
The speculation that Khan might be personally open to Israel ties stems almost entirely from his family connections through his first wife, Jemima Goldsmith, whom he married in 1995 and divorced in 2004. The Goldsmiths have a documented Jewish paternal lineage, and Jemima has described her brothers as adults as "kind of tribally Jewish, and very aligned with Israel," though she has also said the siblings did not grow up in a Jewish household. But the family is not a monolithic "pro-Israel" bloc: Jemima has been publicly critical of Israel's Gaza campaign and clashed with another brother, Ben Goldsmith, over it, to the point of launching a podcast partly in response.
There is no verified record of Khan sending messages to Israeli officials through the Goldsmiths; that claim traces back to opinion pieces and blog speculation, and Khan himself has denied it and called that framing "naive." There is also no record of Khan making Israel-related donations, attending pro-Israel events, or refusing or joining any organized boycott of Israel specifically. His position has been expressed through official government statements and media interviews, not commercial or philanthropic action. Khan is Muslim and has no Jewish-identity connection of his own; the Jewish-heritage thread in this story belongs to his ex-wife's family, not to him.
The bottom line
Imran Khan does not support Israel. His consistent public position, from his premiership through his current imprisonment, is that Pakistan should not recognize Israel absent a resolved Palestinian state, and he has directly denied and criticized reporting that cast him as sympathetic to normalization. The pro-Israel-adjacent narrative around him rests on his ex-wife's family's Jewish heritage and outside speculation, not on anything Khan has said or done himself.
Wear where you actually stand
If you want your own position on Israel to be unambiguous, unlike the speculation swirling around public figures like Khan, our I Stand With Israel collection lets you say it plainly. The I Stand With Israel bracelet is a simple, everyday way to show support without needing a headline to explain it.
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Last updated August 2026. We update these profiles as the record changes.
