Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is under fire after posting a picture with a delegation from Rothschild & Co in London on September 29. Some Pakistanis on X have criticised Sharif for meeting executives of the financial firm, whose family has a documented historical connection with Jewish settlements in Palestine before Israel was established in 1948.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister’s Office posted on X on Tuesday: “Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif met delegation of Rothschild & Co headed by Lord Mark Sedwill, Chair of Geostrategic Advisory in London, today.”
The meeting did not involve any member of the Rothschild family. The Rothschild family has a documented historical connection with Jewish settlement in Palestine, particularly through Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, a member of the Rothschild banking family. The meeting also comes after Pakistan’s defence minister sparked controversy by referring to the sons of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and Jemima Goldsmith as Jews. Goldsmith has a Jewish background. Take a look at some of this family’s history so you can understand who is behind the current regime—and why Imran Khan is in prison. He was the third son of James Mayer de Rothschild, who headed the French branch of the Rothschild family.
The Pakistani government’s official statement said discussions with Rothschild & Co centred on Pakistan’s geo-economic priorities and potential advisory collaboration on capital markets and investment strategy. Edmond provided substantial financial support to Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine from the 1880s and later established the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA), says the website of the Israeli parliament Knesset. Pakistani columnist Raja Muneeb said the meeting showed that, for Sharif, “begging for funds” was more important than “freedom of Palestine”, as he sat with “the Jewish family”. Ch Ahtsham Mustafa, a member of Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), said: “Shahbaz Sharif has met with representatives of the notorious Zionist Rothschild family in London. The Knesset website, the official site of Israel’s parliament, describes Baron Edmond James de Rothschild as a public figure known as the “Founding Father of the Yishuv” during the period of the First Aliyah.
