Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has clarified that a post discussing Jewish identity through maternal lineage was not intended as a personal remark against any individual or family, after Jemima Goldsmith linked his comments to her sons.
Asif made the clarification in a post on X on Friday, saying that he had been stating what he described as an “interesting, rational religious principle” and had no intention of targeting anyone personally.
“I just stated an interesting, rational religious principle and had no intent of targeting any individual or family,” Asif wrote.
He added that he had “the utmost respect for all People of the Book”, saying that was what Islam taught him.
The clarification followed a post by Goldsmith, the former wife of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf founder Imran Khan, responding to Asif’s earlier post on Jewish identity.
Asif had said mainstream Jewish tradition determines Jewish identity through the mother, a principle known as matrilineal descent.
He said that under this tradition, a person is considered Jewish if their mother is Jewish, regardless of the father’s religion.
He also wrote that maternity was considered biologically certain while paternity was historically regarded as a matter of chance, adding that the principle was established before DNA testing was available.
Goldsmith responded that Asif was correct about the principle but said it meant she herself had never been considered Jewish by the Jewish community because her mother was a Protestant member of the Church of England.
She added that under the same reasoning, her father would not have been considered Jewish because his mother was French Catholic.
“As ever, in attempting to undermine my sons, Pakistan’s Defence Minister has scored an embarrassing own goal,” Goldsmith wrote on X.
In his subsequent clarification, Asif said that if his original post had created an impression that it was “directly or indirectly a personal remark or finger-pointing”, that had never been his intention.
