Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks at a news conference in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Feb. 4, 2020. Photo: Reuters / Lim Huey Teng / File.

The prime minister of Pakistan claimed in an interview over the weekend that “Israel’s lobby” in the United States controls  Middle East policy and is collaborating with India to boost his most prominent rival.

Prime Minister Imran Khan told ARY News that “The Israeli and Indian lobbies work together in America. Israel’s lobby is the most powerful and that’s why America’s whole Middle East policy is controlled by Israel.”

Khan claimed that this Israel-India conspiracy is pressuring his government to give a National Reconciliation Ordinance – a grant of amnesty for various crimes – to his top rival Nawaz Sharif.

Khan, a former cricket star, is the founder and head of Tehreek-e-Insaf, an Islamist political party that took power in 2018 and installed Khan as prime minister.

Sharif, a former prime minister and wealthy businessman, is Khan’s longtime opponent and the two men have conducted a public rivalry for almost a decade.

In 2018, Pakistan’s supreme court banned Sharif from public office and he later received a 10-year prison sentence for corruption. A year later, he was released on bail and fled the country.

“What is this game? The game is to put pressure on Imran Khan,” Khan said, referring to himself in the third person. “But they don’t know that Imran Khan has learned one thing in his whole life and that is he doesn’t take pressure.”

“They know I won’t give them an NRO so now they are putting all the pressure on Pakistan’s army and judiciary,” he asserted.

Sharif’s “god is money,” Khan claimed, “so to save it … he will join hands with the Indo-Israeli lobby.”

Khan also claimed Israel is “scared” of Pakistan because of the strength of the Pakistani army.