A rare visit by Pakistanis to Israel has caused furor in Islamabad

Ahmed Quraishi (second from left), a Pakistani TV news anchor, stands at the Western Wall prayer site in Jerusalem in May. His participation in the rare Pakistani visit sparked a backlash back home, prompting Pakistani state-run TV to fire him. (Daniel Estrin/NPR)

JERUSALEM — "THIS PASSPORT IS VALID FOR ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD EXCEPT ISRAEL," reads the phrase on every Pakistani passport.

But there was Fishel BenKhald, one of Pakistan's few Jews, gripping that passport in front of the Western Wall, the revered Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem —
"the land where my heart and my soul is connected to," he says.