‘Attempt to undermine my sons’: Imran Khan's ex-wife hits back at Pakistani minister over remarks on Jewish identity

In a post on X on Thursday, Khwaja Asif said that, in mainstream Judaism, a person's Jewish identity is determined through their mother's lineage.

Updated on: Sep 18, 2026, 22:51:53 IST

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Jemima Goldsmith, the former wife of imprisoned former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan, sarcastically responded to the country’s defence minister Khwaja Asif on Friday for “undermining her sons”. Her remarks came after Asif spoke about how Jewish identity is determined by maternal lineage in Judaism. Asif had written the post on X, allegedly referring to Imran’s sons.

Asif said that, in mainstream Judaism, a person's Jewish identity is determined through their mother's lineage.

“If your mother is Jewish, you are Jewish, regardless of your father's religion. In the Jewish tradition, maternity is a biological certainty, whereas paternity is a matter of chance,” he said.

Imran Khan’s ex-wife responds

Responding to Asif’s post on X, Jemima agreed that his statement was “right”. She added that the same principle meant she was not recognised as “Jewish by the Jewish community”.

She stated that her mother was a member of the Church of England and a Protestant. She added that her father was also not Jewish.

“As ever, in attempting to undermine my sons, Pakistan’s Defence Minister has scored an embarrassing own goal,” she said.

Jemima Goldsmith on Khan's 'brutal penalisation'

Last month, Goldsmith questioned why the British government had remained silent over what she described as the "brutal penalisation" of Imran Khan by his political opponents.

"Prime Minister @andyburnham and Foreign Secretary @Ed_Miliband: how much longer will Britain remain silent?" Goldsmith said in a post on X.

"For three years, the father of my two sons, and Pakistan's former Prime Minister Imran Khan, has been brutally penalised by his political opponents, in a personal vendetta by Army Chief Asim Munir, which according to the UN, amounts to torture and which is now taking a potentially fatal toll on his physical and mental health," she wrote.

She said Khan's sons, Sulaiman and Kasim, are British citizens who have been unable to visit their father during his imprisonment.

"His sons, my two boys — Sulaiman and Kasim — are British citizens. They have been forced to watch their father's health decline from thousands of miles away, prevented from visiting him, denied visas, publicly threatened by government officials with arrest themselves, and even denied court-mandated regular phone calls," she said, appealing to the UK government to intervene.

Khan, 73, was arrested on August 5, 2023, in connection with a corruption case. He has remained imprisoned at Adiala Jail, located on the outskirts of Rawalpindi, since then.

His sons have repeatedly raised concerns about his health. Khan's lawyers have also claimed that he suffered substantial loss of vision in his right eye during his time in prison.

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