Bilateral ties between two states are seldom unimpacted by the domestic politics of one or of both countries or by their ideologies or by regional and global currents. But seldom do these factors paralyse bilateral relations for decades, as was the case with India and Israel. And, again, seldom have bilateral relations—as with India and Israel—developed multidirectionally with such intensity once the ghosts of the past were buried. Before the path of India-Israel relations is traced, a few preliminary but relevant points must be made.
LISTEN: Independent India’s leadership was not insensitive towards Jews or their need for justice and security, but it questioned whether this had to come at the expense of Palestinian Arabs, who had no role in the Holocaust.
For almost two millennia, the Jews suffered discrimination in every region to which they were forced to flee from Palestine after the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 CE. Some Jews came to India, too. Today, the Jews acknowledge they did not face any hostility or discrimination here. This was in sharp contrast to the anti-Semitism in Europe, which had deep roots as is evident from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. The sentiment led to anti-Jewish pogroms in Central Europe and Russia in the 19th century. It was this latent hostility that Hitler exploited to butcher six million people in the Holocaust.
The creation of Israel as an independent sovereign state was a product of Western guilt. Yes, a large number of Jews have always felt a special bond for the land “given to them by God”. Yes, Theodor Herzl conceived the political project of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine and convened the first Zionist Congress in 1897, but even with the assurance given by the British in the 1917 Balfour Declaration, it is impossible to think that Palestine would have been partitioned to create Israel if it were not for the Holocaust.
Keeping Israel at arm’s length
Independent India’s leadership was not insensitive towards Jews or their need for justice and security, but it questioned whether this had to come at the expense of Palestinian Arabs, who had no role in the Holocaust. For over one and a half millennia, Palestine was inhabited by Arabs, and for more than 700 years, Jerusalem was under Muslim rule. Besides, if it was holy for Jews, it was also holy for Muslims. Mahatma Gandhi felt the creation of Israel through a partition of Palestine was unjust to Palestinians, as did Jawaharlal Nehru. India therefore voted against UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of November 1947, which approved the partition of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, bound by an economic union, and with Jerusalem under a special regime to be administered by the UN.
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The Arab countries rejected the plan. The Jews accepted it and declared Israel an independent state on May 14, 1948. That declaration led to war between the Arabs and Israel. It also led to the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries and the expulsion of over 7,50,000 Palestinians from Israel. As a consequence of the hostilities, the West Bank came under Jordanian occupation as did eastern Jerusalem. Egypt gained effective control over Gaza; 25 per cent of the Palestinian refugees fled to Gaza, which comprised only 1 per cent of Palestine’s land.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inspects the Indian contingent serving with the United Nations Emergency Force at Deir El Balah in the Gaza Strip on May 19, 1960. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU ARCHIVES
Indian policy towards Israel, both in the immediate aftermath of the announcement of its statehood as also in subsequent decades, was influenced domestically by the sentiments of Muslims who had an affinity with Palestinians, as did Indians who were committed to anti-imperialist ideologies. The latter considered Israel an American imperialist outpost in West Asia. The right wing, at the same time, had great admiration for Israel and advocated a fuller relationship with it. The right wing in India was greatly enthused by Israel’s 1967 victory over the Arabs, including Egypt, while this only strengthened the commitment of other Indians to the Palestinian cause.
All sections of the Arab world were committed to the Palestinian cause. It was an issue that bound them together. They did not even accept the existence of Israel. This, too, impacted India’s approach to Israel. India had special ties with many countries in the progressive Arab world, and it saw their anti-Israel sentiments become more entrenched after the formation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), led by the charismatic Yasser Arafat. India became one of the PLO’s principal non-Arab backers, and in the 1970s and 1980s, India’s public anti-Israel policies seemed set in stone.
Highlights
- Indian policy towards Israel was influenced domestically by the sentiments of Muslims who had an affinity with Palestinians, and Indians who were committed to anti-imperialist ideologies.
- In 1950, India recognised Israel and allowed it to open a Trade Office in Bombay, but the two countries had no open interaction. Indian citizens were not even permitted to visit Israel.
- A dozen years into opening ties with Israel, no Arab country showed hostility towards India’s bilateral approach with individual countries of the region, each in keeping with its interests.
- During Narendra Modi’s trip to Israel in 2017, the two countries decided to raise bilateral ties to a “strategic partnership”, making the alliance one of India’s most important bilateral relationships.
Setting the terms of friendship
In September 1950, India recognised Israel and allowed it to open a Trade Office (which later became a consulate in 1953), but the two countries had no open interaction. Indian citizens were not even permitted to visit Israel; Indian passports were stamped “not valid for Israel”. Formally, this position continued until 1992, when India and Israel finally established diplomatic relations, but the absence of open contact did not mean that there was none below the radar.
Media reports show regular contact between the intelligence agencies of the two countries since the 1970s. In his masterly book India and the Bangladesh Liberation War, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta writes: “India had not established diplomatic ties with Israel, apprehensive of [the] Arab reaction… India bore no animosity towards Israel, and the countries occasionally cooperated with each other through clandestine channels. In 1962 and 1965, India used these channels to receive military supplies.” Writing about India’s preparations for the 1971 war with Pakistan, Dasgupta says: “In August, India approached an international arms dealer with close connections to Israel, Shlomo Zabludowicz, for heavy mortars and ammunition urgently required for Mukti Bahini’s cross-border operations.” These items “were in short supply and urgent deliveries could only be made by releases from Israeli Defence Forces’ stocks and diverting production meant for them. Thanks to the benevolent interest taken by Prime Minister Golda Meir, the Israeli authorities provided the necessary clearances. The urgently required items were airlifted to India.”
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi receives Palestine Liberation Organisation Chairman Yaseer Arafat in New Delhi on May 21, 1982. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU ARCHIVES
By the time P.V. Narasimha Rao-led India launched diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992 and exchanged resident ambassadors, the power equations in the Arab world had changed. Iran had become a potent regional rival, and most importantly, the Cold War had ended. All this led to a reduction in the significance of the Palestinian cause in the Arab world, although full ritualistic support to it was always given. The PLO leadership, conscious of these changes, realised a complete rejection of Israel and the use of violence against it were no longer tenable positions. In 1993, Arafat formally accepted Israel’s right to exist and abandoned violence. Israel, in turn, accepted the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people. Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, it was agreed that a Palestinian Authority would be set up to administer the West Bank and Gaza for five years, and final status talks on the future would follow.
India’s economic and security interests in the Arab world began to dramatically change with the rise of Arab peninsular countries in the mid-1970s. It continued to proclaim support for Palestine—recognising it as a state in 1988 and helping it establish an embassy in New Delhi—but it was clear its Israel policy no longer served its interests. While diplomatic relations were established, Rao decided to quietly and gradually take bilateral ties forward, especially in the security sector where Rao allowed below-the-radar visits of some of India’s defence chiefs to Israel. He was conscious of Muslim sentiments in India even though the approaches of the Arab World were changing. Significantly, the Palestinian leadership did not oppose India opening up to Israel.
No dramatic developments took place in India-Israel relations during the governments of H.D. Deve Gowda and I.K. Gujral. The latter, however, on a visit to Abu Dhabi in early 1997 as External Affairs Minister, was stunned when the UAE leadership indicated to him that it could imagine being in the same trenches with Israel against Iran. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s tenure witnessed a definite growth in bilateral ties, including in the security and defence sectors. Importantly, Israel met the Indian Air Force’s immediate requirements for precision bombs to target Pakistani forces occupying the Kargil heights in 1999. While maintaining that India supported the rights of Palestinians to a viable and secure state within definite borders, India decided to upgrade sectoral cooperation with Israel across the board. External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh visited Israel in 2000; in 2003, Ariel Sharon became the first-ever Israeli Prime Minister to visit India.
Muslim demonstrators protest the visit of Israel Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in front of the Jama Masjid in Delhi on September 9, 2003. | Photo Credit: SANDEEP SAXENA/THE HINDU
A dozen years into opening ties with Israel, it was clear the policy was serving India’s interests well. No Arab country showed hostility towards India’s bilateral approach with individual countries of the region, each in keeping with its interests. At the same time, India kept aloof from the region’s internecine quarrels. It also signalled its commitment to maintain a semblance of balance on Israel-Palestinian issues. In 1996, India opened a representative office in Gaza, which shifted to Ramallah in the West Bank in 2003.
The UPA government under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not disrupt the growth of India-Israel ties across trade, agriculture, water resource management, defence and security, or people-to-people ties. But even though External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna travelled to Tel Aviv in 2012, the UPA government did not push these ties with enthusiasm.
Closer than ever before
Bilateral ties began to change dramatically after Narendra Modi won the 2014 general election. The BJP, with a full majority in the Lok Sabha, was not concerned with domestic Muslim opinion on the Palestinian cause. The Left political forces, which were traditionally pro-Palestine, no longer mattered. Besides, with the Palestinians split between Fatah and Hamas and with the latter’s ideology derived from the Muslim Brotherhood and strong links with Iran, the general Arab interest in the Palestinian cause had waned further. From 2005 onwards, Hamas was in control of Gaza.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomes Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sarah on their arrival at Air Force station Palam in New Delhi on January 14, 2018. | Photo Credit: MANVENDER VASHIST/PTI
Modi has shown no inhibitions in giving full rein to the growth of multi-sectoral ties with Israel. He became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the country, in 2017. Modi puts great score on establishing a personal rapport with important world leaders, and he did so with the controversial right-wing Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During Modi’s trip, the two countries decided to raise bilateral ties to a “strategic partnership”. From then, the India-Israel partnership has become one of India’s most important bilateral relationships. Modi has shown no inhibitions in giving full rein to the growth of multisectoral ties with Israel. He became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit the country, in 2017. Modi puts great score on establishing a personal rapport with important world leaders, and he did so with the controversial right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During Modi’s trip, the two countries decided to raise bilateral ties to a “strategic partnership”. From then, the India-Israel partnership has become one of India’s most important bilateral relationships.
Netanyahu visited India in 2018 to ensure that the momentum did not ebb. While cooperation has increased in many areas, it is most important in defence and security, including cybersecurity. Some aspects of India’s contacts with Israel in the latter, especially with regard to the Pegasus spyware, have been controversial, but Israel continues to be a very important source of advanced defence products.
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In keeping with past policy to maintain a balance, however tenuous, between Israel and Palestine, Modi visited the West Bank in February 2018. He reiterated India’s basic position on a two-state solution but took care not to criticise Israel. The UAE’s decision to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel changed the dynamics of the Arab peninsular states, in which India and Israel both have enormous interests. It gave Modi the opportunity to depart from India’s West Asia stance, pursued since the 1970s, to enter into an economic agreement with a bloc consisting of Israel, India, the US and the UAE (I2U2). And, on the margins of the G20 New Delhi summit, India joined the US, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and some European countries to sign a MoU for a rail and road connectivity project—the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC—which would connect India and the Arab Peninsula to Europe via Israel.
The October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, coupled with Israel’s no-holds-barred bloody response, has put the IMEC on hold. It has also brought the Palestinian issue back into concentrated focus globally. Modi’s sympathies are clearly with Israel, but officially India has fallen back on its basic position of calling for diplomatic moves for a two-state solution and the avoidance of civilian casualties. The continuation of Israel’s unremitting bombing of Gaza and its civilian population will test Modi’s diplomacy and India’s pro-Israel stance.
Vivek Katju is a retired Indian Foreign Service officer. He served as India’s Ambassador to Afghanistan from March 2002 to January 2005.
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