Round The World

New Delhi, 8 July 2017

India-Israel Ties

FROM CLOSET TO CLOSEST ALLY?

Dr D K Giri

(Visiting Prof, International Politics, JMI)

Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel, first ever by an Indian Prime Minster is indeed an historic event, for both countries. Modi was given the top-most reception with the ‘highest protocol team’ led by Israel Prime Minister Netanyahu himself. Such honour has been extended only to the Pope and the US President. Modi stayed at the same luxury suite at the King David hotel that Trump was put up. So, apparently the Israelis consider Modi’s visit very significant, taking place in a “changing paradigm and changed architect” of international politics, as suggested by Mark Sofer, an important official in Israeli establishment and a former ambassador to India.

On the Indian side, Modi too did a few firsts. He did not go to Palestine as Indian leaders have done in the past. India is treating Israel-Palestine relation as a de-hyphenated one. New Delhi also seems to treat this visit, important inasmuch as it wants to bring its Israel friend from the closet to be the closest ally. Foreign policy commentators are remarking that, “we should know who our friends are in international politics and Modi is doing just that”.

This is Modi’s second visit to Israel, the first being in 2006 as Gujarat Chief Minister. Apparently, he is impressed with Israel’s military and economic achievements and is not shy of acknowledging it when others were, due to vote-bank politics, says another ex-diplomat and commentator. Yet others would urge New Delhi to get closer to Israel given the uncertainty of relations with unpredictable Trump; the hope and strategy is that Israel will back-up our relations with the US, and make-up the gaps. Obviously, India-Israel relations are quite close at the moment and under the BJP, they are likely to be closer as the party is not dependent on the vote-bank that influenced the relation in the past.

India’s policy towards Israel suffered from a mismatch between national interests and international role it would have liked to play. This has been the burden of “Nehruvian foreign policy”; Nehru’s idealism took precedence over pragmatism. This is evident from several lapses in the country’s foreign policy in the past, including towards Israel. India voted against the UN resolution on the creation of Israel on 29 November 1947. On May 1948, Israel was created. After two years, on 17 September 1950, New Delhi recognised it, but did not give it diplomatic contact. It took 42 years for India to have the diplomatic ties.

In 1992, Prime Minister Narashimha Rao allowed the Israel diplomatic mission to start operating in the country. By then, things had much changed. The cold war had ended; the Soviet Union, India’s close ally had disintegrated; India had suffered the worst foreign currency shortage, gone to the World Bank for loan, and the US for defence support. It is believed that Washington put some pressure on New Delhi for diplomatic ties with Israel.

New Delhi was wary of the reactions of Arab countries in dealing with Tel Aviv, but by 1992, many Arab nations had recognised Israel. In fact, the story in foreign policy circles is that an Indian diplomat asked Narasimha Rao, in exasperation: “Shall we wait for every Arab country to recognise Israel before we set up diplomatic ties?” Rao saw the point and relented.

Prime Minister Nehru was guided by anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and Third World solidarity. He was averse to any close ties with the colonial west, and Israel was veering to it.   History has it that Nehru spurned the request made by Israel through Albert Einstein to support formation of the country in the United Nations. In addition to his abhorrence to western colonialism, he had domestic political compulsions. Having taken the Kashmir issue to the UN, Nehru needed the support of Arab countries, and the additional compulsion of securing the vote-bank that supported Palestine. At the same time, Nehru sought Israel military support during China’s invasion in 1962.

Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben Gurion refused initially as Nehru wanted no Israeli flag on the arms supplies, but when Nehru agreed, the arms and ammunitions were promptly sent from Israel. Again, in 1971 war with Pakistan, when India asked Israel for support, it promptly diverted the arms that were being shipped to Iran.

Again, when New Delhi conducted the nuclear tests in 1998, major countries including the US and Japan, imposed sanctions, but Israel didn’t join them. Next year in 1999, Kargil war, Israel again rushed military equipments India urgently needed, and following the war, Tel Aviv helped improve India’s military intelligence and surveillance critical to anti-terrorist operations.

Another milestone in the bilateral relations was the visit of Ariel Sharon in 2003, the first by the Israel head of state, when the Delhi Statement of friendship and co-operation was signed. Since then, there have been many high-level visits from both countries including the Indian President in 2015 and the Israeli President Reuver Rivlin this year.

The current India-Israel bilateralism is based on two main pillars; defence, and agriculture. Some commentators are, in fact, saying that, in partnership with Israel, India has the chance of fulfilling its age-old slogan “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan”. In this visit, seven MoUs were signed in agriculture, water, and space cooperation. An innovation fund worth $40 million is sought to be created for joint research etc. A host of other trade issues were also discussed.

Both the Prime Ministers paid tribute to the two countries ‘deep connections’ and ‘natural partnership’ and their ability to complement each other. And the ties should continue to grow. But there is an elephant in the room. That is Iran. Israel is wary of Teheran’s antipathy for the Jewish State. New Delhi wants normal relations and a gas pipeline from Iran. When push comes to shove, New Delhi has to make a choice-- between petroleum and renewable or nuclear energy. Accordingly, it can identify or discard allies.

The second thorn in the flesh is the so-called ‘Islamic Terrorism’. If India moves closer to Israel it may incur the animosity from terrorist organisations not only from Pakistan, but from other Islamic countries too. How far this theory is plausible, is a matter of solid evidence on the origin of terrorism. So far, it is all coming through or from Pakistan.

Modi has some liking for Israeli technology and ability to defend itself. It has stood its ground alone in the Arab world. It was expected that, under Modi, India would have a sudden pro-Israel shift. It seemed so initially, but he stepped back a bit and tried the usual balancing act with Arab nations. Palestine President was invited to New Delhi and Modi visited other Arab countries too before going to Israel. Indeed, Modi is hard to predict. He is fond of springing surprises, seems to have done just that and given a strong push to India-Israel relations. To the world, for now it seems, Israel is the closest friend of India. ---INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)