How Israel, Once A Non-State Nation, Became One of India's Closest Strategic Partners | Analysis

Mahatma Gandhi was sympathetic to the Jews and the atrocities happening to them, but he never favoured their forced settlement in an area that was already home to the Arabs. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru followed the same belief as Mahatma Gandhi. When the United Nations was going to vote on Palestine and Israel’s statehood in 1947, Israel was looking for India’s support during the voting process and even approached Albert Einstein to convince the Indian Prime Minister. Nehru said no to it and voted against the UNGA resolution on the partition of Palestine on November 29, 1947.

Nehru probably couldn’t support the religious division of another country because India was already experiencing the anguish of geographical partition. Additionally, India had a sizable Muslim population left even after the partition, as the country decided to adopt a secular nature. Muslims opposed the partition of Palestine.

Pakistan was another big concern. The country carved out of India’s geographical expanse began its independent journey with a war on India, trying to grab Jammu & Kashmir. India needed international support, including that of Arab nations, to counter Pakistan’s propaganda in Islamic countries.

Nehru’s government formally recognized Israel as an independent country in September 1950, almost two-and-a-half years after the UN resolution, but decided not to establish diplomatic ties as the country’s domestic concerns were tied to the international policy approach. Arab countries were emerging as a major source of remittances, and India expected a further increase in the years to come with the oil economy being the core of global geopolitics.

Also, Middle-Eastern countries supporting Palestine were India’s main crude oil suppliers to meet its growing energy needs. The rise of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), of which Nehru was a founding member in the 1950s, further discouraged India from publicly supporting Israel.

COVERT PHASE

In 1962, China imposed a war on India. The country was unprepared for such a hostile act from a neighbour that was never a threat earlier. India’s single-most significant enemy then was Pakistan, and the troop deployment was directed accordingly. India-China’s border was indefensible, being a mountainous and difficult territory, and the country of the day then needed time to fortify those areas, with the deployment of troops and military logistics, and was not prepared for a surprise attack by China.

India was looking for weapons and Israel came forward but with a condition. Prime Minister Nehru requested weapons from Israel, but also appealed if they could be shipped without the Israeli flag. He was concerned about how Arab nations would react. Israel refused. The country only sent military cargo to India once both agreed on the Israeli flag. Israel also helped India with arms and ammunition supply during the 1965 war with Pakistan.

During the 1971 India-Pakistan war, Israel’s Prime Minister Golda Meir diverted an arms shipment intended for Iran to India, according to Srinath Raghavan’s book ‘1971’. The book quotes then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s advisor PN Haksar. Israel additionally supported India’s intelligence efforts. Golda Meir demanded complete diplomatic connections in return.

The phase of the informal relationship that Nehru began continued during the governments of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, though publicly they supported the Palestinian cause.

COVERT TO OVERT – CHANGED GEOPOLITICS

Between 1948 and 1973, Arab states waged four major wars against Israel, and they lost all. After the 1967 war, Israel went on to capture the Gaza Strip, Sinai, The West Bank, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, with mostly Arab population.

The 1978 Camp David Accords put a formal end to the active war participation of Arab nations against Israel on the Palestinian issue. The accords were part of a peace deal signed between Egypt and Israel and were mediated by the US.

Although the Palestinian cause was still a core issue for Arab nations, they decided on indirect support afterward, in favour of their growing economies, increased international interface, and larger geopolitical interests dominated by the US, Israel’s closest partner. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Yasser Arafat was accepted as Palestine’s representative, but its support for Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 made Arab nations even more pragmatic in the geopolitical theater as most of them were antagonized by Arafat’s move.

Back home, for India, with the dissolution of the USSR, the world had no camps now. NAM was now a diluted hypothesis. Pragmatically, Arab nations took an anti-India stand when it suited their interests. China is a big oil importer like India, and Arab countries decided to take a neutral stand during the 1962 war. During the 1965 and 1971 wars, they decided to support Pakistan despite India’s friendly nature and foreign policy for decades.

It was time for India to get pragmatic as well. Ties with Arab countries mostly transitioned to be transactional, of business interests. They needed headcounts from India, or manpower, for their industries. India needed oil. And together, they needed each other’s markets. Trade was the connecting link.

THE 1992 NORMALISATION

Changed circumstances pushed India’s Congress government, led by PV Narasimha Rao, to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. But while doing so, India didn’t abandon its earlier approach to the Palestinian ties. It took the PLO and Yasser Arafat on board. After a meeting with Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao in Delhi, Arafat declared that he respected India’s sovereign prerogative to establish embassies and maintain diplomatic connections.

Arafat backed India because PLO itself was looking for a peace alternative with Israel and was engaged in negotiations. With the Oslo Accord, which was brokered by the US and signed in Washington in 1993, the State of Israel and Arafat’s PLO officially acknowledged one another for the first time. Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on the deal and on behalf of world peace.

1990S ONWARDS: CHANGED GEOPOLITICS FOR INDIA

Post the Cold War and after economic liberalization in 1991, India had much gap to fill in its foreign policy. The nod to normalize ties with Israel came just a few days after China did so, in January 1992. Like India, China, too, had followed the policy of the Palestinian cause before this move, but moved ahead as per the changing times. The world was now an open strategic theater for two of its most populous countries to harness, and Israeli recognition was a part of it, being the closest US ally.

Pressure from the USA was another reason. The version in bureaucratic circles is that when India decided to pursue economic liberalization in 1991 and required a worldwide interface for its economy as well as new markets to meet its defence needs following the collapse of the USSR, its primary defence supplier, it discovered that the USA was the best option. However, in exchange, America demanded that India make room for Israel in its foreign relations.

Israel also fit the bill with the past willingness to come forward to help India militarily, with arms and ammunition supply. India was one of the most terror-affected countries, with Pakistan behind it, and needed a reliable international defence partner.

Additionally, India also wanted loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to come out of the 1990-1991 economic crisis. Giving Israel a full diplomatic partnership was a tool to neutralize possible anti-India voices in Washington that dominate these institutions.

FROM A NON-STATE NATION TO A CLOSE FRIEND

Israel felt isolated in Asia as it could not get recognition from China and India for over four decades. While China pursued a different anti-US growth strategy, India decided to come closer to the world’s oldest democracy in a post-Cold War world and Israel was a part of this development. The 1999 Kargil war again proved it, like during the 1971 war with Pakistan. India needed precision bombs to target Pakistan soldiers hidden in and around Kargil mountains, and Israel came forward and helped India with supply from its emergency stock. Along with intelligence, Israel also offered India surveillance drones, laser-guided missiles, and mortar ammunition.

Both countries started a series of high-level ministerial visits afterward. In 2003, Ariel Sharon became the first Israeli Prime Minister to visit India. During his visit, the Delhi Statement of Friendship and Cooperation was signed. Israel, for the first time, on record, accepted that “India and Israel had close ties in defence, and Israel was the second-largest supplier of weapons to India".

MODI COMPLETED THE NECESSARY DE-HYPHENATION

Changing geopolitics meant India needed to de-hyphenate the Israel-Palestine issue from its foreign policy. Many Arab countries had started communicating with Israel. Egypt established diplomatic relations with the country in 1979, and Jordan in 1994. Post-1993 Oslo Accords, Bahrain, Oman, and Qatar came forward to establish connections with Israel. Saudi Arabia led the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, pushing for conditional normalization of ties with Israel, with Palestinian statehood and Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories captured in 1967 being the primary demands. The ‘red line’ was blurred, and its results could be seen in UAE and Bahrain signing normalization agreements with Israel in 2020.

The Congress-led UPA government under Manmohan Singh failed to understand this change. It might be due to internal political pressure as the UPA government from 2004 to 2014 was a coalition government with some coalition partners not ready to promote ties with Israel. Ideally, India should have sent its prime minister to Israel on a reciprocal visit after Ariel Sharon’s visit in 2003, but it found no place in the foreign policy approach of the then government.

The NDA government under Narendra Modi brought ties back to the deepening level again, with much-needed de-hyphenation done. Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel in 2017, and he made it a solo visit, breaking the convention so far of earlier official visits of visiting Israel and Palestinian territory together.

It didn’t mean he changed India’s Palestine policy. Growing outreach and trade relations with Arab nations have been major pillars of Modi’s foreign policy approach. He had successful official trips to Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, and Qatar before his Israel visits. Also, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was on a four-day trip to India in May 2017, before Modi’s visit to Israel in July 2017. Modi visited the Palestinian territory separately in February 2018, and it was also a historical one, the first-ever visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Palestine.