What began as a budding relationship between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now blossomed into a full-blown strategic alliance between Israel and India. The takeaways from Modi’s just-concluded visit are tangible. The two countries signed seven major agreements on water, agriculture, and space technology on top of creating a $40-million research fund for joint innovation. Both the countries have been firmly in the crosshairs of Islamic terrorists and closer cooperation between the two can greatly strengthen their security architecture.
Apart from terrorism, the calibrated shift in India-Israel relations has been necessitated by several factors such as a more realistic approach towards foreign policy, New Delhi’s strategic anxieties arising out of China’s increasing bellicosity, and the emergence of a Sino-Russian-Pakistan axis. Caught in a pincer, the NDA government has refused to view bilateral ties solely through the prism of the Palestinian cause. Decoupling its Israel ties with the Nehruvian obsession with the Arab world marks the government’s maturing and self-assured diplomacy.
Analysts may explain it in terms of Realpolitik. But the ideological alignment between India and Israel around cultural-religious nationalism is an important driving force. From Nehru to Modi, India has cautiously balanced its policy towards various actors and coalitions in West Asia at the expense of normalising its ties with Israel. Since 1992, however, both the Congress and BJP have developed significant defence and trade ties with Israel while maintaining a commitment to the creation of a Palestinian state.
The standalone visit by Modi has broken the traditional pattern of jointly travelling to Tel Aviv and Ramallah, signifying a deliberate effort to de-hyphenate relations with Israel and Palestine. It revives the idea formulated by the NDA government's National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra in 2003 of forming an alliance to fight terrorism. The strategic considerations for such an alliance have been present for long. Both countries have emerged from a tumultuous past and still face severe existential threats in their neighbourhoods.
Yet, despite being under siege, they have not just survived but flourished while retaining their unique cultural essence in an environment of animosity and suspicion. But the implications of the visit will go beyond such tangible gains and open pathways for a more vibrant relationship between the two ancient civilisations threatened by the Jihadi brand of Islam.
The appearance of Sanskrit words in Hebrew Bible 3,000 years ago and references to India by rabbis of Talmud, Jewish authors of Roman times, and Jewish traders and philosophers in the Middle Ages testify to the contact between Indian and Jewish civilisations from time immemorial. However, Israel was closed to free India till 1992 as successive governments feared a Muslim backlash. Modi is trying to revive this in the mould of Hindutva activists, such as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who backed creation of Israel on moral and political grounds and condemned India’s vote against Israel in the UN.yogesh.vajpeyi@gmail.com