NEW DELHI: Israel’s Ambassador to New Delhi Daniel Carmon on Tuesday said that after 25 years of “low key, low volume” bilateral cooperation, he could feel doors were opening at governmental level, as India has overcome its hesitance to accept its relation with the Jewish nation openly.
“Being not visible had its impediments. Defence Cooperation gave us the luxury to have low visibility, but cooperation has been low key low volume,” Carmon said at Dr. Shayama Prasad Mukherjee Lecture on
“India, Israel: Enduring Partnership”.
As the Narendra Modi-led government executes the tectonic shift in its Israel-Palestine policy by the first visit of Indian Prime Minister to Tel Aviv, the Ambassador said: “At government level, I could feel opening of doors.”
“The fact that this visit (Modi going to Israel) is happening after so much hesitance, after not talking about it, about what was written on Indian passports 25 years ago; things have evolved where Indian president visits Israel and Israel’s President visits India,” Carmon added. India had established diplomatic relation with Israel only about two and a half years ago, and even then its approach to balance relation between Tel
Aviv and Palestine forced its hand to keep the relation in a closet.
As the two countries, that have enormous defence cooperation between them, decided to build a multi-faceted relation; the visit of Prime Minister Modi would be “enormous” and would see some big ticket
content.
The Envoy also lent his support to the Indian security forces as they seek to strike a balance between protecting Human Rights and its citizens while countering terrorism. When asked a specific question about how human rights can be adhered to in counter-terrorism, Carmon replied: “The world lacks definition of
terrorism and incitement. Incitement is more dangerous…. Legal advisors, practitioners, armed forces, jawans know it is a new battlefield. It is not between armies anymore. We have seen it all.”