The Times of Israel : The Deepening India-Israel Relations

[kalu_miah]

All right, here we go,

I think the OP is being extremely emotional, while trying to prove that Israel is being a friend of India, at the same time, it appears to me that the OP must have forgotten that India enjoys very strong relations with the Arab World, especially the GCC, with an upper high trade volume. It's not about oil though, India's investment in the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain exceeds 30 times more than what it is with Israel. What India wants from Israel is the same what India needs from Russia and France, @BLACKGOLD raised a very valuable point though, that India balances its relations with everybody, and some Indians are being overhyped when it comes to Israel, and I have seen some anti-Israel Indians as well, therefore, I wouldn't assume that India supports Israel unconditionally. Tbqh, India has been accused of being bias, but there are people who don't know a thing about what India does to the Palestinian people. Yearly, India donates money and provide humanitarian aids to them, funds projects, and publicly support their cause, with all honesty, I can't say India offers a lip service to them, because they try to do their best.


If India was a blindly pro-Israel, it would have cut its oil imports ages ago, and would never sign military agreements with the UAE, or it wouldn't try to develop its relations with the Arab World, and the Muslim World by large.

So, with threads like these I would expect nothing, but a flux of affection that's all.

India is a sovereign state, and believe me, if India wants to please Israel, India should bow to the West, but they will never do, considering the fact that they are an ex-imperialist victim.

I will continue posting as soon as I finish some stuff at work


Cheers

Thanks for the detailed response. If I may trouble you further, I would request your kind comments on the article in the post below, please:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/indian...ing-india-israel-relations-2.html#post4566279

Excerpts from the article above:

A survey by the Israeli foreign ministry in 2009 found India to be the most pro-Israel country in the world, well above the US. Once a bastion of pro-Palestinian sentiment, India recently appeared at the bottom in a worldwide poll of countries sympathetic to Palestinian statehood. Throw a stone in Panaji and it is likely to land on an Israeli backpacking through India after his post-mandatory service.
...........

There are three principal reasons behind the shift in India's attitude. The first is the belated realisation that no amount of deference to Arab sentiment could alter Muslim opinion in the Middle East in India's favour: when it came to Kashmir, Shia and Sunni united in supporting Pakistan's position. The second owes itself to the collapse of the old world order: the death of the Soviet Union meant that India had to seek out new allies. The third factor that contributed to the deepening of Indo-Israeli ties is less well-known: the rise of Hindu nationalism in India.

To votaries of Hindu nationalism, Israel is something of a lodestar: a nation to be revered for its ability to defeat, and survive among, hostile Muslims. As the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz put it, "Relations between Israel and India tend to grow stronger when … India experiences a rightward shift in anti-Muslim public opinion or in leadership".

This explains why Hindu opinion is inflamed even by the most anodyne Indian expression of solidarity with Palestine. At the UN general assembly last month India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, offered some somniferous words of support for Palestine's membership effort: "India is steadfast in its support for the Palestinian people's struggle for a sovereign, independent, viable and united state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, living within secure and recognisable borders side by side and at peace with Israel".

No one in Israel seemed to have noticed. None of the major newspapers editorialised it. There wasn't even a specific news item in the Israeli press singling out India. Trade did not suffer. The markets registered no shifts. But this did not deter some Indians from rising to take offence on Israel's behalf. To Sadanand Dhume, a US based commentator who published a hysterical philippic in the Wall Street Journal castigating India for not "throwing its weight behind Israel", Singh's speech was nothing short of a "foreign policy mishap". According to Dhume, who has since been ordained "the go-to guy for all matters India" by an excited colleague of his: "Both India and Israel represent ancient civilisations whose land carries a special spiritual significance for most of its people."

This desire to define citizenship and belonging in the procrustean terms of ancient culture over all other considerations is where Hindutva and Zionism converge. As Koenrad Elst, one of the most influential producers of pro-Hindutva pabulum, has said of the movement's founder, "Veer Savarkar was the Hindu counterpart of a Zionist: he defined the Hindus as a nation attached to a motherland, rather than as a religious community". "True, there is an obvious difference between the situation of the Jews, who had to migrate to their motherland … and the Hindus who merely had to remove the non-Hindu … regime from their territory." This prescription for ethnic cleansing came to life in 1992, when Hindu nationalists brought down the Babri mosque in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya.

Their ongoing struggle to seize the Babri land, which belonged to Muslims for over five centuries, looks to Israel's appropriation of Palestinian territory as a useful template.

In 2009, Mumbai's anti-terror squad arrested, among others, an officer in the Indian army, Prasad Purohit, for masterminding a terrorist attack on Pakistani citizens and plotting to overthrow the secular Indian state. In his confession, Purohit admitted to making plans to approach Israel for help. It says something about the state of Israel when the most virulently anti-Muslim terrorists in India reflexively look to it as a potential source of support.
................

India's support for Palestine is one of the last remaining precepts from time of Pandit Nehru, India's first prime minister who is loathed by Hindu chauvinists for refusing to turn India into a "Hindu Pakistan". As per the Hindu nationalist narrative, the Congress party's support for Palestine – if such a thing actually exists in any meaningful sense – is a bribe to Indian Muslims. In reality, Indian Muslims have made noticeable efforts to build bridges with Israel. But if anyone can be accused of holding foreign policy hostage to religious bigotry, it is the Hindu nationalist BJP. During its disastrous term in power, from 1997 to 2004, ministers in the government dismissed pro-Palestinians as "more Palestinian than Palestinians themselves". Its foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, suggested that a common civilisational outlook bound India and Israel – implying that Indian Muslims who shared the faith of the Arab majority were somehow alien to India's "civilisation".

India and Israel have much to offer each other and Israel's security must figure as a non-negotiable precondition in New Delhi's support for Palestine. But Hindu nationalists are not concerned with the security of Israel: it is the abandonment of Palestinians they seek.

The seeds of Israel's redemption are embedded in Zionism, which is concerned with housing people, not displacing them. Israel must merely embrace it. It will still be a paternalistic form of "pluralism", but it will be inclusive. On the other hand, Hindutva's very purpose is the disenfranchisement and abolition of religious minorities. So Israelis must wonder what has become of them, their nation, that their most fervid admirers in the most pro-Israeli country in the world happen to be fascists. Until Israel and India undertake an honest reappraisal of their friendship, those who care about the ideas of Herzl and Gandhi must acknowledge this much: theirs is an alliance deepened by prejudice.

 

[Yzd Khalifa]

I see.

Well, the article seems to be one-sided when describing India's attitude toward the Arab World, and the Muslim World by far. I think they are trying to portray India as Islam's public enemy, so to speak.

I understand that India maintains a good relationship with Israel, but that doesn't mean that they're anti-Palestinian by nature. For once, the columnist argued that nationalist Hindus admire Israel for what it is, and what it stands for, in their eyes, at the same time he proposed an example, an act being committed by individuals who vandalized Muslims' properties in India, matching it to what Israel does on daily basis to the Palestinians. When such an incidence takes place in India, the Gov't interferes to protect the victims, in other word, Israel acts are being carried out by their own Gov't, while in India, it is all about a group of people, be it Christians, Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs. In a nutshell, India should not be blamed for such incident, but those who were responsible for such actions would be hold accountable for what they are doing.

I'm not quite sure about what measures the India Gov't would take if such thing happen, but I would argue that they surely will interfere to bring justice.

Importantly, the Indian Gov't affirmed that it would unconditionally back-up the full independence of the Palestinian people, their aspirations, and hopes, which is worth mentioning, India, similar to what most nations did, voted in favor of upgrading the Palestinian status in the UN, which approves India's efforts to frame out the road map for a peaceful solution to the Palestinian cause.

Admittedly, I can't find any sort of similarities between Israel and India, except the existence of radical Islamic, which isn't merely exclusive to Israel, I don't think Israel had seen a stronger version of extremist Islam than what Muslim countries had seen by extremist nutcases, from Afghanistan to Egypt or maybe beyond, but that doesn't mean that something is wrong with Islam, but rather the interpretations of it as well as the adherence of a radical ideology. It was started ages ago by people who sought after political objectives. India itself suffered from Hindu extremists more all countries combined, but that doesn't suggest that there is something wrong with Hinduism. The minutes we crossed the line and wear the dark cloak of intolerance toward on another, is the minute that we won't rest until we eliminate ourselves. Indian Sikhs have also committed an act of terror against their Gov't but we can't blame all Sikhs
for that as much as we don't wish to be blamed for everything terrorists do.

Thanks for the detailed response. If I may trouble you further, I would request your kind comments on the article in the post below, please:
http://www.defence.pk/forums/indian...ing-india-israel-relations-2.html#post4566279

Excerpts from the article above:

A survey by the Israeli foreign ministry in 2009 found India to be the most pro-Israel country in the world, well above the US. Once a bastion of pro-Palestinian sentiment, India recently appeared at the bottom in a worldwide poll of countries sympathetic to Palestinian statehood. Throw a stone in Panaji and it is likely to land on an Israeli backpacking through India after his post-mandatory service.
...........

There are three principal reasons behind the shift in India's attitude. The first is the belated realisation that no amount of deference to Arab sentiment could alter Muslim opinion in the Middle East in India's favour: when it came to Kashmir, Shia and Sunni united in supporting Pakistan's position. The second owes itself to the collapse of the old world order: the death of the Soviet Union meant that India had to seek out new allies. The third factor that contributed to the deepening of Indo-Israeli ties is less well-known: the rise of Hindu nationalism in India.

To votaries of Hindu nationalism, Israel is something of a lodestar: a nation to be revered for its ability to defeat, and survive among, hostile Muslims. As the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz put it, "Relations between Israel and India tend to grow stronger when … India experiences a rightward shift in anti-Muslim public opinion or in leadership".

This explains why Hindu opinion is inflamed even by the most anodyne Indian expression of solidarity with Palestine. At the UN general assembly last month India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, offered some somniferous words of support for Palestine's membership effort: "India is steadfast in its support for the Palestinian people's struggle for a sovereign, independent, viable and united state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital, living within secure and recognisable borders side by side and at peace with Israel".

No one in Israel seemed to have noticed. None of the major newspapers editorialised it. There wasn't even a specific news item in the Israeli press singling out India. Trade did not suffer. The markets registered no shifts. But this did not deter some Indians from rising to take offence on Israel's behalf. To Sadanand Dhume, a US based commentator who published a hysterical philippic in the Wall Street Journal castigating India for not "throwing its weight behind Israel", Singh's speech was nothing short of a "foreign policy mishap". According to Dhume, who has since been ordained "the go-to guy for all matters India" by an excited colleague of his: "Both India and Israel represent ancient civilisations whose land carries a special spiritual significance for most of its people."

This desire to define citizenship and belonging in the procrustean terms of ancient culture over all other considerations is where Hindutva and Zionism converge. As Koenrad Elst, one of the most influential producers of pro-Hindutva pabulum, has said of the movement's founder, "Veer Savarkar was the Hindu counterpart of a Zionist: he defined the Hindus as a nation attached to a motherland, rather than as a religious community". "True, there is an obvious difference between the situation of the Jews, who had to migrate to their motherland … and the Hindus who merely had to remove the non-Hindu … regime from their territory." This prescription for ethnic cleansing came to life in 1992, when Hindu nationalists brought down the Babri mosque in the northern Indian city of Ayodhya.

Their ongoing struggle to seize the Babri land, which belonged to Muslims for over five centuries, looks to Israel's appropriation of Palestinian territory as a useful template.

In 2009, Mumbai's anti-terror squad arrested, among others, an officer in the Indian army, Prasad Purohit, for masterminding a terrorist attack on Pakistani citizens and plotting to overthrow the secular Indian state. In his confession, Purohit admitted to making plans to approach Israel for help. It says something about the state of Israel when the most virulently anti-Muslim terrorists in India reflexively look to it as a potential source of support.
................

India's support for Palestine is one of the last remaining precepts from time of Pandit Nehru, India's first prime minister who is loathed by Hindu chauvinists for refusing to turn India into a "Hindu Pakistan". As per the Hindu nationalist narrative, the Congress party's support for Palestine – if such a thing actually exists in any meaningful sense – is a bribe to Indian Muslims. In reality, Indian Muslims have made noticeable efforts to build bridges with Israel. But if anyone can be accused of holding foreign policy hostage to religious bigotry, it is the Hindu nationalist BJP. During its disastrous term in power, from 1997 to 2004, ministers in the government dismissed pro-Palestinians as "more Palestinian than Palestinians themselves". Its foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, suggested that a common civilisational outlook bound India and Israel – implying that Indian Muslims who shared the faith of the Arab majority were somehow alien to India's "civilisation".

India and Israel have much to offer each other and Israel's security must figure as a non-negotiable precondition in New Delhi's support for Palestine. But Hindu nationalists are not concerned with the security of Israel: it is the abandonment of Palestinians they seek.

The seeds of Israel's redemption are embedded in Zionism, which is concerned with housing people, not displacing them. Israel must merely embrace it. It will still be a paternalistic form of "pluralism", but it will be inclusive. On the other hand, Hindutva's very purpose is the disenfranchisement and abolition of religious minorities. So Israelis must wonder what has become of them, their nation, that their most fervid admirers in the most pro-Israeli country in the world happen to be fascists. Until Israel and India undertake an honest reappraisal of their friendship, those who care about the ideas of Herzl and Gandhi must acknowledge this much: theirs is an alliance deepened by prejudice.

 

[Rocky25]

If not starting relation with Israel during 1990s, India's fear is they will be breakup or isolated without friends if Israel come closer to Pakistan.

India doesn't have much choice but force to work with Israel common interests. So it is understood that the relation of both countries are fruitful.

This is the MOST stupid argument in the whole thread! Israel coming closer to Pakistan.... Probability of that happening in VERY RARE!

 

[Tshering22]

I always say it, Israel is a friend in need. Surely a friend indeed.

I hope we have a good time with them during NaMo's tenure as a Prime Minister of India

Tathaastu, my friend!

You steal the prayer right from my mouth (hands here).

 

[Tshering22]

Come on Philistini , what do you have against India now ? We are staunch supporters of your legitimate rights.

What legitimate rights?

Once they're done there, they will come here (hint hint: Kashmir in early 90s playing the same card).


We don't have anything against the people that call themselves as Palestinians, but not being enemy doesn't essentially mean being a friend either.

There can be a neutral blank of a relationship which I think India will move towards in the coming years as our engagement with Israelis increase.

 

[surya kiran]

All right, here we go,

I think the OP is being extremely emotional, while trying to prove that Israel is being a friend of India, at the same time, it appears to me that the OP must have forgotten that India enjoys very strong relations with the Arab World, especially the GCC, with an upper high trade volume. It's not about oil though, India's investment in the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain exceeds 30 times more than what it is with Israel. What India wants from Israel is the same what India needs from Russia and France, @BLACKGOLD raised a very valuable point though, that India balances its relations with everybody, and some Indians are being overhyped when it comes to Israel, and I have seen some anti-Israel Indians as well, therefore, I wouldn't assume that India supports Israel unconditionally. Tbqh, India has been accused of being bias, but there are people who don't know a thing about what India does to the Palestinian people. Yearly, India donates money and provide humanitarian aids to them, funds projects, and publicly support their cause, with all honesty, I can't say India offers a lip service to them, because they try to do their best.


If India was a blindly pro-Israel, it would have cut its oil imports ages ago, and would never sign military agreements with the UAE, or it wouldn't try to develop its relations with the Arab World, and the Muslim World by large.

So, with threads like these I would expect nothing, but a flux of affection that's all.

India is a sovereign state, and believe me, if India wants to please Israel, India should bow to the West, but they will never do, considering the fact that they are an ex-imperialist victim.

I will continue posting as soon as I finish some stuff at work


Cheers



It's not really about oil, and if they posed an embargo on India, both economies will have a devastating setback.

Its a very difficult concept for foreigners to understand, that, in Indian foreign policy there are no friends. Only partners. Partners are defined as per requirements and policies are followed to fulfill those requirements. Israel is seen as a provider of high end technology, not just in the defence sector but also irrigation in arid areas. Hence, policies are followed towards that. From a people to people contact Indians will have warm affections for the USA, but Indian policy may not reflect the same all the time. People to people contact with Russia is low, but, Indian policy provides a high level of importance for the same.

As of now, one of the primary goals we face is to reduce the influence and possibility of terrorist threats. And for that working with any government is allowed. Also, over the past 10 years we have slowly receeded from overtly or verbally supporting armed groups. Why? Due to the long term consequences it may have on us. Hence, the gradually less support for Palestine.

We will continue to work with the GCC and all countries who will help us achieve our goals. Relationships need not be at the cost of each other.

 

[indushek]

I see.

Well, the article seems to be one-sided when describing India's attitude toward the Arab World, and the Muslim World by far. I think they are trying to portray India as Islam's public enemy, so to speak.

I understand that India maintains a good relationship with Israel, but that doesn't mean that they're anti-Palestinian by nature. For once, the columnist argued that nationalist Hindus admire Israel for what it is, and what it stands for, in their eyes, at the same time he proposed an example, an act being committed by individuals who vandalized Muslims' properties in India, matching it to what Israel does on daily basis to the Palestinians. When such an incidence takes place in India, the Gov't interferes to protect the victims, in other word, Israel acts are being carried out by their own Gov't, while in India, it is all about a group of people, be it Christians, Hindus, Muslims or Sikhs. In a nutshell, India should not be blamed for such incident, but those who were responsible for such actions would be hold accountable for what they are doing.

I'm not quite sure about what measures the India Gov't would take if such thing happen, but I would argue that they surely will interfere to bring justice.

Importantly, the Indian Gov't affirmed that it would unconditionally back-up the full independence of the Palestinian people, their aspirations, and hopes, which is worth mentioning, India, similar to what most nations did, voted in favor of upgrading the Palestinian status in the UN, which approves India's efforts to frame out the road map for a peaceful solution to the Palestinian cause.

Admittedly, I can't find any sort of similarities between Israel and India, except the existence of radical Islamic, which isn't merely exclusive to Israel, I don't think Israel had seen a stronger version of extremist Islam than what Muslim countries had seen by extremist nutcases, from Afghanistan to Egypt or maybe beyond, but that doesn't mean that something is wrong with Islam, but rather the interpretations of it as well as the adherence of a radical ideology. It was started ages ago by people who sought after political objectives. India itself suffered from Hindu extremists more all countries combined, but that doesn't suggest that there is something wrong with Hinduism. The minutes we crossed the line and wear the dark cloak of intolerance toward on another, is the minute that we won't rest until we eliminate ourselves. Indian Sikhs have also committed an act of terror against their Gov't but we can't blame all Sikhs
for that as much as we don't wish to be blamed for everything terrorists do.

A good balanced analysis by you. As they say "everything isn't either black or white , there will be shades of grey". After all these are Human relations (though countries here) and u will like and dislike at a time a person's traits based on the situation.