New Delhi, India – As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emerged from his airplane at Ben Gurion airport exterior Tel Aviv on July 4, 2017, his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, waited for him on the different finish of the purple carpet laid out on the tarmac.
Minutes later, the leaders hugged. Talking on the airport, Modi mentioned his go to was a “path-breaking journey” – it was the primary time an Indian prime minister had visited Israel. Netanyahu recalled their first assembly in New York in 2014, the place, he mentioned, “we agreed to interrupt down the remaining partitions between India and Israel”.
9 years later, as Modi prepares to fly to Israel on February 25 for his second go to, he can largely declare to have achieved that mission, analysts say. A relationship that was as soon as frowned upon in India, after which carried out clandestinely, is now certainly one of New Delhi’s most public friendships. Modi has often described Netanyahu as a “pricey good friend”, regardless of the Worldwide Felony Court docket having issued an arrest warrant in late 2024 for the Israeli premier over alleged warfare crimes carried out throughout Israel’s genocidal warfare on Gaza.
Indian diplomats and officers have justified the nation’s pivot in the direction of Israel as a “pragmatic method” – Israel, with its tech and navy experience, has an excessive amount of to supply to be ignored, they argue – balanced by efforts from New Delhi to strengthen ties with its Arab allies.
But, it has come at a value, analysts say: to Palestine, and India’s relationship with it, and, in keeping with some specialists, to India’s ethical credibility.
“The so-called realist flip of India has value its ethical energy, which it used to take pleasure in within the World South,” mentioned Anwar Alam, a senior fellow with the Coverage Views Basis suppose tank in New Delhi.
Amid an ongoing warfare within the Palestinian territory, Modi’s go to “quantities to legitimising the apartheid Israeli state”, Alam informed Al Jazeera.
An ideological alliance
India was a staunch advocate for Palestine within the post-colonial world order, with main leaders backing Palestinian independence. In 1947, India opposed the United Nations plan to partition Palestine. And 4 many years later, in 1988, India grew to become one of many first non-Arab states to recognise Palestine.
The top of the Chilly Battle – India leaned in the direction of the Soviet Union regardless of formally being non-aligned – pressured a change in New Delhi’s calculations. Alongside an outreach to the USA, India additionally established diplomatic relations with Israel in January 1992.
Since then, defence ties have anchored the connection, which has additionally expanded on different fronts lately.
Modi’s rise to energy in India in 2014 proved to be the catalyst for the largest shift in relations. Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Celebration (BJP) has an ideology rooted within the imaginative and prescient of creating India a Hindu nation, a pure homeland for Hindus wherever on this planet – an method that mirrors, in some ways, Israel’s view of itself as a Jewish homeland. Each Modi and Israel view “Islamic terrorism”, which critics say can be shorthand for justifications wanted to pursue broader anti-Muslim insurance policies, as main threats.
Below Modi, India has develop into Israel’s largest weapons purchaser. And in 2024, as Israel waged its warfare on Gaza, Indian weapons companies bought Israel rockets and explosives, in keeping with an Al Jazeera investigation.
Forward of Modi’s upcoming go to, the 2 international locations signed a memorandum of understanding that goals to additional deepen defence ties, with India exploring the joint growth of anti-ballistic missile defence with Israel. In Jerusalem, Modi is scheduled to deal with the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
“Modi’s tackle is particular due to the way it underlines the size of the shift in relations beneath the Bharatiya Janata Celebration in the direction of an overtly pro-Israel coverage,” Max Rodenbeck, venture director on the Washington-based Disaster Group’s Israel-Palestine division, informed Al Jazeera.
However Modi’s go to can be private for Netanyahu, Rodenbeck mentioned. Israel is months away from a nationwide election that’s, in impact, a referendum on Netanyahu’s authorities – from the intelligence failures that enabled the October 7 assault by Palestinian teams to the warfare on Gaza that adopted, in addition to his makes an attempt to weaken judicial independence by means of reforms.
The go to seems “as virtually a private favour to Netanyahu by boosting his picture as a world statesman simply as Israeli election campaigning is getting underway”, Rodenbeck mentioned.
Whereas a number of Western leaders have visited Israel because it started its genocidal warfare on Gaza in October 2023, few leaders from the World South have made the journey.
At a time when the Gaza warfare has shrunk the set of nations keen to be seen as Israel’s pals, particularly amongst rising economies, Modi’s go to is critical.
Israel doesn’t “have many pals” globally in the mean time, mentioned Kabir Taneja, the chief director of the Center East workplace on the Observer Analysis Basis, a New Delhi-based suppose tank. “So India is taking part in that function,” he added. “[Modi’s visit] form of reveals that Israel just isn’t absolutely remoted.”
The July 2017 go to
In some ways, Modi’s go to to Israel this week will look to construct on his July 2017 journey, which was a watershed second within the bilateral ties, analysts be aware.
No Indian Prime Minister had beforehand visited Israel, however even lower-level diplomats would, till then, pair their Israel visits with parallel engagements within the Palestinian territory.
Modi broke with that coverage. He didn’t go to Palestine in 2017, solely making a visit there in 2018, by which era he had already additionally hosted Netanyahu in New Delhi. It had additionally been the primary go to by an Israeli premier to India.
The 2017 Modi go to has been beneath scrutiny not too long ago. An electronic mail launched by the US Justice Division as a part of the Jeffrey Epstein information confirmed that the late disgraced financier had suggested a billionaire near Modi throughout his journey.
After the go to on July 6, Epstein, a convicted intercourse offender, had emailed an unidentified particular person he known as “Jabor Y”, saying: “The Indian Prime minister modi took recommendation. and danced and sang in israel for the good thing about the US president. that they had met just a few weeks in the past.. IT WORKED. !”
India’s Ministry of Exterior Affairs has dismissed these claims because the “trashy ruminations” of a convicted legal.
Nonetheless, Modi’s go to to Israel solidified the bilateral relationship. Commerce between the 2 nations has grown from $200m in 1992 to greater than $6bn in 2024.
India remains to be Israel’s second-largest Asian buying and selling associate after China in items, dominated by diamonds, petroleum, and chemical substances. India and Israel signed a Bilateral Funding Treaty (BIT) in September final 12 months and have each been seeking to shut negotiations on a free commerce deal.
On the similar time, people-to-people ties have grown as effectively. After Israel banned Palestinians from working within the nation following the Hamas-led assault on October 7, 2023, hundreds of Indians lined as much as work in Israeli development corporations.
“India and Israel have a reasonably deep strategic and financial relationship that has been flourishing since Prime Minister Modi got here to workplace,” mentioned the Observer Analysis Basis’s Taneja.
Modi was additionally among the many first world leaders to sentence the Hamas-led assault and throw India’s assist behind Israel.
“It actually, actually feeds into India’s posture in opposition to terrorism,” Taneja mentioned in regards to the India-Israel ties. “Israel is a rustic that India sees going through comparable disaster relating to terrorism.”
India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring armed assaults on its territory and in Indian-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has accepted that its nationals have, in some cases, been behind these assaults, however has rejected accusations that it has skilled or financed the attackers.
Over the horizon, a special Center East?
Regardless of its shut ties with Israel, New Delhi beneath Modi has not fully deserted its place on the Palestinian trigger, calling for a two-state resolution and peace by means of dialogue. Nevertheless it has been more and more hesitant to criticise Israel over its warfare crimes within the occupied Palestinian territory.
India’s historic assist for the Palestinian trigger is rooted in its pivotal function within the non-alignment motion, the Chilly Battle-era neutrality posture adopted by a number of growing nations. Even earlier than India gained independence, the chief of its freedom wrestle, Mahatma Gandhi, decried the “imposition of Jews over Arabs” by means of the creation of Israel.
India now now not calls its method non-alignment, as an alternative referring to it as “strategic autonomy”.
“The Center East is the one geography the place this coverage really features, and likewise present[s] dividend[s],” Taneja informed Al Jazeera. “India has good relations with Israel, Arab powers and Iran alike. One of many causes [it works is] as a result of India doesn’t step into regional conflicts and confrontations.”
However beneath strain from US President Donald Trump, India has stopped shopping for oil from Iran and brought steps to finish its work on growing the strategically vital Chabahar port, which New Delhi considered as a gateway into landlocked Central Asia and Afghanistan.
Now, Trump is threatening to assault Iran. The US has amassed warships and jets close to Iran, whilst Washington and Tehran proceed to interact in diplomatic talks.
“I believe India could also be trying over the horizon to a Center East the place Iran has suffered heavy assault from the US and Israel, and now not initiatives energy within the area. In these circumstances, Israel will emerge as one thing of a regional hegemon,” mentioned the Disaster Group’s Rodenbeck.
“India is maybe positioning itself to learn. Additionally, Modi sees Israel as influential in Washington, and will hope that friendliness to Israel wins factors with Congress and Trump, which India badly wants.”
