India walks Israeli-Palestinian
tightrope By Harinder Mishra
JERUSALEM - India and Israel are to hold
foreign-ministry consultations followed by a joint working group
meeting on counter-terrorism in New Delhi this month,
signaling continuity in all of the diverse aspects that
characterize bilateral relations between the two
countries.
"The foreign-ministry consultations,
slated for 17th of this month, will take an overview of
the different aspects of our bilateral relations and
outline new possible areas to further strengthen
cooperation between the two countries. We will also be
briefing the Indian ministry on the current regional
developments and they in turn will brief us on the
situation in South Asia," Mordechai Amichai, director of
the Indian Foreign Ministry's Asia and Pacific division,
told Asia Times Online.
"The Joint Working Group
meeting on counter-terrorism to be held towards the end
of the month will analyze and evaluate the threat posed
by the menace of terrorism and try to formulate
effective ways to jointly tackle it," Amichai said.
The meetings, the first of their kind under the
new dispensation in New Delhi, allay all apprehensions
in Jerusalem regarding the continuation of bilateral
relations in their various manifestations, though it
follows certain disconcerting signals for Israel which
emerged under the shadow of an effort by India to warm
up its traditional ties with the Palestinians.
The new government in India, backed by the left
front, has maintained that its relations with Israel are
of "vital importance" ever since its formation, but it
has taken a few "corrective measures" to put a check on
India's eroding credentials as a friend of Arabs in
general and Palestinians in particular. The developments
prompted some analysts to dub the deepening ties between
the two countries during the past six years as a brief
honeymoon between the former ruling party in India, the
Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP), and the ruling Likud party
in Israel.
While Israel maintained a "studied
silence", monitoring New Delhi's moves under the new
United Progressive Alliance (UPA), India took some
decisive steps to put a check on the growing belief that
it was drifting away from the Arab world due to its
growing closeness with Jerusalem.
At least four
significant measures, unthinkable during the previous
regime, were taken by the UPA government to reaffirm
India's earlier steadfast and unambiguous support for
the Palestinian cause. In its policy outline it stated
to "strengthen its traditional ties with the
Palestinians" without giving any mention to Israel, it
condemned in no uncertain terms Israeli incursions in
Rafah and recently in the northern Gaza Strip, sent
Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed to
Ramallah, who met with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat
and openly condemned his confinement to his
muqata (headquarters) by Israel as
indefensible under international law, and backtracked on the
Indian chief of air staff's proposal for joint air-force
training with Israel under pressure from left front
constituents in the government.
The visit
of Ahamed to Ramallah, skipping Jerusalem, marked a sort
of "reversal of trend" given that several ministers
under the previous leadership in New Delhi visited
Israel while ignoring the Palestinian Authority. Though
the earlier BJP-led alliance also maintained that
its growing closeness with Israel had in no way diluted
its support to the Palestinian cause, it was
actually reduced to "symbolic" form, limited to
favoring Palestinian-backed resolutions in the United Nations and
lacking in substance.
Even when the BJP
government did say something on the issue of the
Palestinians it walked a tightrope between the two
sides, balancing its act. For example, in a significant
move it urged Israel to lift its first military siege of
Arafat at his headquarters in Ramallah, and also asked
the Palestinians to stop "acts of terrorism". In another
incident showing complete lack of apathy to the
Palestinian sufferings, the Indian government when
approached by Hani al-Hassan, Arafat's special envoy, to
seek help in breaking the impasse, reacted by merely
showing "grave concern" at the deteriorating situation
in West Asia.
It is noteworthy here that Israel
has often been peeved at India's voting pattern in the
UN and has tried to convince New Delhi to change it. The
issue was one of the prominent items on Jerusalem's
agenda during Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to New
Delhi last year but is said to have been rejected due to
"domestic constraints".
Reacting to the changing
trends, Amichai said, "India has been a little critical
of Israeli policies recently but it will have no impact
on the bilateral front." Other diplomatic sources also
brushed aside any significant change in relations
between the two countries, saying they are "based on
shared concerns and has solid foundations".
The
Israeli defense industry, which has emerged as the
second largest supplier of arms to India, also looks
quite relaxed with the formation of the UPA government
in India and doesn't see any marked change happening in
the strategic alliance developed between the two
countries in the field. Defense sources emphasized that
they have proved their reliability and have stood up
to India's needs whenever called for and that they don't
see any reason as to why that will be disturbed.
Israel indeed reacted instantly to India's
request for sophisticated technology during the Kargil
war in 1999 against Pakistan. "Things were delayed a
little bit after the formation of the new government in
India but they are moving on now. Nothing has changed
and the attitude of New Delhi remains the same, like one
of trusted partners," said Lova Drori, marketing manager
at Rafael Armament Authority Development Ltd, in
reaction to the kind of difference the change of regime
in New Delhi has made to the cooperation between the two
countries in the field of defense.
Professor
Ephraim Inbar, an expert on Indo-Israeli relations at
Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, said there is nothing
to worry about concerning bilateral relations between
the two countries. "The Congress party will mature.
States behave in realpolitik
matter practically
and our interests are quite mutual. One of the important
reasons that drew India towards us after the Cold War
era was its willingness to get close to the US. The
whole effort has been beneficial to us both and I don't
see any substantial shift in its policy," he said.
India recognized Israel as a nation in 1950,
but its relations with the Jewish state bordered on
the unfriendly most of the time until the establishment of
diplomatic relations in 1992. Preoccupied with the idea
of not hurting the sentiments of the Muslim world and
its reliance on Persian Gulf oil and remittance from
India's large expatriate community in the Gulf, New
Delhi shunned any possibility of forging ties with
Jerusalem.
But with the change in the
international scenario following the end of the Cold War
when the Non-Aligned Movement started to lose its
relevance, and the growing realization that the Muslim
or Arab world was not a monolithic entity, with some of
them maintaining open relations with Israel, India
established fully fledged diplomatic relations with
Jerusalem.
Relations have since grown leaps and
bounds with the two countries today working together in
counter-terrorism strategy, intelligence sharing,
supplying defense equipment and undertaking joint
defense-related research. The level of mutual trust has
risen to such an extent that former Mossad (Israel's
foreign intelligence service) chief, Shabtai Shavit,
during a trilateral conference early this year expressed
an interest in promoting an India-US-Israel "strategic
triad", and proposed intelligence sharing in "real time"
between the three countries in order to counter the
threat of terrorism.
On the other hand, India
recognized the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
as early as 1975 as the "sole legitimate representative
of the Palestinian people". In 1980, it granted full
diplomatic status to the PLO mission in Delhi and
maintained unflinching support for its struggle.
The recent overtures by India towards the
Palestinians have helped it to re-establish its image as
a friend and supporter of the Palestinian cause. The
Palestinian Authority has pledged to back India's claim
to permanent membership at the UN Security
Council(UNSC).
"We carry high regard and
goodwill for India and will do everything in our
capacity to further its claim for a permanent seat at
the UNSC. We will also try to exert our influence with
others to help India's cause," a spokesman for the
Palestinian Authority Foreign Ministry, Muhammad
al-Waheidi, told Asia Times Online.
A ceremony
organized in Ramallah in September for the donation of
medicine worth Rs10 million (US$219,000) and 12 jeeps to
the Palestinian Authority by Indian Minister Ahamed
struck an emotional cord with the Palestinian
leadership, which has been isolated and left forlorn
during the recent past.
To sum it up, there
is no doubt that India sees relations with Israel as
of vital importance and would like to continue to
promote this strategic alliance. At the same time the
new dispensation in New Delhi also seems to be on
a "corrective course", through a slight change in
nuance, by trying to underline that its ties with Jerusalem
will "not be at the cost of the Palestinians". While
there have been several visits to Israel by high-level
defense officials after the UPA government took office
this year, the forthcoming meetings will be the first
major indication of continuity in bilateral relations in
all established areas, putting to rest all speculation
regarding any possible change in India's policy toward
Jerusalem.
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