Given the strategic stakes and political symbolism, Narendra Modi’s first prime ministerial visit to Israel is logically overdue, though he had visited the country as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. On the contrary, he has charmingly courted the Arab states by visiting and signing major deals with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and UAE. The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahan, was the Chief Guest at this year’s Republic Day parade. All this is in addition to the sectarian ‘other’ in the region ~ Iran ~ with whom the geopolitical alignment on the Chabahar port, energy and Afghanistan, were deftly managed with some tightrope diplomacy, without offending Arab or Israeli sensibilities.
Considering the relatively recent ‘formal’ friendship of the Indo-Israeli framework (full-fledged Embassies opened in 1992), the 25-year journey has witnessed a frenetic pace of mutually-beneficial transactions that were artificially stifled owing to India’s moral and genealogical conundrum of reconciling with a state, created on the basis of a religion. Israel describes itself as a ‘Jewish and democratic state’. The other factor is the political and psychological impact on the Indian Muslims on the sensitive issue of Palestine.
Civilian trade with Israel is now $5 billion annually and in the ultra-sensitive defence sector, India is the largest purchaser of Israeli weaponry and wares. The implicit trust in the IndoIsraeli equation affords itself to strategic cooperation in intelligence, technology-sharing and joint development of military platforms. Recently, a Rs 17,000 crore deal between DRDO and IAI for joint development of medium-range surface-to-air missile, MR-SAM, was cleared by the cabinet committee on security. Clearly, there is a certain acceptance and understanding of India’s occasional ambivalence towards Israel, and the same is counter-rationalised and contextualized in Tel Aviv as India’s own domestic and historical compulsions. Realpolitik ensures the continuum of expansion in the Indo-Israeli equation. . A healthy and logical geopolitical alignment in the Indo-Israeli framework, overrides India’s historical and moral commitment towards Palestine.
But, for all its hard-nosed realpolitik, Israel is not beyond the sensitivities of symbolism. From permanently downgrading its diplomatic ties with New Zealand and Senegal for co-sponsoring anti-settlement resolutions in the United Nations Security Council, to chiding President Obama for a ‘gangup’ in abstaining from the voting at the UN, to vociferously supporting the ultra-divisive move of shifting the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem ~ Israel reacts ferociously against sovereign moves that signify antiIsraeli intent, even if it is without any punitive bite or impact, by attaching a huge value to these symbolic moves. This has been the typical Israeli-Palestinian narrative, where the moves of third countries are keenly watched, analysed and decoded for a ‘for’ or ‘against’ verdict.
Thus, India is among the rare countries that has managed a certain ambiguous balance and sensitivity towards both Israeli and Palestinian causes, without offending the other. Against this backdrop, the scheduled summer visit of Prime Minister Modi to Israel ~ but not to Palestine ~ ostensibly to ‘dehyphenate’ the equation is either naïve or brazen. In a deeply hyphenated relationship (IndoPak), a visit by the US President to either Delhi or Islamabad, but not to the other, acquires adjectives beyond naivety and innocence. It is clearly tantamount to deliberate political messaging. Similarly, the equally hyphenated Israeli-Palestinian reality was historically respected and the accompanying dignity of affording dual ‘visits’ to both countries ensured visits to the region of the Biblical lands.
Diplomacy ought to be dynamic and not confined to the ghosts of the past. Yet it needs a simple ‘net gain or net loss’ calculation to ascertain the prudence of either changing or retaining the historical narrative and tradition. Just as the reason to visit both Israel and Palestine simultaneously on a visit to the region was essentially ‘political’, now the reason to not go, would similarly be deciphered to be even more ‘political’, and not just administrative. The delicate counterpoise of subsequently hosting the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, would be a post-facto balm and perhaps inadequate, especially given the hyper-sensitivity of the polarised times.
The Indian government’s existing formula in the Middle East has been successful. The trick has been to engage equally with all regional stakeholders i.e. Arabs, Israelis and the Iranians separately, without offending any ‘other’. But, ‘Palestine’ goes beyond a territorial dispute, it is an emotional and strictly hyphenated issue with Israel as far as the global ummah is concerned. It goes beyond sovereign insularities. By de-hyphenating Palestine during this visit, the net gains of playing to the extreme right-wing in the Zionist galleries or even domestically, just does not add up to the potential counter-reaction, both domestically and externally.
‘Palestine’ has been relegated to the relative backbenches of the Middle Eastern saga with the other self-imploding instincts and sectarian angularities dominating the modern narrative. Yet, Palestine is probably the only issue that all warring factions in the ummah agree upon, as it overcomes the sectarian, theological and political divides that are otherwise tearing apart the region. India, with its own moral high-ground of respecting the Palestinian cause and yet ‘normalising’ relations with Israel is ensuring a judicious middlepath that works to our commercial, security and moral advantage. Linking Palestinian de-hyphenation with the questionable and duplicitous antecedents of the OIC resolutions on Kashmir will invariably prop up justification of the move, as yet another show of diplomatic muscularity of the incumbent government. However, this does not work to our advantage in the long run. India needs to mesh dignified morality with prudent necessity.
The quintessential ‘Indian moment’ was the Republic Day parade on 26 January 2017, when an Arab leader poignantly applauded the late Havildar Hangpan Dada for fighting terrorists in Kashmir and later clapping simultaneously at the ironical sight of the Arab military contingent walking down Rajpath, only to be followed by weaponry and wares on display, some of them manufactured by Israel. This is the ideal normal that works to India’s advantage without the unnecessary shenanigans and posturings of choosing one over the other. India’s own pluralistic, moralistic and diplomatic instincts will be severely tested in the forthcoming years, as it works towards achieving a permanent seat in the Security Council. This will call for persisting with the winning formula and not succumbing to the more internal and political temptations of looking more ‘decisive’.
The writer is Lt Gen PVSM, AVSM (Retd), former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands & Puducherry.