India has become an increasingly key partner to Israel and the relationship has been categorized as strategic.

Historic friendship, ‘endless opportunities’

India and Israel marked 30 years of full diplomatic relations on 30 January 2022 this year. Israel opened its embassy in New Delhi on 1 February 1992. The Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv opened on 15 May 2022 that year.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Bennett, who succeeded Benjamin Netanyahu last year, addressed “all the people of India” on “30 years of a wonderful partnership, deep cultural connection and economic and military co-operation”, and described as “endless” the opportunities for collaboration between the two countries.

Prime Minister Modi had at the time spoken about setting new goals to take the relationship forward, and referred to Jewish communities in India who had lived here without discrimination for centuries.

In the Israeli statement on the upcoming visit, Prime Minister Bennett was quoted as saying: “Modi is the person who re-accelerated the relations between India and Israel, which have historic importance. These are deep ties between two unique cultures…that are based on deep appreciation and significant cooperation.”

Quiet beginnings given a fillip by Modi

Modi’s visit to Israel in 2017 was the first by an Indian Prime Minister and with that, he took full ownership of a relationship that had mostly grown under the radar for over a quarter century.

India had recognised Israel as far back as 1950 but normalisation took another four decades. In the wake of the first Gulf War, equations in West Asia underwent big shifts. Arab support for the Palestinian cause began to weaken due to PLO’s backing for Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Then came the breakup of the Soviet Union, which was until then India’s go-to country for military hardware.

From 1992, while there were defence deals, and co-operation in science, technology and agriculture, India was reticent about its ties with Israel as it balanced this with its historical support for the Palestinian cause, its dependence on the Arab world for oil, and the pro-Palestinian sentiments of the country’s Muslim citizens.

The first high-level visits took place only after the NDA-1 under Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee took office. In 2000, L K Advani became the first Indian minister to visit Israel. That same year, Jaswant Singh visited as Foreign Minister. That year, the two countries set up a joint anti-terror commission. And in 2003, Ariel Sharon became the first Israeli Prime Minister to visit India.

Unlike his predecessors, Modi went all out to woo Israel, playing to Hindutva’s natural affinity for Israel as a muscular state that gives no quarter to its “terrorist” enemies. With the 2020 Abrahamic Accords that saw the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco normalising relations with Israel, and India’s own newly strengthened ties with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, New Delhi is now more confident about its key relationships in West Asia than at any other time.

India and the Palestinian cause

While the India-Israel embrace has eroded what once used to be New Delhi’s unequivocal support for the Palestinian cause, India does continue to walk a tightrope between its historical ties with Palestine and its more recent affection for Israel.

An indication of this came last year in India’s statement in the UN Security Council on the Israel-Palestine violence. The statement virtually held Israel responsible for the violence, and expressed India’s “strong” support to the “just Palestinian cause” and “unwavering” support for the two-state solution.

Earlier, the relationship with Palestine was almost an article of faith in Indian foreign policy for over four decades. India backed the Palestinian right to self-determination and rallied behind the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its leader Yasser Arafat as the sole representative of the Palestinian people.

In 1975, India invited PLO to open an office in Delhi, giving it diplomatic status five years later. In 1988, when the PLO declared an independent state of Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem, India granted recognition immediately. Arafat was received as head of state whenever he visited India.

And even as India opened a diplomatic mission in Tel Aviv, it set up a Representative Office in Gaza, which later moved to Ramallah as the Palestinian movement split between the Hamas (which gained control of Gaza) and the PLO.

During the UPA’s 10 years in office, Mahmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority that administers the West Bank, visited four times — in 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2012.

India voted for Palestine to become a full member of UNESCO in 2011, and a year later, co-sponsored the UN General Assembly resolution that enabled Palestine to become a “non-member” observer state at the UN without voting rights.

India also supported the installation of the Palestinian flag on the UN premises in September 2015, a year after Modi became Prime Minister.

Shift in policy, but not wholesale support

The first big shift in India’s policy came during the visit of Mahmoud Abbas in 2017 when India in a statement dropped the customary line in support of East Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state. When Modi visited Israel, his itinerary did not include Ramallah, as had been the practice by other visiting dignitaries.

But the balancing act continued. Modi made a separate visit to Ramallah in February 2018, and called for an independent Palestinian state.

Even as it abstained at UNESCO in December 2017, India voted in favour of a resolution in the General Assembly opposing the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

At the UNHRC’s 46th session in Geneva earlier in 2021, India voted against Israel in three resolutions – on the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people; on Israeli settlement policy; and on the human rights situation in the Golan Heights. It abstained on a fourth, which asked for an UNHRC report on the human rights situation in Palestine, including East Jerusalem.

In February 2021, the International Criminal Court claimed jurisdiction to investigate human rights abuses in Palestinian territory including West Bank and Gaza and named both Israeli security forces and Hamas as perpetrators. Then PM Netanyahu wanted India, which does not recognise the ICC, to take a stand against it, and was surprised when it did not come.

The Indian statement in the UNSC was another disappointment for Israel. But it did not affect the relationship as both countries weigh their long term interests against the fast changing geopolitics of West Asia.