https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/10/12/israel-hamas-gaza-war-modi-response-shift/#cookie_message_anchor
Modi’s Comments on Israel-Gaza War Signal Shift
Forthrightly expressing solidarity with Israel, India steps away from a long-held approach toward the Palestinians.
By Sumit Ganguly, a columnist at Foreign Policy and visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Nicolas Blarel, an associate professor at Leiden University.
OCTOBER 12, 2023, 5:27 PM
In 1947, when the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution that recommended establishing the state of Israel alongside a Palestinian state, a newly independent India v**ed against. Then-Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, and other Indian nationalists were sympathetic to the Jewish cause, but they opposed the partition of what was the British mandate for Palestine and advocated for a federal arrangement with guarantees for minority religious rights for Jews. In their view, the creation of a Jewish state would disenfranchise the Arab inhabitants of the region.
Pragmatic considerations also shaped Indian officials’ position. With a substantial Muslim population in its own borders, India could not afford to ignore their sentiments. An overture toward Israel could have adverse effects on the fragile legitimacy of the new state, particularly stirring turmoil among Indian Muslims, who had just experienced the trauma of the Partition of India. At the time, India also wanted to present itself as a standard-bearer against colonialism and to demonstrate its solidarity with newly decolonized Arab states, which were also being courted by Pakistan.
India formally recognized the state of Israel in 1950, and it allowed the country to open a consulate in Mumbai in 1953. For much of the Cold War, Indo-Israeli contacts were limited; New Delhi still wanted to avoid alienating the Arab world and sought to appease the Muslim population at home. It wasn’t until 1992 that India granted full diplomatic recognition to Israel, including the opening of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi. With the Cold War over and the impending Oslo Accords—which sought rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians—India chose to end its policy of keeping Israel at a safe distance.
At the same time, India maintained strong support for Palestine. In 1974, India was the first non-Arab country to recognize the PLO as the “sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people,” and the next year, a PLO office was set up in New Delhi. India was again the first non-Arab country to recognize the state of Palestine when it was proclaimed in 1988. In multilateral v**es after India and Israel normalized ties, India consistently sided with the Palestinian position, including support for Palestine’s application for complete United Nations membership.
After Hamas launched a multipronged attack against Israel from Gaza over the weekend, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, quite appropriately, sharply upbraided Hamas’s horrific actions. However, he has so far expressed no concern about the dire plight of the Palestinians trapped in Gaza. “We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour,” he posted. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families.” After speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Modi added, “India strongly and unequivocally condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.” Neither statement nodded at people in Gaza.
Five days after the Hamas attacks, India’s Ministry of External Affairs released its first official statement on the war. There is a “universal obligation to observe international humanitarian law,” and there is also a global responsibility to fight terrorism, spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in response to questions at a weekly briefing. He also reiterated India’s position on the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict, calling for “direct negotiations” toward a “sovereign, independent, and viable state of Palestine living within secure and recognized borders, side by side, at peace with Israel.”
Modi’s initial reaction follows a series of public Indian overtures toward Israel since he and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014, including Modi’s unprecedented visit to Tel Aviv in July 2017. Breaking with the protocol established through most previous ministerial visits by world leaders to Israel, Modi did not stop in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Netanyahu reciprocated the visit in January 2018. The very public increase in ties under Modi stood in contrast with the more discreet approach that governments under the Indian National Congress party adopted toward Israel. Even previous BJP governments had not so boldly embraced Israel when in office between 1998 and 2004.
There is no question that Modi’s government has been more public in its engagement with Israel than any previous governments in New Delhi. However, for years it also regularly asserted its support for the Palestinian Authority. Before Modi’s historic visit to Israel in 2017, the Indian leader invited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to New Delhi—probably with an eye toward warding off domestic criticism. During this visit, India reiterated its traditional position, supporting a two-state solution and calling for “a sovereign, independent, united, and viable Palestine, coexisting peacefully with Israel.”
India didn’t abandon its support for the Palestinian cause at the United Nations, either. In December 2017, just before Netanyahu visited New Delhi, India supported a U.N. General Assembly v**e against then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. A year later, India backed a nonbinding U.N. resolution that Ireland had introduced, calling for a “comprehensive, just, and lasting peace in the Middle East” and condemning Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. Under Modi, India also increased its contributions to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
In May 2021—after weeks of demonstrations and heightened tensions among protesters, Israeli settlers, and Israeli police—violence broke out at the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups launched hundreds of rockets into Israeli territory, and Israel responded with airstrikes in Gaza, k*****g at least 260 Palestinians. India’s reaction to the crisis was nuanced: It condemned both Hamas and Israel for the escalation of violence. The response reflected India’s continued effort to deepen ties with Israel without abandoning the Palestinian cause—an adroit diplomatic strategy that New Delhi has been able to pursue until the current Israel-Hamas war.
So what explains this seemingly dramatic shift in India’s stance toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? A few factors appear to have shaped its calculations. First, India faces a national e******n next year. For all practical purposes, the BJP has written off the Muslim v**e, leaving it a free hand to take an unequivocal stance on the issue that does not address the concerns of India’s Muslim population. Furthermore, although some Indian Muslims have expressed their sympathy to the Palestinian cause in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war, they bear no particular fondness for Hamas.
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Second, India has long fended off terrorist attacks from Islamist militants operating from Pakistani soil. Adopting an unyielding posture toward the Hamas attacks not only plays well with its own domestic constituency but also sends a tacit message to Islamabad: namely, that New Delhi will take a tougher approach to terrorism. Modi has previously compared India’s surgical strikes on militant bases in Pakistan-administered Kashmir to Israel’s covert operations against militants in foreign territory, suggesting that Israel’s military prowess is something worth emulating.
It is also possible that India has taken note that a number of key Arab states, from Egypt to Saudi Arabia, have not offered full-throated support for Hamas. At best, they have called for avoiding further escalation of hostilities while issuing minor denunciations of Israeli actions. Unlike during previous crises, various Arab states had normalized or were in the process of normalizing ties with Israel when Hamas attacked. This cautious reaction from some Arab countries gives New Delhi some diplomatic leeway, especially when it comes to its growing trade and strategic relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council states.
Finally, India’s clear-cut condemnation of Hamas could be a signal to the United States about its willingness to support a critical U.S. ally. This public position may assuage the Biden administration’s misgivings about India’s wobbly stance on the Russian war in Ukraine. Without harshly criticizing New Delhi, the Biden administration has nevertheless expressed its disappointment with India’s failure to condemn Moscow’s invasion.
Modi’s tilt toward Israel in this crisis is another indicator of the increasing assertiveness of India’s foreign policy, especially now that New Delhi perceives a shifting political and economic landscape in the Middle East. That raises questions going forward. Having condemned Hamas this week, how will India negotiate its diplomatic ties with the Arab world? If the fighting escalates, as seems probable, will New Delhi backtrack on its stance? India is likely to take its cues from key Arab states, in line with the rest of its foreign policy during Modi’s second term. New Delhi’s sole guiding principle now appears to be ruthless pragmatism—as shown by its approach toward Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
Given the scope of the Indo-Israeli relationship—which now encompasses growing trade, security, and defense cooperation, as well as joint infrastructure projects—and Modi’s personal affinity for Netanyahu, it is highly unlikely that India will adopt a more nuanced position on the Israel-Gaza war without pressure from Arab states with which it shares important ties. The days of India decrying terrorism while still championing the Palestinian cause seem to have passed. In many ways, this shift is the logical culmination of a diplomatic process begun under Modi. Short of a new government taking the helm in New Delhi, it’s unlikely to turn back now.
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