Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the epitome in India’s independence struggle who led the country to freedom from the clutches of foreign rule, was equally steadfast in opposing the unjust policies pursued by the British Empire in West Asia. He observed in Harijan: “Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense as England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs.”
Gandhiji empathised with the Jews, who as a people were subjected to inhuman treatment and persecution for a long time in Europe. “My sympathies are with the Jews…but my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me…Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home,” he wrote in the editorial of a widely circulated Harijan on November 11, 1938.
The views echoed by the Mahatma had laid the foundation to India’s foreign policy on Palestine and on the Jewish question which was pursued more or less with the same verve for many years in the post-independence era.
The lobbying to garner India’s support for the creation of Israel had started even before India got its independence. Although the great physicist Albert Einstein declined an offer to become Israel’s second President, he had worked for the Israeli cause. He wrote a four-page letter dated June 13, 1947 to Jawaharlal Nehru, the Prime Minister designate of India for supporting the establishment of a Jewish state. He opened with praise for India’s constituent assembly, which had just abolished untouchability. “The attention of the world was [now] fixed on the problem of another group of human beings who, like the untouchables, have been the victims of persecution and discrimination for centuries – the Jews.”
He appealed to Nehru as a “consistent champion of the forces of political and economic enlightenment” to rule in favour of “the rights of an ancient people whose roots are in the East”. Nehru was not unaware of the sufferings of the Jews. But he did not like the idea of a new state being thrust on the land of others. Nehru replied to Einstein and courteously turned down the request.
The first sign of dynamism in the foreign policy was seen on November 29, 1947, when India along with 12 other nations voted against the UN General Assembly resolution 181 for the partition of Palestine. In the same year, as a member of the UN Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), India proposed a minority plan which called for the establishment of a federal Palestine with internal autonomy for the Jewish illegal immigrants.
In 1948 Jawaharlal Nehru called a conference of Asian countries in which 15 Asian countries participated. The conference emphasised the value of unity and friendship between Asian countries, opposition to war, colonialism, and world peace. In this conference Maulana Azad openly favoured helping the Palestinian cause and opposed friendship of India with Israel. Nehru realised that Maulana Azad echoed the feelings of Indian Muslims. On May 11, 1949 India voted against the U.N. resolution for admission of Israel into the United Nations. This time, India stood alongside six Arab states, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Ethiopia and Burma. Explaining India’s stand, the Indian delegation stated that “India could not recognise an Israel which had been achieved through the force of arms and not through negotiations.”
But soon after, Pandit Nehru watered down his anti-Zionism policy and the Government of India accorded de jure recognition to Israel on September 17, 1950. The Jewish government was allowed to open an office in Mumbai that was converted into a consulate in 1953. However, it was an irrefutable fact that Nehru abhorred the idea of having full fledged diplomatic relations with Israel.
The Indira Gandhi era witnessed an all-round development of Indo-Arab relations. She evinced keen interest in the affairs of the Arab world and especially showed a great concern for the people of Palestine. Indira’s India supported the Arab stand on the Palestine issue in the United Nations and Non-Aligned Conferences. India became the first non-Arab State to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) as ‘the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people’ and allowed it to open its office in New Delhi in January, 1975. She invited PLO leader Yasser Arafat to New Delhi and established formal diplomatic relations.
When the Janata Party came to power in 1977 after the Emergency, Prime Minister Morarji Desai wanted to have diplomatic relations with Israel. Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan made a secret visit to India and met Morarji. But when Indira Gandhi rode back to power by a landslide victory in January 1980, she reverted to the earlier course and on March 26, 1980 accorded full diplomatic recognition to the PLO. Two days later, Chairman Yasser Arafat began an official visit to India and a red carpet was rolled out for him in New Delhi. He was a frequent visitor to this country until he was confined by Israel to his Ramallah headquarters and told that he would not be allowed to return if he left the place.
Rajiv Gandhi (1984-89) followed the footsteps of his mother and grandfather. He accorded recognition to the State of Palestine in November 1988 and the PLO office in New Delhi started functioning as the Embassy of the State of Palestine.
1992 ONWARDS…
There was a tectonic shift in India’s foreign policy during P.V. Narasimha Rao’s tenure. India announced its decision to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, on the eve of his official visit to the U.S. in January 1992. Then onwards, Mr. Rao literally allowed the country’s cherished West Asia policy to goby with every passing day. Foreign Minister Shimon Peres visited India in May 1993. India sought Israeli experience of crushing Palestinian ‘intifada’. Israel has trained India’s BSF personnel in exchange for the turning down of India’s backing of the Palestine cause. In August 1994, Israeli Defence Ministry’s Director-General David Ivry visited New Delhi and Indian Defence Secretary T. K. Banerji visited Tel Aviv. Prolonged cooperation between India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and its Israeli counterpart, the Mossad was reported.
Indo-Israel relations never looked back even after P.V. Narasimha Rao. In 1996 Israel’s President Ezer Weizman became the first head of the Jewish state to visit India. He met the then Indian President Shankar Dayal Sharma, Vice President K.R. Narayanan and Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda. Weizman negotiated the first weapons deal between the two nations, involving the purchase of Barak-1 missiles from Israel.
The situation changed dramatically after the NDA Government came to power. Relations with Israel were taken up on a war footing with the Palestine cause literally left out in the lurch. On an invitation from Atal Behari Vajpayee in 2003, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon arrived in New Delhi. The sense of betrayal was so much that, for the first time in his struggle, Yasser Arafat realised, he could not turn to India as a friend. But he tried to conceal his feelings, because he did not want to lose a country that had embraced him so long.
India developed close defence and security ties since establishing diplomatic relations. Israel is India’s biggest arms supplier, overtaking Russia in 2009. Over $5 billion worth of Israeli equipment was bought by India since 2002. Israel is training Indian military units and discussing arrangements to give Indian commandos instruction in counter-terrorist tactics and urban warfare.
In December 2008, Israel and India signed a memorandum to set up an Indo-Israel Legal Colloquium to facilitate discussions and exchange programs between judges and jurists of the two countries. The stings attached to the Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal have set the agenda for India becoming a partner to the U.S. and Israel to fight against terrorism. Having been in the forefront of support for Palestinians’ freedom fight for decades, India’s lukewarm response to Israel’s massive Gaza offensive is an indication of strategic shift in the country’s foreign policy. In the words of America-obsessed Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, India’s relation with Israel is of an ‘enlightened self-interest’.