Shifting concern :today’s Palestinian Authority often views today’s India as a former friend , though not quite an enemy

Before the Hamas attack on Israeli civilian settlements across the Gaza Strip on October 7, India seemed only a small step ahead of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in breaking old barriers

Swapan Dasgupta, TT, 26.10.23 : A hazy glorification of Palestine has played an important role in the political mobilisation of India’s Muslim minority. Just as a notional and foggy allegiance to the Ottoman Caliphate generated loyalty and political excitement until the 1920s, the liberation of Jerusalem, the creation of Palestine ‘from the river to the sea’, and the corresponding destruction of Israel have moved Indian Muslims since Independence. The awkward reality is that developments in the wider ummah have triggered more street mobilisation among Indian Muslims than mundane bread and butter issues. The fear of triggering adverse Muslim reaction has, in turn, often deterred Indian governments from moulding its foreign policy in West Asia to national self-interest.

It is undeniable that this unspoken sectarian veto on Indian foreign policy was finally broken in 2014 after the Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi came to power with a majority of its own. True, India and Israel formally established diplomatic relations in 1992 when P.V. Narasimha Rao was prime minister. It is also a fact that the groundwork for this belated move was done when Rajiv Gandhi was at the helm. However, until Modi, there was always a measure of wariness that defined New Delhi’s dealings with Tel Aviv. Having (quite unwisely) voted against the establishment of Israel at the United Nations vote in 1947, India attempted to keep its dealing with that country in purdah. Like the visit to Israel in 2015 by the former president, Pranab Mukherjee, there was also a pathetic attempt to balance the growing proximity with Israel with a journey to the West Bank and token meetings with the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. Indeed, mindful of the special status Yasser Arafat enjoyed in New Delhi during the Indira Gandhi era — a relationship that included India’s generosity in bankrolling the Palestine Liberation Organization — today’s Palestinian Authority often views today’s India as a former friend, though not quite an enemy. The Palestine lobby has come to accept the fact that India’s vote in the UN will no longer be uncritically against Israel.

There is a ‘special relationship’ that has come to define the India-Israel connect in the Modi era. What began as a softly-softly cooperation in irrigation techniques and agriculture has steadily progressed into the purchase of weaponry, surveillance systems and the sharing of intelligence. If this process is uninterrupted, we are likely to see a greater involvement between the software and technology sectors in southern India and the hi-tech hub of Tel Aviv.

What is interesting is that the growing proximity between India and Israel, both at the level of the government and the private sector, has not marred South Block’s ties with the Arab world. Indeed, before the Hamas attack on Israeli civilian settlements across the Gaza Strip on October 7, India seemed only a small step ahead of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in breaking old barriers. The UAE and Saudis had envisaged an understanding (as opposed to a permanent settlement) with Israel as a necessary part of the bid to create a West Asian economic hub. This week’s $1 trillion FII Vision 2030 business summit in Riyadh convened by the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, may well be temporarily overshadowed by the ugly Israel-Hamas spat, but there is no doubt that responsible Arab powers (including Egypt and Jordan) are working overtime to ensure that the Palestinian extremists are marginalised.

This is easier said than done. The timing of the audacious October 7 raid, plus the fact that Hamas has in its possession around 222 hostages taken from Israel, means that it will be very difficult for any Israeli government to be kindly disposed towards the outpouring of ‘humanitarian’ concerns for the people of Gaza. To add to Hamas’ determination to use the hostages as human shields, it is now actively involved in mobilising the Arab street, in both West Asia and western Europe.

Of course, the apparent explosion of sympathy for the dispossessed Palestinians and the parallel respectability of anti-Semitism in Europe must factor in the very active role being played by Iran in ensuring that things don’t return to normal. Security experts with an understanding of non-State terrorist organisations such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon and parts of Syria maintain that Iran’s control over those it bankrolls is absolute. This implies that at some point in the future, the Israel-Palestine conflict could become linked in a far greater way to the rivalry between Iran and Saudi Arabia. At present, it is the arena of a proxy war.

Well-meaning people have often suggested that the way out of the impasse is a two-state solution involving Israel and Palestine. The Palestinian Authority has maintained that no Palestinian nation-state is possible unless Israel withdraws to its pre-1967 borders. This, in effect, calls on Israel to withdraw from East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It also implies the demolition of all the Jewish settlements on the West Bank and the dispossession of nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers. While the interests of the Jewish settlers have often been deemed to be negotiable — as happened in the Sinai Peninsula after the settlement with Egypt — it is unlikely that any Israeli government will agree to vacate Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

It is important to note that the 1967 war involved the entire Arab world ganging up to destroy the very existence of Israel. It was a repeat of 1948. The capture of the Golan Heights has protected Israel from a permanently hostile regime in Syria while its control over Jerusalem fulfils an age-old Jewish yearning. Even the most non-Zionist of Israelis will not agree to an unqualified return to pre-1967 borders, thereby exposing Israel to permanent vulnerability. More to the point, will the pre-1967 borders assume Egyptian control over Gaza and Jordanian control over the West Bank? As of now, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and King Abdullah want as little as possible of the Palestinian problem on their plates.

The grim truth that is rarely admitted is the dispensability of Palestine to the Arabs. The Hashemite monarchy of Jordan is permanently on tenterhooks because as a result of demographic shifts, most of its population is Palestinian; Egypt is wary of Palestinians setting up camps in Sinai and giving a fillip to the Muslim Brotherhood; and the Syrians and Saudis worry about Palestine’s radicalising effects on the rest of the Arab population. In this zone of permanent turbulence, Israel is an island of enterprise and good sense. Maybe, the excesses of Hamas will force the truth to be acknowledged.