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Part - 1

India has had unambiguous support for the Palestine cause for many decades. In 1975, India recognized the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) as the 'sole legitimate representative of the Palestine people'. In 1980, it granted full diplomatic status to the PLO mission in Delhi.

In the Pre-Independence period, Gandhi, Nehru and the Indian National Congress had opposed the creation of Israel, and India did not subscribe to the majority plan of a United Nations special committee on Palestine recommending the partition of Palestine. India voted against the admission of Israel into the United Nation in May 1949.

In 1948 Jawaharlal Nehru called a conference of Asian countries in which 15 Asian countries participated. The conference emphasized the value of unity and friendship between Asian countries, opposition to war, colonialism, and world peace. In this conference India’s great freedom fighter Moulana Azad openly favored helping the Palestinian cause and opposed friendship of India with Israel, as well as advocating the establishment of friendly relations with their countries.

India changed anti –Zionism policy

But  Indian government secret relations with Israel. India's first Prime Minister Nehru maintained internal relations with Israel using intelligence officer Krishna Menon for this purpose – the Government of India recognized Israel on 17th September 1950. After India’s recognition of Israel, the Jewish Agency established an office in Mumbai to send Iraq, Afghan and European Jews to Palestine. This agency was soon converted into a trade office and later a consulate.

Sporadic governmental contacts continued between India and Israel in the fifties and the early sixties. This period over 25,000 Indian Jews, mostly from Maharashtra and some of the Kerala, immigrated to Israel. After the end of the Cold War, India began to drift away from non–alignment countries that granted full diplomatic status to Israel. In February 1992, Israel opened its embassy in New Delhi, and India opened its embassy in Tel-Aviv in May 1992. While India-Israeli ties improved rapidly thereafter. 

Between 1950 and 1992, this period India covertly conducted its relations with Israel as it did not want to annoy its Muslim population, the Arab world as well as its strategic ally, the Soviet Union. In 1954 Bandung conference, India put forward an agreement that Israel was an Asian country and a member of the U.N.O therefore Israel should be allowed to join the conference. This Bandung conference started friendship between the India and Israel.

Israel helped India with arms and military hardware during the wars with China (1962) and Pakistan (1965, 71). After the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, India sought Israel’s help to improve the protection of its important people. Since the early-1980s, India's army and army intelligence officers received anti-terrorist training in Israel.

In the late-1980’s, India and Israel were engaged in a secret dialogue over destroying Pakistan’s nuclear facility in Kahuta and signing military agreements. In all these contacts, strict secrecy was maintained to give an impression to the Arab world and Soviet Union that India had no ties with Israel.

In 1986, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to the U.S., Congressman Stephen Solarz helped Morris Abraham, a Jewish lobbyist from New York to establish cordial relations with India. This was a great moment for Israel as a tilt in the Indian Policy towards granting de facto recognition to Israel had emerged. India then announced its decision to formally establish relations with Israel, on the eve of Prime Minister Narasimma Rao’s visit to the U.S. in January 1992.

In the 1990s, India sought Israeli experience of crushing Palestinian 'intifada' in order to employ the same in Jammu and Kashmir to squash the freedom struggle. From 1993 onwards fake counter terrorist collaboration became quite open. Israel has trained India’s border security forces personnel, notorious for their human rights abuses in Kashmir in exchange for the turning down of India's backing of the Palestine cause.

India’s remarkable change anti-Zionism policy shows the impact of the pro-Israel policy makers in New Delhi. Having been in the forefront of support for Palestinian's freedom fight for decades, India today is a silent spectator, refusing to comment on the Israeli actions in the west bank and Gaza Strip lest it antagonize Tel-Aviv, New Delhi’s newfound trade friend and comrade-in-arms.

(Next part follows)

- Shahul Hameed (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

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