Despite significant differences, India and Israel have forged a close relationship over the decades, driven partly by their colonial legacies and their contentious handling of minority issues. Both nations, while promoting themselves as democracies, have faced criticism for their treatment of minorities and adherence to international commitments.
Israel
There is universal unanimity that the Holocaust ('In Greek, it means 'burnt offering'), in which nearly 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated, is one of the leading condemnable series of incidents carried out during the WWII by the Nazis. No civilized society has ever condoned the killing of these innocent human beings. Any country whose forefathers or relations had suffered such inhuman atrocities would think twice before unleashing a barbarity closer to this. 'Diary of Anne Frank,' was a German-born Jewish girl who kept a diary documenting her life in hiding amid Nazi persecution during the German occupation; it touched the hearts of all who read the story; a poignant record of her two years in confinement and deprivation, as well as the complicated issues of growing up in the brutal circumstances of the Holocaust.
Israel is on record of not only killing the Palestinians, the majority of whom are Muslims, but also blaming the Muslims and Arabs for any domestic or foreign setback the country faces. Professor Arnold Toynbee, one of the leading philosophers and historians of our time, equates the monstrous crimes perpetrated upon the Jews of Europe by the Germans with what the Israelis did to the Arabs of Palestine and seems to find the Israelis as much at fault as the Nazis were!' In hindsight, one could only agree with him 'that the most tragic thing in human life is when people who have suffered impose suffering in turn.' Henry Cattan, referring to the exodus of the Palestinian refugees before the creation of Israel, opined, 'Rarely in history, at least in modern history, has a majority of the population of a country been forcefully displaced and uprooted by a militant minority of foreign origin.' He regrets that this is what happened in Palestine in 1948 when 'nearly a million Palestinians then left or were forced to leave their homes and were robbed of their lands, properties, and possessions and became refugees without any means of livelihood.'
As compared to the Jews in Israel, who left no stone unturned to inflict pain and misery on the Arabs, who were the majority inhabitants of Palestine, the record of the rule of the Arabs and Muslims is by and large of compassion and tolerance. History records that a period of tolerance dawned for the Jews of the Iberian Peninsula. Their number was considerably augmented by immigration from North Africa in the wake of the Muslim conquest; the immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East bolstered the Jewish population and made Muslim Spain probably the largest center of contemporary Jews. 'Especially after 912 C.E., during the reign of Abd al-Rahman III and his son, Al-Hakam II, the Jews prospered culturally, and some notable figures held high posts in the Caliphate of Córdoba. Jewish philosophers, mathematicians, astronomers, poets, and rabbinical scholars composed highly rich cultural and scientific work. Many devoted themselves to the study of the sciences and philosophy, composing many of the most valuable texts of Jewish philosophy. Jews took part in the overall prosperity of Muslim Al-Andalus. Jewish economic expansion was unparalleled.'
India's Defense Minister was quoted as saying, "If any terrorist from a neighboring country tries to disturb India or carry out terrorist activities here, he will be given a fitting reply. If he escapes to Pakistan, we will go to Pakistan and kill him there."
María Rosa Menocal, a specialist in Iberian literature at Yale University, claims that "tolerance was an inherent aspect of Andalusian society." According to Bernard Lewis, another historian, 'Generally, the Jewish people were allowed to practice their religion and live according to the laws and scriptures of their community. Comparing the treatment of Jews in the medieval Islamic world and medieval Christian Europe, the Jews were far more integrated with the political and economic life of Islamic society.’
History also records that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella initially signed the decree to expel all Jews residing within their domain on March 31, 1492. Sultan Bayezid II sent Kemal Reis to save the Sephardic Jews of Spain from the Spanish Inquisition in 1492 and permitted them to settle in the Ottoman Empire. Lutfi Seyban, a known Turkish historian, highlighted that 'Jews were most often placed in Greece's main northern city of Thessaloniki, which was an Ottoman territory. Many Jews were also settled in Istanbul's Galata neighborhood, Turkey's Aegean city of Izmir, and the present-day northern Israeli city of Safed'. According to Seyban, 'The reason for the expulsion of Jews was the religious enmity between Christians and Jews.' Sultan Bayezid II was the most notable Ottoman emperor who continued the Islamic and Turkish tradition of accepting Jews in difficult circumstances.
Another notable of Muslim and Arab compassion towards Jews is of Sharif Hussein bin Ali (1853-1931), Emir of Mecca and King of the Arabs, who was the last of the Hashemite Sharifians who ruled over Mecca, Medina, and the Hijaz in unbroken succession from 1201 to 1925. The Sykes-Picot Agreement not only divided many Arabs into territories in French and British administrative areas and zones of influence for the internationalization of Palestine but also showed less than honest dealings with the British rulers. On the other hand, Sharif Hussain Ali, a leader of the then-Arab world, compassion reflected in welcoming the Jews as brethren and cooperating with them for the common welfare of the Arabs and the Jews. This message was shared with the Palestinian Arabs in his official publication Al Kibla on March 23, 1918. Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre highly praised historians in their book 'O Jerusalem' 'Palestine Muslim rulers have been more tolerant to the Jews, and that also included Caliph Omar had left them relatively unmolested, and Saladin had brought the Jews back to Jerusalem with his Muslim faithful.'
'Over the last decade and a half, Israel and the U.S. have become India's top arms suppliers, and a robust defense partnership is underway. Beyond pure defense trade, Israeli and U.S. defense companies have participated in the 'Make in India' initiative, focusing on technology transfers and the co-development and co-production of technologies.' This is indeed a significant 'glue' to keep the two countries 'conjoined.'
Treatment of Dissidents and Minorities: A Painful Chapter
India and Israel will continue to trumpet their democratic antecedents globally. At the same time, they have no qualms about sharing similarities to continue the elimination and targeted killing of dissidents and minorities, both in their countries and abroad. Very recently, the head of Israel's foreign intelligence service has vowed 'to track down and kill all Hamas leaders responsible for attacking Israel, less than a day after a drone strike in Lebanon killed the militant organization's second-most senior official.' Both countries have a long list of killings, especially of dissidents and minorities who have dared to disagree with the policies of these governments or have challenged a particular action of their governments.
There is no clear definition of "targeted killing" under international law. Academic Nils Melzer terms 'targeted killing', the use of lethal force attributable to a subject of international law with the intent, premeditation, and deliberation to kill individually selected persons not in the physical custody of those targeting them. Before 2001, Israel denied it practiced or had a policy of conducting extrajudicial executions. Israel first publicly acknowledged its use of the 'tactic at Beit Sahour near Bethlehem in November 2000, when four laser-guided missiles from an Apache Helicopter were used to kill a Tanzim leader, Hussein Abayat, in his Mitsubishi pickup truck', with collateral damage killing two 50-year-old housewives waiting for a taxi nearby, and wounding six other Palestinians in the vicinity. The public admission was because an attack helicopter had been used, which meant the execution could not be denied, something that remains possible when assassinations of targets by snipers take place. Killings in the past were often premised on revenge for earlier crimes and required a quasi-judicial commission to convict the target of culpability before action was taken. The policy, re-introduced by Ariel Sharon, Israeli leader in the face of suicide bombings, no longer took evidence of potential involvement by the target in future attacks on Israel as decisive. The decision was left to the discretion of the Prime Minister and Shin Bet, and the Mossad was "committed to settling the score with the murderers who descended upon the Gaza envelope on October 7 and with those who planned the attacks". Israeli record of targeted killing is indeed condemnable; Hamas' logistics officer, Al-Mabhouh, was killed in the five-star Al Bustan Rotana Hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on January 19, 2010, having arrived in the country earlier that day from Syria under an alias and using one of several passports. According to police, 'al-Mabhouh was drugged, electrocuted, and then suffocated with a pillow.' Widespread speculation, which Dubai police allegations support, is that Israeli Mossad agents killed him. Allegations that the agents used fraudulently obtained passports from several countries led to the arrests and expulsions of several Israeli officials and diplomats in several European countries and Australia.
Claire Hoy and Victor Ostrovsky, known Canadian writers, in their book 'By Way of Deception,' have narrated a long list of Israeli intelligence Mossad's killing of Palestinians and other Arabs who were suspected of killing Israeli citizens. The writers state that one of the modes of operation of Mossad was 'running obituaries in local Arab newspapers of suspected terrorists who were still alive. Others received anonymous letters detailing intimate knowledge of their private lives advising them to leave town. In addition, many Arabs were injured in Europe in the Middle East when they opened Mossad-made letter bombs, which also caused deaths to innocent bystanders.' The killings of Arabs in various parts of the world by Israeli intelligence under 'Operation Wrath of God,' a covert assassination campaign carried out by Israel to avenge the kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants in September 1972 at the Munich Olympics, was swept under the carpet by vested interests. The Palestinians responsible for the killings of Israeli athletes should have been dealt with as per law and not by targeted killings.
India and Israel's similarities range from less-than-normal relationships with its neighbors and, at times, aggressive designs with certain countries in the regions to issues of serious concern regarding human rights and suppression of minorities within its borders, which major powers cannot ignore.
India, too, can strut its chest of 'well-earned medals' it won as a prize in the killing of dissidents and minorities both in the country and abroad. The Kashmiris in the IIOJK have been the target of killing for the last many decades, which have been recorded and presented to the Human Rights Commission several times. Successive Indian Governments brushed aside such reports, terming them as 'terrorists who are to be eliminated.' The Western countries pride themselves on abiding by standards of human rights, but in practice, only paid lip service to reports of human rights violations on account of compulsions of global or regional politics and may have encouraged the Indian Government to carry on with its killing of innocent citizens. As they say, 'Spare the rod, spoil the child,' the killing continued, but this time, the Indian Government's killing spree went too far. It was taken to task by the Canadian and the U.S. Governments when reports emerged that the Indian Government was directly involved in the killing of prominent Sikhs living in Canada and the U.S., who had raised their voices at policies adopted by the Indian Government against the Sikhs who are a prominent minority mostly residing in the Indian state of Punjab. Media has reported that four Indian intelligence officers were quietly asked to leave Australia in 2020; according to a report by Australia's national broadcaster ABC, June 16, 2024, titled 'Infiltrating Australia. It contends that the "long arm of the Indian state is reaching Australians and threatening national security" and is suspected of targeting politicians and monitoring the Indian-Australian community. The Australian Government is to be commended for having preempted possible 'targeted killings' by Indian agents of the type that Canada and the U.S. witnessed some years later.
Sujatha Balasubramaniam, writing in the Daily Dawn on June 3, 2024, mentions that India has previously denied any involvement in the assassinations. Still, after The Guardian’s report, India's Defense Minister was quoted as saying, "If any terrorist from a neighboring country tries to disturb India or carry out terrorist activities here, he will be given a fitting reply. If he escapes to Pakistan, we will go to Pakistan and kill him there." Sabina Lautenbach and Alexander Lautenbach, writers on human rights issues, caution against ignoring violations of human rights globally, 'In advancing the human security agenda, and in light of monumental levels of human rights abuses recorded in many countries, a lot more needs to be done to ensure that state security becomes people-centered as opposed to backing the security of regimes and political elites.’
A Common Ally: Taking Advantage
States are globally known to craft their foreign policy, keeping in mind the national interest, which is a combination of geopolitical location, domestic needs and requirements, and external challenges. India and Israel crafted their foreign policies based on the vision of their leadership and ideology. Israel, from the outset, was tied to the U.S. for its security and economic well-being; this was buttressed by the Jewish and Israeli lobbies working actively in the U.S. and certain important western countries. Israel's reliance on the U.S. at times, slighted the name of the superpower, whose constitution prominently mentioned human rights and had led the movement for human rights globally. The U.S., being a superpower, has global interests, and that demands protection of its interests in specific parts of the globe. This is a fact which cannot be contested. However, it is not morally correct for states to take advantage of the relationship with the superpower. Unfortunately, this taking advantage by Israel and India continues from time to time as demanded by the needs of these countries.
Israel misses no opportunity to commit human rights violations within its own country against minorities, especially Arab Muslims. Naturally, certain voices in the U.S. Congress and the intelligence are concerned about the killing and injuring of the Palestinians even for visiting the holy sites in Jerusalem. The U.S. had to listen to severe criticism in the multilateral fora and the global media for its continued support of Israel and for sticking its neck out in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to avert censure of Israel. The latest example is the genocide carried out in the Gaza Strip for the last eleven months in which more than 41,000 innocent Palestinians have lost their lives, and the killing continues despite the U.S. President's peace plan shared at the UNSC meeting. The Israeli domestic scene does not have the patience for a ceasefire and wants the total elimination of the population of the Gaza Strip.
Israel, as compared to India, is a far smaller country, and its nearly total reliance on the U.S. for its survival may be understandable, but India's reliance on the U.S. in the past and at present on certain issues is belittling India's global structure and its oft-repeated boast as one of the leading economic powers. India has taken full advantage of the U.S.’ global competition with China to suit its needs. There was a time when India prided itself on its non-alignment led by Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the leading founding fathers of India, but with a visible foreign policy tilt towards the USSR, the U.S. rival during the Cold War. This non-alignment was blown to the winds when Nehru, in utter desperation faced with a certain defeat during the 1962 War with China, wrote to the U.S. President besieging him for military assistance, which it received massively.
Once a very loyal client of the USSR, India reoriented its foreign policy to accommodate the changing realities of the national milieu and find a position in the U.S.-Israel camp. It still maintains close ties with Russia, but its slant towards the U.S. is for all to see. An edgy relationship between India and China on the border continues unabated. As the U.S.’ competition with China to browbeat it economically continues, India has taken full advantage in a manner that at times has embarrassed as it continues to listen to India's unending demands. Unfortunately, the record of India containing China is extremely embarrassing. How the minorities are being treated all over India, and the IIOJK is a stigma on the image of India as a democratic country. The targeted killings of Sikh dissidents in Canada and the United States are examples of India taking advantage of its close alignment with the U.S., convinced that it will go scot-free as the superpower needs India to contain China. Not surprisingly, the U.S. and Canadian governments could not completely ignore public opinion on human rights and international law, and thus held the Indian government accountable for these killings.
Sameer Patil, a Fellow of the International Security Studies Programme, Gateway House, New Delhi, writing for the Indian Council for Global Affairs, shares an important commonality between India and Israel, 'Over the last decade and a half, Israel and the U.S. have become India's top arms suppliers, and a robust defense partnership is underway. Beyond pure defense trade, Israeli and U.S. defense companies have participated in the 'Make in India' initiative, focusing on technology transfers and the co-development and co-production of technologies.' This is indeed a significant 'glue' to keep the two countries 'conjoined.'
Reflect Realism or Face the Consequences
India and Israel's similarities range from less-than-normal relationships with its neighbors and, at times, aggressive designs with certain countries in the regions to issues of serious concern regarding human rights and suppression of minorities within its borders, which major powers cannot ignore. The Gaza conflict shows no early resolution, and India's growing economic and military power, especially the latter, threatens the region. India's off-and-on border skirmishes with China on their borders are not conducive to regional peace. There are already reports of the minorities in India getting ready to face the return of Prime Minister Modi-led Government repeating its policies of harassing them to the extent of changing the constitution to suit the majority Hindus. The major powers, especially in the West, need to heed saner elements within their own country who do not support letting India and Israel act whimsically and not be answerable either to their people or the world at large. Regretfully, India and Israel shared similarities of arrogance reflected at the multilateral fora or in their bilateral discussions with selected countries. The fact that Israel and India also share commonalities of being part of security and defense alliances led by the U.S., which includes leading western countries, may not augur well for peace in their region as neither India nor Israel is known to listen to reason on issues of peace. Sumaira Kauser cautions that 'none of the collaborative efforts of India and Israel are as strong as military cooperation, but they have never abandoned hope to build a power bloc against their adversaries.' To support her argument, she invites attention to the effect 'that most of the visits between diplomats, politicians, and the President and Prime Minister of the two countries, the concentration has been on the defense sector rather than on closer political ties.' It is human rights that pose a challenge to many who try to contest how India and Israel share commonalities or similarities: the killing of the Kashmiris by the security forces in IIOJK and the 'BJP's embrace of the Hindu majority at the expense of minorities has seeped into government institutions, undermining equal protection of the law without discrimination and the extent of brutalities inflicted both in Gaza and how minorities are treated in their own country.
The tragedy is that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) continues to monitor these inhuman activities and has shared them globally, but both India and Israel pay no heed to these reports. Global politics are such that both these countries are getting away with heartless activities. For the record, UN independent human rights experts, also known as Special Procedures or mandate-holders, have reported that Indian authorities are restricting free expression, peaceful assembly, and other basic rights in Jammu and Kashmir three years after revoking the region's special autonomous status.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is also on record, “The government's repressive policies and failure to investigate and prosecute alleged security force abuses have increased insecurity among Kashmiris.” It is no secret that the Kashmiris in IIOJK continue to oppose the military occupation of the IIOJK; however, the delusional policies of successive Indian governments are one of the reasons for the denial of the ground realities in the IIOJK. Lal Krishna Advani, a leading figure of the BJP, in his book 'My Country My Life,’ has no qualms to deny the realities in the IHK by stating, 'Retention of Article 370 has produced many negative consequences, both for the state as well as for India. Like the earlier demand for the plebiscite which has receded into the background.' Can any sane observer monitoring the developments in South Asia, particularly India, deny that the demand for a plebiscite in IIOJK is as robust as it was when the movement started some decades back? The denial of the realities is one of the prime reasons for the continuous atrocities being committed in the IHK, which major supporters of India globally need to take heed of.
The delusional similarities continue. As the Israeli government, instead of seriously focusing on finding a permanent solution to its remaining conflict with the Palestinians, its policies are anchored in utter rigidity and arrogance. Recalling the 2012 Gaza conflict, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton in her book, 'Hard Choices' shared her realism, 'I continue to believe it over the long run nothing will do more to secure Israel's future as a Jewish democratic state than the comprehensive peace based on two states for two peoples.' Dana H. Ellen and Steven and Simon, writing in the Foreign Affairs Journal, under the title 'Trump and the Holy Land,' may have echoed Hillary Clinton's advice, 'Every President since Bill Clinton has worked for a two-state solution under which Israel would enjoy security in genuine acceptance in the Middle East and the Palestinians would run their affairs and prosper in a viable independent state.'
The clock for the major powers who are allied with India and Israel to reflect realism in their policies is ticking fast as it may be too late for the globe to act or may have to face regrettable consequences. The Israelis continue to deny the Palestinians their homeland, and this dilemma was aptly summarized by the late Henry Kissinger in his book Years of Renewal (1999) when he looked into the future: "Israeli leaders grappling with the dilemma of history and logic. The history has been one of pain, anguish, suspicion, suffering, and four costly wars. The logic is that the risk of standpatism (the practice of resisting or refusing change, especially in politics) is far greater than realistically facing necessary step-by-step compromises essential for progress towards settlement, because the choices Israeli leaders will face a year from now, if they let the situation drift, will be much worse than those they face now."
For the Indian leadership, their continuous denial of a plebiscite to the Kashmiris, as enunciated by the UN, and the less-than-human treatment of minorities, especially Muslims, puts them in the same situation described by Kissinger regarding Israel: "They need to make decisions now, as the future may be worse."
India and Israel stand at a crossroads in the similarities of their policies; their leadership needs to look towards other leaders in the past who had a 'sense of history' and took decisions that future generations dream of emulating; this similarity shall stand in the annals of their own countries' history to be proud of. Late President Richard Nixon, in his book, 'Leaders', may have foretold the future for the Indian and Israeli leadership when he stated, 'History does have its momentum. When the leaders in power merely stick a moistened finger into the air to see which way the popular wind is blowing, history will go its way despite them. But when leaders with a clear vision of the future and the power to sway nations are in command, they will change the course of history. That is when history becomes a series of tracks in the wilderness that show where one man went first and then persuaded others to follow.' Can the world expect the Indian and Israeli leadership also to share similarities in choosing the path that leads to 'human dignity,' or shall we be awaiting the titular 'Godot' of Samuel Beckett to tell them who never arrives?
The writer holds a Master’s degree in Political Science from Punjab University and a Master’s degree in Diplomatic Studies from the UK. He has served in various capacities at Pakistan's missions abroad, including as Ambassador to Vietnam and High Commissioner to Malaysia. Currently, he is a visiting faculty member at four mainstream public universities in Islamabad and serves as an Adviser to the India Centre at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad.
E-mail: [email protected]
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