The Ties Between Israel And India
“The enemy of my enemy, is my friend” no word have struck a truer cord to describe the relations between India and Israel. The ties have grown only stronger between the two states since India started to officially recognize the state in 1950. By 1968, the Indian Intelligence agency or RAW, had formed ties with the newly conceived Mossad, the intelligence agency of Syria. Which, consequently and undoubtedly, led to these two countries share an extensive and intensive economic, military and strategic relationship. Israel and India had developed and established full diplomatic relations in 1992. Ever since the bilateral relationship between the two countries had flourished; especially concerning the economic, political, military and agricultural levels.
Over the last 25 years, the bilateral trade between the two has also increased from $200 million to $4 billion; which was excluding defense. Israel had been the main arms-dealer for India during the Kargil War 1999; and currently India serves as the most prominent arms-buyer from Israel (purchases recorded to be around $600 million in 2016). Israel had often been called India’s’ mistress due to the open secrecy of their affair; but now their relationship has emerged from the closest; with the recent rise of BJP under Nanendra Modi; their relationship with Israel has increased manifold. With the trip of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu (who stayed in India for 6 days rather than the usual 3-4 days), a closes between him and Modi was observed. They came together on the issues of ‘Terrorism’; both expressed that their people ‘suffer the scourge of terrorism alike’. The scourge of terrorism, of course, being the Muslims.
The key to growing Indo-Israeli ties has mostly been due to security and defense. Israel has sold radar and surveillance systems as well as electronic components for military aircraft and help Indian defenses themselves through counterterrorism exercises. Between May 2014 and November 2014 (during the elections for PM in India) Israel exported $662 Million worth of Israeli weapons and defense items to India. Modi also pushed and helped in developing budding relations between the Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), who subsequently tested a jointly developed Indian-Israeli Barak 8 air and naval defense missile system on No 10, 2014. IAI and India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) began collaborating on a jointly to developed surface-to-air missile system for the Indian Army.
While on the economic end, in 2008 Israel’s’ and India’s’ ministers of agriculture signed a long-term cooperation and training deal, which has since been supervised. By 201 0 the two nations started a 450 million shared agriculture fund, focusing in dairy, farming technology and micro-irrigation, which constituted of the Indo-Israel Agriculture project. Under this project Israel opened 28 centers of excellence across India focused on specific fruit and vegetable crops. The Indian Ambassador (Jaideep Sarkar) encouraged around 85,000 Israeli Jews of Indian descent to tour their homeland in August 2015. The first recipients of grants from the Israel-India Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) were announced in July 2018, including companies working to better the lives of Indians and Israelis through efficient water use, improving communications infrastructure, solar energy use, and life-changing surgeries. The fund aims to help Israeli entrepreneurs enter the Indian market.
Since having the backing of USA’s favorite child, Israel, India has been embolden to take dire steps. One of the direct consequences of this are suffered by IOK. Israeli PM Netanyahu expressed his concern and solidarity with India after the Pulwama incident; which was cemented by Israeli envoy (Dr. Ron Malka) that there was no limit to which Israel would assist India because of their ‘important’ friendship. Israel‘s Chief of the Ground Forces Major General Yakov (Kobi) Barak visited the Indian Army’s Northern Command HQ in Jammu and Kashmir, on 31st October 2017. During this trip the delegation was informed about ‘ Pakistan’s proxy war in J&K and the consistent efforts being made by Pakistani military to infiltrate J&K’, as if they were the ones who had to handle the situation for them. In the same year of 2017, the Indo-Israeli Friendship society delegation visited Kashmir. There has also been much talked about the Israeli-made Rafael Spice-2000 smart bombs used in Indian jet strikes after the Pulwama incident. The collaboration stems from the Indo-Israel agreements on ‘Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, Cooperation in Homeland and Public Security, and the Protection of Classified Materials’ in February 2014. Under these agreements four working groups; namely in the areas of border management, internal security and public safety; police modernization and capacity building for combating crime; crime prevention and cybercrime were established. Such extensive cooperation shows that Israel is working hand-in-hand with India on matters of their national and internal security; this implies that both see J&K as a threat.
Therefore all attempts at integrating Kashmir; i. e. Indo-Israeli Friendship Society tour in Kashmir and their closed-door meetings with Kashmiris representing the moderate sections of Kashmiri society; were just a ploy by the Israelis’ who were looking for pockets to establish their physical presence in IOK. We can go as far as saying that Israel introduced their defense mechanism to India; which had evolved over the apartheid of the Palestinians. Indian Military would also humiliate civilian residents in the middle of the night with house searches; which was for the psychological operations (PSYOP) applied regularly by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in the West Bank. With the growing interoperability, information-sharing and joint counterterrorism between India and Israel (the current curfew of Kashmir seems to be another one of Israeli expertise), does indeed confirm that Israel is aware of most of the incidents that have taken place in Kashmir.
