Understanding India’s position on the Israel-Hamas war
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Image: BBC)
The Israel-Hamas war that started on since October 7 has not only thrown the entire Middle East in turmoil, but it has also further increased fissures in the already divided world. The faultlines in the world that had widened due to the Russia-Ukraine war are now more pronounced with the recent hostilities between Israel and Hamas.
Amid this flux, it is pertinent to understand how India perceives these happenings in the Middle East. India’s stand becomes important as it has reset its ties with the Middle Eastern countries and has emerged as a major stakeholder in the region.
Immediately after the attack, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned Hamas for attacking Israel. He also conveyed India’s support to Israel. A few days after the attack, Modi spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and told him that India stood with Israel. Simultaneously India’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement highlighting India’s decades old stand on Palestine.
The statement reiterated that India supports an independent state of Palestine co-existing with Israel. Later Modi spoke to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and condoled deaths during an attack on a hospital in Gaza. Modi not only conveyed India’s position on Palestine to Abbas but also promised India’s continued humanitarian assistance to Gaza.
India’s stand on this issue must be considered from three perspectives.
First, India’s support to Israel in this hour of crisis is important. It is in consonance with India resetting its approach towards the Middle East. While Israel as a country was formed in 1948, it was only in 1992 that India established diplomatic ties with Israel. For decades, India was hesitant to engage with Israel for the fear of offending Arab countries.
India’s sizeable Muslim population, oil trade and Indian Diaspora in the Gulf countries made India prioritize its ties with Arab countries more than Israel. However, following disintegration of the Soviet Union, India strengthened its ties with the Western countries. This also resulted in India building relations with Israel. In the past three decades, Israel has become one of India’s closest defence partners. Defence imports from Israel account for around 15% of India’s total defence imports.
In 2017, Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel. His visit was standalone meaning that he did not visit Palestine during this visit. He did travel to Palestine separately in 2018. Modi has de-hyphenated India’s Israel policy implying that India treats its ties with Israel and Palestine separately.
Second, India has condemned Hamas for its attack on Israel and India has termed it as a terror attack. At the same time India reaffirmed its Palestine policy as mentioned previously. Through this action, India sent a subtle message of not equating Palestine with terrorists. This condemnation also highlights India’s stand on global terrorism. India has been calling on all the countries to mutually agree upon a common definition of terrorism which would facilitate greater international cooperation. The attack by Hamas on Israel has vindicated India’s position about cooperation against terrorism.
Third, instability in the Middle East impacts India’s stakes in the region. In the past one decade, India has emerged as an important power in the Middle East. Along with Israel, India has developed close strategic ties with Arab countries as well. India’s ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE have grown beyond oil trade. India now cooperates with these countries in various areas like non-oil trade, maritime security, climate change, infrastructure projects, science and technology, space cooperation etc.
The Abraham Accords and the overall thaw in relations between Israel and the Arab countries have resulted India navigating through Middle East without having to worry about balancing its ties with either side which was not the case previously.
Recently, India has been a part of certain multilateral initiatives in the Middle East such as the I2U2 (India, Israel, United States and the UAE) and India, Saudi Arabia, United States and the UAE. At the G20 Summit in New Delhi in September, the India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor was launched with India, United States, Saudi Arabia, UAE, France, Germany, Italy and European Union as its members. This corridor would connect India with Europe through the Middle East.
In any connectivity project between Middle East and Europe, Israel would play an important role. The hostilities in the Middle East would not only delay the project, but these would also put brakes (if not totally derail) on the peace process between Israel and the Arab countries. This would not only be an economic loss for India, but India may have to again do diplomatic balancing in the future between Israel and Arab countries.
India’s response to the Israel-Hamas war has been a calibrated one as India understands the complexities of geopolitics and identity. India’s own experience of dealing with similar phenomena (wars with Pakistan and Islamic terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir) allows India to relate to Israel’s position.