Modi & Israel: Some points to ponder

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make history with his expected visit to Israel in the middle of this year — as no Indian Prime Minister has visited the Jewish state despite the fact that P.V. Narasimha Rao had established diplomatic relations way back in 1992. The burgeoning relationship had retained a tinge of the illicit in this country — this despite Israel critically providing defence equipment, upgrading existing weapons systems or supplying our armed forces at times even items barred by the technology control regimes constructed by the United States and the Permanent Five after India’s 1974 nuclear test. During the 1999 Kargil war Israel supplied precision-guided munitions for eliminating Pakistani raiders from their mountain lairs, including what Russia could or would not supply.

This calibrated defence cosiness and political hesitation was for fear of offending India’s friends, such as they are, in the Islamic world or irrevocably alienating Indian Muslims. For both Janata Party or Janata Dal-led governments or for the Congress, the latter consideration was a talisman of electoral strategy. This was a hangover from the Khilafat movement after the First World War in the pre-Independence era, that the Indian National Congress had used to unify Hindus and Muslims against the British. After Independence in 1947, the Palestinian cause became a cornerstone of Indian foreign policy, despite the fact that newly-free India had recognised the State of Israel immediately after its birth in 1948.

Mr Modi’s visit to Israel is propelled, as is characteristic of most of his foreign policy moves, by own predilections than logic, ignoring developments in Israel, in the region and even in Israeli-American relations. One of the assumptions is that the door to the US President’s Oval Office lies through Jerusalem. India established diplomatic relations with Israel, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to escape a self-created diplomatic impasse. Better relations with the US were a part of, but not the sole calculation.

The Madrid Peace Conference in October-November 1991 had revived the Israel-Palestinian dialogue and the US was leading the effort to finesse the issue. Major Arab and Islamic countries had already joined that process, as indeed had the Palestinians. The United States sensed an opportunity to align diverse interests of quarrelling parties. Yasser Arafat, the voice and face of the Palestinian cause, while exiled in Tunisia, accepted the existence of Israel by subscribing to the two-state solution in 1988. The 1991 Madrid conference and the 1993 Oslo peace accords raised hopes of a solution. However, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, soon after Arafat’s return to Palestinian territory, derailed the peace process. There was also the concomitant rise of Hamas, the roots of which lay in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, its terror campaign undermining Arafat.

The 9/11 attack on America and the rise of Al Qaeda, US interventions in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 and the Arab Spring from 2010 forcing the overthrow of autocratic rule in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, changed the landscape of the Islamic world. In West Asia, the focus shifted to the civil war in Syria, the rise of Iran as a regional Shia hegemon and the destabilisation of Turkey. The Palestinian cause fell off the table and Israel, under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, had a free run to deal with Palestinians at least till the Barack Obama presidency in 2009.

Donald Trump’s victory came as a welcome surprise to Israel. Surrounded by Steve Bannon spewing anti-Islam rhetoric, a Jewish son-in-law and a promise to shift the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Mr Trump appeared a God-send. But he has turned out to be a mixed blessing. Mr Trump’s personal lawyer and new Middle East special envoy Jason Greenblatt has been consulting the major Arab countries on a roadmap for West Asia peace, including the revival of the 2002 Arab peace initiative. More worryingly for Israel, not unlike the Obama years, Mr Netanyahu is being pressed even now to stop approving new settlements in the occupied West Bank. Additionally, Mr Trump has recanted his promise to shift the US embassy to Jerusalem.

The 28th summit of Arab leaders has just ended in Jordan. Attended by leaders of 18 of its 22 members, including King Salman of Saudi Arabia and the new UN Secretary-General, the focus was on the Syrian standoff, the Libyan mess, Palestinian detritus and Iranian interference. But noticeable was the urgency of Mr Trump’s emissaries to even-handedly push towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is, meanwhile, coming under domestic pressure of a vigilance inquiry and restive right-wing allies. Both or either can force his resignation. The challenger is a former television anchor, Yair Lapid, who is reinventing “centrism” by combining tough talk on Israeli security with promise of good governance and boosted economy. He cryptically said: “I don’t think we’re at the beginning of something; I think we’re at the end of something.” He is beating Mr Netanyahu at the polls.

Prime Minister Modi’s Israel trip will be to a nation that is distracted, a region in turmoil and a new US President who is solution-shopping. Ironically, the last serious US attempt after the Madrid conference came when Russia stood marginalised. Now Russia alongside Iran and its Shia allies is in the driver’s seat. India may sporadically woo a Gulf crown prince or a Saudi Arabian ruler but Yogi Adityanath as the face of domestic policy in the state with most Muslims in India will create wariness in the Islamic world. Additionally, Iranian alienation is inevitable after it sees a Modi-Netanyahu hug.

Timing is everything in theatre, politics or indeed diplomacy. The BJP’s lack of empathy for Islam, on display blatantly in Uttar Pradesh now, also colours its transactional approaches to leaders in the Gulf and now Israel. Lack of expertise around the PM and seeing Islam through the prism of terrorism and Pakistan is naive, or even dangerous. A visit to Israel will entail a trip to Jerusalem and perhaps the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Mr Modi would be best advised not to outguess his illustrious predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee, who undoubtedly weighed all options before persisting with a shadow alliance, preferring partnership to marriage.