The Republic of India from South Asia and the State of Israel from the Middle East broadly share common strategic interests of fighting against neighbouring Muslim states while ignoring their legitimate existence. The leaders of both states treat each other as the victims of neighbouring states while trying to secure international support. The strategic imperatives of both states forced them to internationally portray themselves as isolated democratic nations surviving under threats of other regional countries. Apart from common rival Muslim neighbours, both states share common colonial history under British rule, securing independent positions as the result of global wave of decolonization after the Second World War. The aftermath of World War II granted the sovereign statues to both countries but the British colonial retreat failed to stop them from pursuing belligerent policies in their respective regions. Thus, the efforts for redrawing their territorial boundaries caused their aggressive patterns in maintaining relations with neighbours. The historical bonds of bilateral ties between the two are rooted in their independence movements, when India supported the cause of Israel’s creation which was analogous to the ideology-driven partition of the subcontinent and division of India. The geostrategic curse for expanding of their borders and acquiring the position of regional hegemon jeopardized the security of their neighbouring countries in Middle Eastern and South Asian regions respectively. Israel, the only homeland of Jews and a state exercising offensive policies, analogous to Indian regional hegemonic designs, towards its neighbouring Arab states tried to achieve its religious belief of Greater Israel. The desired border for the creation of Greater Israel (according to their Biblical interpretation) led the Jewish leadership to occupy territories of neighbouring countries by fighting wars and continuing violence.
The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru supported Israel’s creation and recognised it as a formal Jewish homeland in 1950, but the initial Indian leadership decided to stand by the Palestinian issue by opposing Israel’s entry into UN. The debates on the Palestine conflict affected Israel’s role in the international system attaching a stigma to the national image of this newly created Jewish state. The spill over effects of Arab-Israel wars in the Middle Eastern region forced the Nehru regime to covertly support the status of this Jewish country by allowing Tel Aviv to activate its diplomatic services in New Delhi. Indian leaders intended to informally keep good relations with Israel due to their well calculated foreign consideration without annoying their Arab friends. Moreover, the Indian Diaspora residing in Middle East and Persian Gulf was the main source of New Delhi’s economic development and keeping in mind the overseas citizens, the Nehru regime preferred to refrain from adopting an explicit support of Israel. Another concern of not disturbing New Delhi’s foreign relations with Arab communities was the ongoing oil politics. While securing permanent oil supplies arriving from Arab states, India was interested in meeting its domestic energy demands by not depriving Israel from a special Indian treatment. The state authorities from Tel Aviv invested their best efforts for achieving maximum level of Indian support in response to New Delhi’s hesitant diplomatic approach. The absence of strong friendly and normalized diplomatic bonds between two states was affected by the four decades long politics of the Cold War.
Contrary to their past during the Cold War politics of USSR-US confrontation when Israel and Indian stayed in opposite camps backed by Washington and Moscow, the leaders from both states surprised the international community by signing strong cooperative bonds on the basis of their common strategic interests. In addition to Moscow-New Delhi alliance under east-west division of world politics, India was close to Arab leaders under its Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in contrast of Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel was persistently fighting with the members of NAM while staying in the American bloc. The forty years era of US-Soviet rivalry witnessed a thin layer of cooperation between leaders of Jew and Hindu countries. Instead of having number of discrepancies both states revolutionized their diplomatic bonds and agreed to stand by each other and remove their historical distance. The beneficial and cordial relationship between India and Israel grew gradually and laid the foundations of strong multiyear diplomatic cooperation between two territorially distanced countries. Moreover, it forced the leaders to chalk out a comprehensive plan for a durable future friendship and close diplomatic interaction. In this way, their swelling conventional and non-conventional strategic capabilities jeopardized the security of other regional states. The Arab neighbours of Israel and Pakistan a neighbour of India found it difficult to match its conventional capabilities against the rival neighbours.
The era of world politics under the multifaceted hostility of the Cold War formulated an Indian tilt toward the USSR coupled with its pleasant Arab inclined behaviour. The combination of Soviet and Arab policy was fundamentally designed to stand against Pakistan. The aim of pushing Pakistan into critical circumstances by diplomatically isolating the newly independent Muslim state convinced the Nehru administration to not leave Arab states and not cultivating a pro-Israeli policy. New Delhi’s desire for creating its hegemonic dominance in South Asia parallel to containing of Pakistan’s emerging influence in the Muslim world was the principle driving force behind Indian relaxed Arab policy in opposition to Tel Aviv. An interesting amalgamation of pro-Arab and non-aligned policy stayed at distance both Jewish and Hindu communities of Israel and India, and made them hesitant from formally enhancing wholehearted diplomatic ties.
The end of global east-west conflict marked the major changes in the political and strategic landscape of international relations. The emergence of a Soviet-less system under unipolar global designs of American dominance coupled with the vanished communist expansionary attributes forced nation states to depart from their traditional standings in world politics. New Delhi and Tel Aviv were also forced to revise their conventional patterns of foreign relations before the emerging challenging of the world with new realities. Lack of cordial ties did not completely witness the absence of bilateral cooperation, various meetings of states officials from both sides remained active. Therefore, an era of flourished diplomacy began in post-cold war period when the common strategic and security concerns convinced the two governments to upgrade their bilateral connections. With reference to the changing dynamics of the Muslim world, Pakistan’s refusal to India’s entry in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) diverted New Delhi toward Tel Aviv. The joining of Arab world under OIC was an Indian dream which was opposed by Muslim sentiment because the very purpose for creation of an international alliance of fifty seven countries under OIC was to increase cooperation among Muslim states parallel to the promotion of peace in the unresolved disputed areas of the world. In this way, an era of intense engagement rooted in structured diplomatic visits between New Delhi and Tel Aviv progressively came into being. Therefore, a coalition for strategic interests and political goals in various domains intensified multidimensional engagement between the representatives of the two states.
During the first visit of Israeli elected president, Ezer Weizman (former Air Force commander and Defence Minster) the Indian leadership was invited for a reciprocal tour in 1997 and a set of cooperation covering the fields of counter-terror and technology was concluded in 2000 following the tour of Indian foreign minister, Jaswant Singh. Later visit of Ariel Sharon in 2003 convinced his counterparts in New Delhi on more cooperative ties between the two sides. Growing economic concerns for supporting each other in overcoming the financial problems while crafting opportunities for cooperation in other areas resulted in Indo-Israel collaboration against their territorial adjoining nations. Militarily confrontational polices of both Hindu and Jewish nations dragged their leaders toward nuclear politics, and both nations acquired nuclear capabilities. The state officials from both sides refrained from critically analysing the nuclear positions of each other. The state of Israel was one of the few countries which explicitly avoided condemning the Indian nuclear tests (Pokhran II) in 1998, and New Delhi preferred not to highlight Israel’s covert nuclear weapon program. By adopting contrasting nuclear behaviour, the strategic community of these two countries jeopardized the security of entire regions of South Asia and Middle East. New Delhi’s declared nuclear weapons status contrary to Tel Aviv’s clandestine nuclear armed position affected the scope of peace, stability and development in their respective regions. For New Delhi, the collaboration in several fields with Tel Aviv reflects the Indian aspiration of achieving the status of a regional super power by offsetting the role of challenging forces. The visualization of such ambition encouraged Hindu leaders to benefit from Jewish expertise in different fields from technology to defence. In this way, a more practical version of diplomatic connection in military affairs, in addition to cultural and economic spheres, was boosted by two-sided state authorities.
India’s quest for technological advancement equivalent to the large defence industry of Israel against its perceived neighbouring hostile states witnessed the substantial growth of joint ventures for technologically developed defence infrastructure. Presently, Israeli supply of weapon and arms equipment or Tel Aviv’s greater role in upgrading New Delhi’s armed proficiencies has resulted in large enterprises of combined efforts between Israeli Defence Forces and Indian Armed Forces. The mutual cooperation between the forces of both states have concluded various projects which includes Ballistic Missile Defence systems (BMD) including exploration of the Boost Phase Intercept (BPI) technologies; cooperation in contending with nuclear, chemical and biological threats originating from their perceived rivals; and development of effective second-strike capabilities (particularly sea- and submarine-borne), which are essentially ensuring their strategic autonomy parallel to establishing their hegemonic stand-ups over their neighbours.
Indian mission of proclaiming its naval force as a blue water navy capable of empowering New Delhi’s position in the Indian Ocean caused Indo-Israel naval cooperation which provided Barak 8 (Surface-to-Air-Missile, SAM) to Indian Navy (IN). In 2009, after successfully testing of Barak 8, Israeli authorities decided to shift this anti-aircraft missile to IN. Prior to Barak 8, President Weizman delivered Barak 1 (or commonly known SAM) to New Delhi in 1997 under the first weapon deal of both nations. The IN’s determination for controlling the waters of Arabian and South China Seas broadly pursued foreign supplies. Furthermore, a plan for training approximately 3,000 Indian soldiers against fighting the bordering countries (especially Pakistan and China) was finalized in 2003 between the armed forces of the two states. The upgradation of land-based force additionally led New Delhi to finalize a deal worth $30 million with Israeli Military Industries (IMS) for 3,400 Tavor assault rifles, 200 Galil sniper rifles, as well as night vision and laser range finding and targeting equipment. The Land and Sea based armed links have gone to the air force and strong connection between Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and Indian Air Force (IAF) concluded various agreements for the upgradation of Russian-made MiG-21 (ground attack aircraft), the sales of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) and laser-guided bombs. Israel also agreed to deliver an advanced state-of-the-art fire control system to India coupled with long-range radar system (Israeli Elta Green Pine). It is a ground-based missile-defence radar having operational connections with Arrow theatre missile defence system which is considered to be one of the strongest surveillance systems of the world. The Green Pine radar was delivered to India in 2003. Moreover, Israel intended to transfer sophisticated airborne early-warning and control Phalcon system to its South Asian strategic partner. Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the Indian state-owned Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) began collaborating on a jointly developed surface-to-air missile system for the Indian Army in 2015. Indian officials purchased 321 launchers and 8,356 missiles from the Israeli military in 2015. India uses Israel-made unmanned drones for surveillance and military purposes and ordered 16 drones during 2015.
In 2002, the heads of Israel space research program and his Indian counterpart from Indian Space Research Program (ISRO) signed a deal for future space cooperation. Tel Aviv helped New Delhi in launching of a military satellite. The Indo-Israel diplomatic strips could never be divorced from intelligence cooperation cemented in RAW – Mossad relationship. New Delhi’s intelligence agency RAW is committed to facilitating Mossad operations in South Asia, their collective operations are an endeavour for upholding the Indian bellicose position in the nuclearized subcontinent. In this way, Indian ambition of becoming a regional hegemonic state has resulted in New Delhi’s offensive role toward its neighbouring states, and made New Delhi a major arms recipient of Israel. A trend of frequent border clashes of India with adjoining nations has become an inseparable ingredient of South Asian strategic culture and it cemented New Delhi as a major export target of Israel’s defence industries. On the basis of Israel’s political, economic and military benefits, the Indian leadership have challenged or undermined Pakistan’s position in world politics generally, and South Asia specifically. The hawkish alliance of Israel and India has affected the regional strategic balance of South Asia by augmenting New Delhi’s belligerent attitude for other states.
The common objective of expanding borders by fighting neighbouring states placed both nations, India and Israel, in a closer bilateral relationship for economic, political, military and strategic cooperation. This cooperation has increased the two countries’ offensive positions in their respective regions without giving a thought of its impact on other regional states. With reference to the contemporary patterns of increasing diplomatically supportive role of both states for each other, their bilateral interaction could not be left solely to a single dimension. The constantly prevailing insecurities in their strategic mind-sets creates an alarming situation for other states, especially Pakistan, which is widely considered to be ideologically a rival Muslim state against Hindu and Jewish nations of South Asia and Middle East. Islamabad’s nuclear capability has signalled its strategic preparedness and strong willingness to counter any future threat emanating from Israel and India individually, or from the Indo-Israel alliance. In reaction to Pakistan’s nuclear armed status, the political elites from New Delhi and Tel Aviv are in agreement to bolster their military competence while maintaining their declared and ambiguous nuclear weapons programs respectively.
The strategic interaction of both states covering larger areas of cooperation has become a threat for Pakistan. The common understanding is that the state authorities from both sides view Pakistan, being the only Muslim state with nuclear weapon capability, as a potential threat. Therefore, the coalition of India and Israel has become a real threat to Pakistan’s security and territorial integrity, as the aforementioned RAW-Mossad collaboration coupled with supportive interaction of three forces from both sides is portraying a worrisome picture for Pakistan. Besides traditional standards of strategic joint ventures, the help in space program has enabled New Delhi for launching of its own satellite. The future of South Asian strategic environment, in this way, is rapidly changing due to Indian regional policy which can accept the presence of extra-regional power against New Delhi’s neighbours.
