Just a number of hours after Hamas launched its assault on Israel, India’s prime minister was among the many first world leaders to reply. In a strongly worded assertion, Narendra Modi condemned the “terrorist attacks” and stated India “stands in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour”.

The Indian international minister retweeted the remark nearly immediately. Another state minister from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata social gathering (BJP) warned in a tweet that India “may face the situation that Israel is confronting today if we don’t stand up against politically motivated radicalism”.

Though Modi’s phrases chimed with the messaging of most western governments, for India they marked a departure from the previous. It was not till a number of days later that the international ministry quietly reminded the general public of India’s historic dedication to the two-state resolution for Israel and Palestine.

On Friday, India was among the many international locations that didn’t again a UN resolution for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza, as a substitute selecting to abstain.

For many, the immediacy of Modi’s feedback and the UN decision vote symbolises simply how considerably the India-Israel relationship has shifted since he got here to energy in 2014, notably demonstrated by the general public bonhomie between the 2 international locations’ prime ministers.

Nicolas Blarel, affiliate professor of worldwide relations at Leiden University and creator of The Evolution of India’s Israel Policy, stated: “Modi’s position has been openly supportive of Israel but this is the first time that you had an immediate pro-Israel reaction without a balancing statement that immediately follows it up.”

Israel appeared to take Modi’s assertion as unequivocal backing. Speaking to reporters in Delhi final week, Israel’s ambassador, Naor Gilon, thanked the nation for “100% support”.

Yet it was not a sentiment restricted solely to the higher echelons of Indian authorities. As Azad Essa, a journalist and creator of Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel, stated: “This messaging gave a clear signal to the whole rightwing internet cell in India.”

‘We both are victims of Islamic terror’

In the aftermath, the Indian web factcheckers AltNews and Boom started to look at a flood of disinformation focusing on Palestine pushed out by Indian social media accounts, which included pretend tales about atrocities dedicated by Palestinians and Hamas that have been shared typically tens of millions of instances, and sometimes utilizing the battle to push the identical Islamophobic narrative that has been used usually to demonise India’s Muslim inhabitants for the reason that BJP got here to energy.

BJP-associated Facebook teams additionally started to push the message that Hamas represented the identical Muslim menace dealing with India within the troubled, majority-Muslim area of Kashmir and Palestinians have been sweepingly branded as jihadis.

Messages broadly forwarded on WhatsApp urged Hindus to arm themselves and boycott Muslims, studying: “In the future, India could also face conspiracies and attacks like Israel. The possibility of Hindu women facing cruelty cannot be ruled out.”

The identical narrative additionally made its approach on to a few of India’s most inflammatory information channels, with Arnab Goswami, the rightwing firebrand presenter on India’s Republic TV, telling viewers: “The same radical jihadist Islamist terrorist thinking that Israel is a victim of, we are a victim of as well … Israel is fighting this war on behalf of all of us.”

Some Hindu nationalist teams appeared to heed this as a name to arms. Last week, teams gathered exterior the Israeli embassy in Delhi, providing their companies to struggle Hamas. Among them was Vishnu Gupta, 58, the nationwide president of Hindu Sena, who stated he was amongst 200 males who had volunteered for the Israeli military, including that his confidence had been boosted by Modi.

“We both are victims of Islamic terror, that is why we have been supporting Israel from the beginning,” stated Gupta. “Just like Jerusalem was overtaken by Muslims, holy places in India were also invaded by Muslims. Like Hamas, there are militants from Kashmir supported by Pakistan who would carry terror attacks across India. The only fortunate thing about us is that we are not in the minority.”

Historically, India had a really totally different relationship with Israel. Its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the influential Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi had opposed the creation of an Israeli state, fearing it might disfranchise Palestinians, and India voted in opposition to it on the UN.

India was the primary non-Arab nation to recognise the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) because the authentic consultant of Palestine within the Nineteen Seventies, giving the group full diplomatic standing within the Eighties and welcoming PLO’s long-serving chief Yasser Arafat to go to a number of instances, and persistently maintained a pro-Palestine place on the UN. It was solely after the PLO started a dialogue with Israel, and as US stress started to construct, that India lastly established diplomatic ties with Israel in 1992.

Potential friction with India’s beneficial Gulf companions

A turning level got here in 1999 when India went to battle with Pakistan and Israel proved prepared to supply arms and ammunition. It was the start of a defence relationship that has grown exponentially. India buys about $2bn-worth of arms from Israel yearly – its largest arms provider after Russia – and accounts for 46% of Israel’s total weapons exports.

But it was the election of Modi that marked a elementary sea change. While earlier governments had stored their dealings with Israel largely quiet, as a consequence of considerations of alienating international allies and its personal huge Muslim inhabitants, Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP authorities had very totally different priorities.

In 2017, Modi turned the primary Indian prime minister to go to Israel, which was reciprocated months later when Netanyahu travelled to Delhi. The photographs of the pair strolling barefoot with their trousers rolled up alongside Haifa seashore in Tel Aviv, described by Indian media on the time as a “budding bromance”, have been later utilized by each leaders in marketing campaign materials.

Essa stated: “The narrative they were pushing was clear: that India and Israel are these ancient civilisations that had been derailed by outsiders – which means Muslims – and their leaders have come together, like long-lost brothers, to fulfil their destiny.”

The ideological alignment between the 2 leaders was definitely extra obvious than prior to now. The BJP’s ideological forefathers, and its rank and file at this time, have lengthy regarded Israel as a mannequin for the non secular nationalist state, known as the Hindu Rashtra, that the Hindu rightwing in India hope to determine.

While Modi was additionally the primary Indian prime minister to go to Ramallah in Palestine, a lot of the main target of his authorities has been on strengthening ties with Israel, be it by defence, tradition, agriculture and even film-making. This 12 months, Gautam Adani, the Indian billionaire businessman seen to be near Modi, paid $1.2bn to accumulate the strategic Israeli port of Haifa.

Nonetheless, Modi’s international coverage has additionally overseen a change in ties with Arab Gulf international locations together with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, which has been of nice monetary profit to India and laid the inspiration for a groundbreaking India-Middle East economic trade corridor, working all the best way to Europe, which was introduced on the G20 discussion board for worldwide financial cooperation this 12 months however has but to be constructed.

While the Gulf has additionally been working to normalise ties with Israel, analysts stated ought to the Israeli-Hamas battle proceed to escalate, it was seemingly that India would quieten its pro-Israeli stance to forestall friction with its beneficial Gulf companions.

Alvite Singh Ningthoujam, a fellow at Middle East Institute in Delhi, stated since Modi’s preliminary feedback, there had been a “calculated silence” from the federal government.

“While Modi is comfortable making statements that condemn cross-border terrorism, if this conflict escalates, and other countries that his government has relationships with get involved, it will be a big test for India,” he stated.

Aakash Hassan contributed reporting from Delhi.