Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assertion on the Israel-Hamas disaster that unfolded over the weekend was unequivocal. Modi tweeted on X, “deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar retweeted the assertion. The assertion and its pace had been placing. Until as not too long ago as 1992, India had no diplomatic relationship with Israel. Furthermore, India is just not a rustic recognized to be fast to decide on sides in a disaster.

Modi’s assertion exhibits how far the India-Israel relationship has come. For a few years after India’s independence from the United Kingdom in 1947, Israel was extraordinarily captivated with establishing an in depth relationship with India. However, for greater than 4 a long time, India refused to reply to Israel’s overtures. Jawaharlal Nehru and different Indian anti-colonial leaders, scarred by their expertise of Partition and the creation of Pakistan—the primary nation to be based on the premise of spiritual nationalism—had been basically against the concept of a state created based mostly on Zionism. Moreover, they had been highly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and noticed the plight of the Palestinians as a direct consequence of British imperialism. As a consequence, whereas India acknowledged the institution of Israel in 1950, it refused to start out a proper diplomatic relationship. In the following years, India’s condemnation of Israel continued despite the fact that Israel prolonged India (restricted) navy assist in its wars with Pakistan and China, whereas the Arab states gave intensive, common political and navy assist to Pakistan.

Once formal ties had been established in 1992, protection and commerce relations took off, and Israel rapidly turned India’s second-largest protection associate. However, the 2 nations nonetheless didn’t get pleasure from an in depth relationship. Ariel Sharon turned the primary Israeli prime minister to go to India in 2003, the place he was handled to large protests by the Indian public. Furthermore, India often voted towards Israel within the UN General Assembly.

But after Modi’s election in 2014, the connection started to take a pleasant flip. In 2015 and 2016, India abstained from a UN vote that mentioned whether or not Israel must be introduced earlier than the International Criminal Court for its alleged warfare crimes in the course of the 2014 disaster in Gaza. In 2017, Modi turned the primary Indian prime minister to ever go to Israel. Today, the connection spans a broad spectrum, from tourism to protection. Some have even argued that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party’s model of Hindu nationalism and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud and its alliance with far-right ultranationalists have a common ethnonational, anti-Muslim ideology that has drawn the 2 international locations nearer collectively.

However, even with these developments, Modi’s assertion on Israel and the way rapidly he provided Israel assist stay noteworthy. India has wonderful relations with Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. Publicly, India nonetheless helps the Palestinian trigger, internet hosting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in New Delhi in 2018. But India’s geopolitical state of affairs and home politics have modified. Not solely does it have an in depth relationship with Israel, however India is at this time an in depth strategic associate of the United States, a staunch Israeli ally. Stability within the Middle East is necessary to India as a result of, along with its relations with Arab nations, massive numbers of the Indian diaspora reside and work within the area and ship remittances house to household. Furthermore, India, itself extraordinarily weak to assaults by jihadist terrorist teams, understands Israel’s safety considerations. Modi’s assertion means that India has come to see its relationship with Israel as not simply pleasant, however even very important for its long-term strategic pursuits.