Palestine hubbub to hush-hush

A senior Israeli interlocutor once told a visiting Indian External Affairs Minister some time ago that New Delhi treated Tel Aviv like a “mistress” – by keeping the bilateral relationship away from the public gaze.

Till last year, India abstained in a resolution, at Human Rights Council in Geneva; submitted by Palestine and the Organisation of Islamic Countries, for a probe by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into alleged war crimes by Israel during the 2014 Gaza offensive. India’s arguments for abstaining for the last three years have been the reference to the ICC, since India is not a party to the Rome Statute, which set up the world judicial body. In line with its voting records, India voted in favour of four other resolutions criticising Israel, including those on the expansion of settlements and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, what happens after the Modi visit to the Indian stance is anyone’s guess.

 As a founding-member of the Non-aligned Movement (NAM), India saw itself as a champion of all oppressed, colonised people, and its commitment to the Palestinian cause has had been unwavering. Along with its large Muslim minority, India did not want to antagonize its relations with the Arab world. Until now India’s stance at the U.N. has been an irritant in Indo-Israeli relations, with Tel Aviv frustrated that close bonds had not resulted in any change in the stance on Palestine

Even former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee’s government, which invited Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to India in 2003, did not amend India’s voting record at the U.N. The year Sharon came to New Delhi (2003) marked a watershed moment in the history of the India-Israeli relations. Diplomatic relations had been elevated to full ambassadorial level only a decade earlier. While both countries established relations soon after Israel’s creation, India kept them low key, with only a small Israeli consular office operating out of Mumbai. But given Sharon’s controversial record, no senior Indian official attended his funeral.

India’s Minister of External affairs in 2007 had mentioned that "India's support to the Palestinian cause had not wavered," He mentioned that India supported a "negotiated solution resulting in a sovereign, independent, viable and united states of Palestine within secure and recognised borders living side by side at peace with Israel as endorsed in the Roadmap and UN Security Council Resolutions 1397 and 1515." The minister had referred to the humanitarian contribution that India had made to the Palestinian people who were "coping with multiple challenges". Together with the Palestine National Authority, India was working on several developmental projects, including a cardiac hospital in Gaza, a school in Abu Dis (recently raided by Israeli forces in Apr 2017) and an IT Centre at the Al Quds University( Inagurated by Sushma Swaraj in Jan 2016). 

The Jewish state had been created in 1948 and its sovereignty recognised by most of the world's countries. But as soon as the guns fell silent in 1967, Israel, in direct contravention of international law, began building illegal settlements for its citizens on land it does not own. In 1953, Israel committed the most notorious reprisal massacre in the West Bank against the village of Qibya, where 45 houses were blown up and at least 69 Palestinians were killed.  Fifty years ago, the state of Israel shocked the world when it seized the remaining Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, as well as the Syrian Golan Heights, and the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, in a matter of six days. In a war with Egypt, Jordan and Syria, known as the 1967 War, or the June War, Israel delivered what came to be known as the "Naksa", meaning setback or defeat, to the armies of the neighbouring Arab countries, and to the Palestinians who lost all what remained of their homeland. The Naksa was a continuation of a prior central event that paved the way for the 1967 war. Nineteen years earlier, in 1948, the state of Israel came into being in a violent process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

In the 1967 War, Israel took control of the shaded areas of the Egyptian Sinai, Syrian Golan Heights, and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The rest of the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, housing some 5.1 million Palestinians, remain under Israeli military control under the pretext of security. Their lives have been dictated by hundreds of military checkpoints, a colour-coded permit system, and a Separation Wall that has divided families. In sum, Israel's prolonged occupation creates a situation of serious human rights violations and unbearable living conditions, in which communities and individuals see no other option but to relocate.

On paper, India remains friendly to the Palestinians and to Mahmoud Abbas, who New Delhi calls the "president of Palestine", not of the Palestinian Authority. However, his visit to India in May was low-key and the declaration India made in support of a two-state solution notably failed to mention East Jerusalem as Palestine’s future capital.

India isn’t going to lead an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as being done by Sweden by placing its envoy; send troops to Syria or confront Iran as the U.S. does. Its stance on these issues has no practical effect, which   gives it the freedom to be friends with everyone. Modi visited arch-enemies Saudi Arabia and Iran last year, and now he has landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport. Will India continue its support to the cause of Palestine ……… Only time will tell !!!