Close relations between Israel and India have sparked concern in some quarters of a shifting regional balance in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, much to the chagrin of Indian officials who insist that better relations with Israel are not being forged at the expense of Arab countries, writes Jaideep Mukerji Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom was in India last week on a three-day visit aimed at furthering warm relations between the two countries. In addition to reopening the Israeli consulate in Mumbai which closed in 2002 owing to financial constraints, Israeli and Indian officials were busy finalising a billion dollar defence deal that would authorise the sale of three Phalcon early warning radar defence systems to India. Relations between India and Israel have witnessed a remarkable turnaround since 1992 when Delhi reversed a decades-long policy of neglecting Israel and established full diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv. Since opening the door to Israel, relations have progressed at a rapid pace, with India showing a keen interest in purchasing Israeli military and agricultural technology and with Israel showing an eagerness to gain access to India's markets and highly skilled IT labour. With trade between the two countries expected to top 1.5 billion dollars this year, India is now Israel's second largest trading partner in Asia after Hong Kong. P R Kumaraswamy, a professor of International studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi and author of several books on Indian-Israeli relations, explained the change in relations between the two countries by a shift in India's attitude towards its Middle East policy in general. "Prior to 1992 India believed that in order to have good relations with Arabs and Palestinians, it had to adopt an anti-Israeli position. That is no longer the case. Today India believes it is possible to have good relations with Israel and Arab countries at the same time," he told Al-Ahram Weekly. While Indian government officials stress the improvement in ties between India and Israel is primarily being driven by economic considerations, the obvious military dimension to relations between the two countries is cause for concern to some. In addition to selling the Phalcon radar systems, the Jerusalem Post reported last year that Israel is also involved in training thousands of Indian army soldiers and supplying weapons ranging from assault rifles to precision laser-guided bombs. Israel is now India's second largest supplier of military equipment after Russia, with tens of millions of dollars flowing between the two countries each year. Speaking to reporters in Bangladesh last year, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri said he thought that military trade between the two countries was "most unfortunate" and accused India and Israel of "trying to change the strategic balance in the region by pouring in a wide range of sophisticated weapons and strategic defence systems". Fears of a shift in the balance of power in the region are being further fuelled by the prospect of an "Indian-Israeli-American axis". The United States is finalising plans to make India a "strategic partner", a status already conferred on Israel. High- level representatives from all three countries will be meeting in Israel this week to participate in the Trilateral Indo-Israeli-US Strategic Dialogue, a series of forums designed to discuss ways in which the three countries can work together on issues pertaining to the war on terror and regional security threats. Professor Kumaraswamy, however, ascribed little value to the idea of an axis, dismissing it as "pure speculation". While acknowledging that there was a "limited scope for understanding" between the three countries vis-a-vis the war on terror, Kumaraswamy said he saw no evidence of a deliberate policy to create a full-blown alliance between the three countries. He pointed out that India had a markedly different attitude to the US-led war on Iraq and relations with Iran than Israel and the US. Kanchan Gupta, director of consular affairs and communications at the Indian Embassy in Cairo, agrees that rumours of an India-Israel-US axis were unfounded, saying that they were a result of "spin doctoring". Speaking to the Weekly from his office in Cairo, Gupta took pains to point out that India's improving relations with Israel were primarily economic and in no way signalled any kind of policy shift towards the Middle East or South East Asia. "India's relations with Israel are not being cultivated at the cost of India's relations with countries in the Arab region," he told the Weekly, pointing out that while relations with Israel had improved "It is [also] true that during the same corresponding period, India's relations with Arab countries have also blossomed." However, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, speaking to reporters shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's visit to India in September 2003, expressed concern over India's relations with Israel. "We hope India will not back the Jewish state in a way that furthers Israeli killing and destruction in the Palestinian territories," he said. Gupta takes issue with such views, telling the Weekly that there was an unfair perception in the Arab media that India's relations with Israel somehow legitimised Israel's presence in the occupied territories. "On the issue of Palestinian rights, India continues to believe that this is a problem of occupation and that occupied lands must be vacated. We are with the Palestinians for their rights," he said, pointing out that India has consistently voted in favour of the Palestinian cause at the United Nations. "There is a suggestion that when a country like India fosters relations with Israel, legitimacy is granted to Israel's policies. I can't imagine that relations with India make Israel's policies any more legitimate," he reasoned, adding "the Palestinian conflict is not coterminous with India's relations with Israel." Back in Delhi, Professor Kumaraswamy told the Weekly that he believed there would probably be little fallout over improving relations between India and Israel, but warned that India should take pains to ensure that any relations with Israel remain primarily economic in nature. "There is a tendency by some people in these two countries to view the relationship between India and Israel as an axis against something else, especially so-called Islamic fundamentalists," he said. "India and Israel must be careful of getting into this fundamentalist argument and giving the impression that their relations are somehow directed against any third parties. That would be a disastrous thing from everyone's point of view."
