By Anand Singh
Last year, when Israel was carrying out one of the most barbaric genocides of this century by bombarding the Gaza strip, justice-loving people across the world, including India, were out on streets to protest. But it was the same time, when frenzied triumphalism of Hindutva fascists was at its peak in the corridors of power. Now more than a year has elapsed since the Hindutva fascists came to power in India under the leadership of Narendra Modi. As expected, the BJP government has made it clear through its conduct in the last one year that Hindutva fascists and Zionists are the ideological kins. To strengthen this bonhomie, Narendra Modi has announced his visit to Israel. As a gesture of friendship, Modi government has thrice abstained from voting in United Nations in the last three months, instead of voting against Israel.
India’s relationship with Israel started getting warmer as India embarked upon the path of neo-liberalism, when the Congress government of P V Narsimha Rao established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992. After that, Deve Gowda’s United Front government signed the Barak missile agreement, which also marked the beginning of defense ties with Israel. Notably, parliamentary and pseudo communists were part of that government and they had a portfolio as important as the home ministry with them. Atal Bihari Vajpayee led NDA government took the relations with Israel to new heights. It was the same time, when the cannibal prime minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon visited India. It was the first visit to India by an Israeli prime minister. Between 2004 and 2014 also, the process of expanding the defense ties with Israel, continued uninterrupted, during Manmohan Singh led Congress rule.
The efforts to strengthen the relationship with Israel had started ever since Modi led Hindutva forces came to power last year. While Israel was bombing Gaza, the Hindutvavadis refused to conduct a debate in the parliament on this issue so as not to cause any embarrassment to their Zionist friends. Last year in September, during the UN General Assembly session in New York, Modi shook his hands which is stained with the blood of innocent victims of Gujarat genocide with that of Netanyahu which was immersed with the fresh blood of the innocent victims of Gaza genocide. Netanyahu seemed overwhelmed with this meeting as if he had found his lost cousin. He immediately invited Modi to visit Israel. Modi has already visited Israel as the chief minister of Gujarat, this will be his first visit as prime minister.
After Modi-Netanyahu meet, Defense Acquisition Council sanctioned defense projects worth Rs.8 billion. Out of this, Rs.5 billion will be spent to build six submarines for the Navy. Rs.320 million will be spent in the purchase of 8000 Spike, Israeli anti-tank guided missiles. It is to be noted that India has preferred this Israeli missile over American Javelin missile, for which USA had been lobbying for a long time. Also, the US defense minister Chuck Hagel lobbied for this missile to sell to India during his last visit. But preferring Israeli missiles over the American ones reveals the deep relationship between Hindutvavadis and Israeli Zionists. Israel also wants to sell to India its anti-missile system Iron Dome, in future.
At the beginning of November last year, home minister Rajnath Singh visited Israel. After Lal Krishna Advani, who visited Israel in year 2000, this was the first visit by any Indian home minister. During this visit, Rajnath Singh invited Israeli defense companies to invest in India as part of the ‘Make in India’ campaign. During his meeting with the Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, he especially underlined Modi government’s decision to grant concessions to FDI in the defense sector. Israeli defense minister expressed his intent to transfer cutting-edge technologies to India in the field of defense. During the visit, Rajnath Singh also visited Israeli military checkpoints on the Gaza border. Authorities said that Singh seemed quite impressed with the modern technology being used by Israel for their border security. This technology includes the long range day and night camera observation system. Besides, Rajnath Singh was also quite impressed with the radar system allowing detection of cross-border movement up to several kilometers. Not only this, he also seemed impressed with the seismic system motion sensors employed to crackdown on any efforts to dig tunnels on the Gaza border. Obviously, Israel is planning to sell these technologies to India in future. Demonstration of these technologies to Rajnath Singh can be understood only in this context.
Several countries of the world have limited their trade relations with Israel as part of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement going on since last decade, which has endangered its economic growth. In this context, Israel’s growing relationship with India is proving to be a boon for its economy. India is one of the few countries, besides US, with which Israel’s defense and trade relations are prospering. India is the largest importer of weapons being sold by Israel and Israel is the second largest supplier to India among all countries. Not only defense, Israel has opened its centers of excellence in many Indian states in the fields of water conservation and irrigation etc. for technical assistance and has plans to open several more in the coming days. With Hindutva forces in power, the spectre of Islamic terrorism is being erected yet again. A famous Israeli historian has termed the strategy of killing innocents in the name of anti-terrorism by Israel, as ‘Incremental Genocide’. Hindutva fascists are desperate to learn this skill of incremental genocide from their ideological kins, so that they can practice it in India too. Modi’s upcoming trip to Israel needs to be understood from this perspective.
Anand Singh is an activist and writer associated with a labour monthly ‘Mazdoor Bigul’ and a students-youth magazine ‘Ahwan’. He is also part of a forum called ‘Indian People in Solidarity with Palestine’ which was launched last year to express the solidarity of Indian people with the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people.
19 October, 2015
Countercurrents.org