It was a wise move on the part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to make a state visit to the State of Israel. It must never be forgotten that Israel has always supported India, through good times and bad. As early as the 1960s, then Defence Minister of Israel, Moshe Dayan made a secret visit to India even though the two countries had yet to formally recognize each other. His aircraft landed in a military airfield near Delhi and Dayan went post-haste to meet the Prime Minister of India. He offered valuable intelligence on what the enemies of India were planning, besides offering material help to India to defend itself. He asked for no favours in return, not even formal recognition, but offered help as a brother democracy also living in a troubled neighbourhood.
In 1967, when a large army comprising the neighbours of Israel invaded the only Jewish majority state in the world, in six days the military genius of Dayan ensured their defeat. In the process, he almost doubled the land area in control of Israel. Such a bold stance stands in contrast to the caution shown by President Vladimir Putin in his proxy war with NATO which was fuelling the Ukrainian war in order to weaken Russia. Had Putin the derring-do of Moshe Dayan, he would have used his substantial arsenal in order to bomb crossing and storage points directing weapons to Ukraine. He would have announced that he was limiting his attacks to Poland, in order to stop the flow of weapons to the Zelenskyy regime. Would France, Britain and Germany have risked retaliation by attacking Russia in the cause of Poland? Would their publics have allowed them to? Almost certainly not, but then Putin is no Moshe Dayan, so he is permitting his country to bleed continuously in the cities and fields of Ukraine. By his caution, he is allowing NATO a victory by default, albeit at the cost not of Zelenskyy, but the ordinary people of Ukraine.
The Jewish people have in them the courage and brilliance of Moshe Dayan. It is, therefore. fitting that Prime Minister Modi made a 24-hour visit to Israel. Whether it be in the development of AI or modern weaponry, the two countries have much to gain from cooperation. Israel, as indeed its Arab neighbours, have been long standing friends of India. If only Israel and the country’s Arab neighbours cooperated, both sides would substantially gain. As indeed would India and Israel from cooperation in AI and in defence in particular. Not to forget agriculture. Israel has converted vast tracts of desert into arable land, conserving water in the process. Knowhow about the experience of each other in such de-desertification would have been exchanged during the visit of the Prime Minister.
It must not be forgotten that when so many countries barred the entry of then Chief Minister Modi because they believed the falsehood that he was responsible for the carnage after the Godhra incident in 2002, Israel did not, and gave a warm welcome to the then Gujarat Chief Minister in 2006, as a sign that the State of Israel believed it was a canard that then CM Modi had any hand in the Godhra riots. Across the board, longstanding friends Israel and India, as indeed their Arab neighbours, have much to gain from partnering, and such will be the result of the latest visit. It is seldom remembered that no other Prime Minister in India has garnered as many top national honours from Muslim-majority countries as Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a staunch friend of the Arab world. Countries such as the UAE and Kuwait are partnering with India across a wide swathe of initiatives. Peace, not war. Partnership, not hostility, is the basis of the many visits the Prime Minister has made to West Asia, with the state visit to Israel being the most recent.
