Visit of Israel Foreign Minister

Sitaram Yechury

The first ever visit by an Israeli foreign minister, and in this case a former Prime Minister, marks a significant shift in India’s foreign policy. Over the last couple of years India has been showing signs of retracting from its earlier foreign policy positions when it voted to repeal a UN resolution equating Zionism with racism. Later in January 1992 came the upgrading of the diplomatic relations.

    This change is being justified in the name of pragmatism required in the post cold war world.  However, can pragmatism  mean capitulation and servility?  Why did India, in the first place take an aggressive opposition to Zionist racism and called for the international isolation of Israel? Fired by the noble values of human dignity and liberation, this was based on a correct perception that the Palestinians were denied their fundamental right to a homeland as a result of a gigantic international fraud committed upon them by imperialism and Israel.  India’s foreign policy had consistently been supportive of the liberation struggle all over the world.  Even after four decades, the Palestinians today  continue to be denied the right of their homeland. They are a nation without a territory. 

    India finds itself in a peculiar situation of having declared on the one hand, its recognition of the State of Palestine and its President Yasser Arafat, and on the other, according full diplomatic status to Israel thus, implicitly legitimising its continued illegal occupation of Arab lands.  Equivocation  cannot be the hallmark of any foreign policy. But in the name of pragmatism this is precisely what is emerging.  Like individuals, a nation lives on its values.  The consistency of upholding such values determined India’s influential position in the international community in the past. 

    Are there any new developments that can justify India’s new policy orientation?  On the contrary, Israel continues to refuse to vacate illegally occupied Arab lands.  It continues to perpetuate inhuman crimes and repression against the Palestinians in the occupied territories.  Its recent deportation of 418 Palestinians in distressing conditions was universally condemned by all those who cherish human liberty and dignity.  Israel continues to settle emigrant Jews in the occupied lands seeking to irreversibly change the demographic composition of these areas, thus attempting to legitimise its illegal occupation.  Israel’s intransigence is the main reason jettisoning the West Asia peace talks. 

    In this background, India’s capitulation marks a serious departure from its earlier values and commitment.  This is not a question to be judged on the grounds of a pragmatic  foreign policy  or of abandoning traditional allies.  It is a question of our country’s moral fibre and international standing. And this cannot be for sale, whatever be the lucrative gains that relations with Israel may offer.  Shimon Peres has gone back with a major concession. India has decided that in future it will judge each resolution in the United Nations concerning Israel on a case-to-case basis abandoning its earlier holistic approach of treating these with reference to the central Palestinian question.  Even in terms of sheer opportunism, for India as obvious gains appear from this visit.

    The most revealing aspect of the visit was the natural affinity which the Israeli foreign minister found with the BJP.  Zionist racism has been known for its racial hatred and intolerance.  The BJP’s long standing desire arising from its rabid and intolerant anti-Muslim hatred, not only for establishing full diplomatic  relations with Israel but also for increased cooperation in economic and political spheres is well known.  The BJP has gone to the extent of urging India to seek training and assistance from the notorious Israeli secret service, Mossad.  The most disturbing and diabolic suggestion of the Israeli foreign minister to the BJP leader was to solve the Kashmir issue by changing the demographic composition of the valley through a massive re-settlement of non-Muslims.  Thus advising the BJP to replicate what Israel is currently doing in the occupied Arab lands.  Zionist racism and religious intolerance have thus, struck a chord of commonality -of hatred and bigotry.  Notwithstanding the BJP’s inclinations, such prescriptions will spell disaster to India’s secular democratic polity. India will do well to decisively decide what not to learn from Zionist Israel.