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The Bond Between India and Israel Grows

(New York Times) Amy Waldman - On Monday Ariel Sharon became the first sitting Israeli prime minister to visit India, which established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992. The relationship has been strengthened by an ideological affinity for Israel by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Hindu nationalist party that leads the Indian government, and especially by the perception of a shared threat in Islamic terrorism. The two countries share intelligence and Indian special forces are being trained in Israel. Nonmilitary trade reached $1.27 billion in 2002, up from $202 million in 1992. India has also been spending an estimated $1.5-2 billion annually on Israeli military technology and equipment. India floundered in the post-cold-war years as the Soviet Union, long its major military supplier, fragmented. In 1999, Israel became a critical source, not least because it had specialized in upgrading Russian equipment. For decades, fear of alienating its Muslim population helped prevent India from normalizing relations with Israel, historians say. About three million Indians work in Arab states in the Persian Gulf, and those states supply India with about one-fourth of its oil. But Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Israel's Bar-Ilan University, argues that "the fact that this [relationship with Israel] is public, and they are interested in making it public and visible, is a recognition that opposition to ties with Israel is no longer significant."
2013-06-10 00:00:00
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