Indian premier, in Israel visit, seeks to break barriers

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long argued that, far from being diplomatically isolated because of its policies toward the Palestinians, Israel is constantly being courted by countries seeking help in technology, intelligence and counterterrorism.

That narrative was reinforced Tuesday when Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India arrived in Israel for a three-day visit, the first by an Indian premier in the 25 years since the two countries established full diplomatic relations.

“We’ve been waiting for you a long time. We’ve been waiting nearly 70 years, in fact,” since the state of Israel was established, Netanyahu said in his welcoming remarks at the airport.

Israel and India already share extensive defense ties, and India recently agreed to buy about $2 billion worth of Israeli missiles and air defense systems, the largest order in Israel’s history, experts said.

The two countries are now looking to expand trade and cooperation in areas like agriculture and water management.

India has long embraced the Palestinian cause and kept its distance from Israel to protect its interests in the Arab world. But Modi seems as eager as Netanyahu to delink Israel from the Palestinian question and, notably, will not be combining his trip with a courtesy visit to the Palestinian Authority.

Hundreds of guests were invited to greet Modi at a redcarpet ceremony at the airport. Netanyahu has described him as “my friend” and both have hailed the visit as “historic.”

Israel has a population of 8.5 million while India is a vast land with a population of 1.3 billion.

Despite the apparent mismatch, both have developed as vibrant democracies in adverse conditions and have many joint interests.

“We have the same enemy — radical Islam,” said Efraim Inbar of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv. “Like us, they live in a difficult neighborhood,” he added, alluding to Pakistan and China.

Inbar said Indian weapons procurements from Israel amounted to more than $1 billion a year, and that the countries make “good partners” in other areas of security and innovation.

“The sky is the limit in this relationship,” he said, with India now an economic power and the strength of the Arab world declining. “We are just scratching the surface.”

For India, the visit is the culmination of a gradual policy pivot.

P.R. Kumaraswamy, a professor of international affairs at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and the author of India’s Israel Policy, compared it to a clandestine love affair that has, at last, been brought out into the open.

“You have a relationship, but you are not ready to admit it in public,” Kumaraswamy said.