Modi breaks the mould with Israel visit
It is a measure of the obsession with vote bank politics in India that no Indian prime minister has visited Israel in our seven decades of independence. We have admired the Israelis for their tenacity and have even done deals with them to combat terrorism and in other fields like farm technology but these were mostly done in a low key manner. That Prime Minister Narendra Modi has chosen to break that mould of secrecy and to explore wider cooperation including in the area of cyber security besides mega deals on defence is happy augury. Now that Indo-Israeli relations are no longer in the closet the Prime Minister will be seeking advanced missiles and drones besides expertise in counter-insurgency. Since April, India has inked three missile deals with Israel worth $2.6 billion. India’s Air Force is now awaiting clearance to buy two Phalcon airborne surveillance radars at a cost of $1.16 billion, while the army is waiting for approval to buy 8,356 Spike anti-tank guided missiles from Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems, along with 321 launchers, for nearly $500 million. Armed drones would provide India with new military capabilities battling militants along the so-called Line of Control.
The backroom work and build-up for Modi’s three-day visit to Israel which began on Tuesday has been extraordinary. As many as seven high-level official delegations from different ministries have visited Israel in the last few months to work out areas of cooperation in water harnessing and management, drip irrigation, space, cyber security and more. Considering that Israel is water-scarce, its desalination technology has been described as a cutting-edge technology with a mobile desalination unit mounted on a four-wheel drive buggy which takes water from anywhere, including muddy water and transforms it into drinking water. This would prove a godsend for villages. Israel’s expertise in precision agriculture, especially drip irrigation would also be hugely useful for India. The new technology based on sensors will help Indian farmers get real-time alert on the actual water needs of plants in their fields. The Israelis are indeed rolling out the red carpet so much so that for the three days Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be accompanying Modi all through except the meetings with the leader of the Opposition and the country’s President. Unlike the guarded statements that world leaders are prone to make, Israel’s support for India’s war on terror has been with no holds barred.
While it is a consequence of India’s extensive interactions with the Arab world that the West Asian countries have not been critical of Modi’s visit to Israel, the Congress party has predictably shown that it has reservations over why he is not visiting Palestine and is not reiterating India’s stand on the issue of Palestine. Rabble-rousers like Owaisi are crying foul, but that was to be expected. But all said and done, there is overwhelming support for India reaching out to the Israelis in a mutuallybeneficial partnership.