Foreign news rarely gets much attention in India. However, current events in Israel and Gaza have dominated Indian television channels over the past month, and news coverage has mostly carried the Israeli point of view. Indian news anchors appeared wearing bulletproof vests, providing dramatic reports on the “atrocities” allegedly committed by Hamas in the October 7, 2023, attack.

Despite the passage of weeks since the war, and the death of more than 10,000 Palestinians, most of them children and women, news coverage in India remains intense in favor of Israel, as a report by the British newspaper The Economist says, and thousands of Indian accounts participate significantly and extensively in support of the Israeli narrative on social media platforms and denying the Palestinian narrative.

Narendra Modi shifts India's support from the Palestinians to Israel

The Indian media's fascination with Israel's position and its revenge on the Palestinians coincided with a noticeable shift in the Indian government's position on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. India has moved from supporting the Palestinians to largely unconditional support for Israel.

The ultra-nationalist Indian government led by Narendra Modi believes that this change is based on a “realistic review of its interests in the Middle East.” This policy has also received popular support among Prime Minister Narendra Modi's anti-Muslim extremist Hindu supporters in India. Hence, this endorsement is in line with the interest of the incoming Modi government over the state elections this month and the general elections next year.

India...from supporting Palestine to supporting Israel

In the past, India, like most countries in the Global South, shied away from supporting Israel, sympathized with the Palestinians and their plight, and even boycotted Israel and refused its aircraft to fly over it for decades.

But this policy has changed. Hours after the October 7 attack, Modi quickly announced on the X website his condemnation of what he described as “terrorist attacks” and declared his government’s solidarity with Israel. It then took five days for the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to confirm, in response to journalists' questions, that India still supports a "two-state solution" to end the conflict.

On October 27, India departed from its usual voting behavior at the United Nations and abstained from voting in support of the resolution adopted by the General Assembly in which it called for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. India objected to the fact that the text of the resolution did not condemn the Hamas attack.

Growing economic and military relations between India and Israel

This shift in Indian position is due to India's growing military and trade relations with Israel. Cooperation between the two countries has grown stronger since Israel provided military assistance to India in the "Kargil War" against Pakistan in 1999.

This came long before the United States was seriously interested in military cooperation with India. Over the past decade, India has purchased missiles, drones, and border security equipment (and perhaps spyware, though it does not admit it) from Israel, making it the largest foreign customer of Israeli military industries.

The close relationship between Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, deepened the ties between the two parties. Moreover, they were interested in the issue of "combatting Islamic terrorism." In his explanation for the abstention from voting in the ceasefire draft discussed by the United Nations, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Indian Foreign Minister, said in a statement delivered on October 29, that India had taken a strong position in the face of terrorism “because we are major victims of terrorism,” he said. 

Gulf normalization encouraged India to shift its position towards Israel

On the other hand, India is working to expand its relations with the Arab Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which are also getting closer to Israel. It depends on their supplies for a large share of its oil, and needs friendly relations with them to protect the approximately 9 million Indian workers who work there.

The desire of the two Gulf countries in recent years to improve their relations with Israel allowed Modi to quickly implement his shift towards Israel. The Saudis and Emiratis are also reluctant to let events in Gaza weaken their long-standing rapprochement with Israel, says The Economist.

Internally, things are turbulent, as the opposition - led by the Indian National Congress Party - condemned the government's position, and Indian Muslim leaders strongly criticized the Israeli military response. However, the Indian middle class that supports Modi is mostly hostile to everything it sees as linked to Islam, and therefore they support Modi in his condemnation of Palestinian resistance and his rapprochement with Israel.

Fueling hatred against Islam in India

However, the Indian government's over-the-top support for Israel carries some risk. As the number of civilian casualties in Gaza increases, India's Arab partners may turn against Israel and its supporters in a more hostile manner. Modi recently hedged against this possibility, communicating with leaders of the Palestinian Authority, which rejects armed resistance against Israel, offering Indian condolences and offering humanitarian aid. In contrast, his Hindu nationalist followers spare no effort in using the conflict to inflame the Islamophobia that led to the rise of their party.

The bottom line is that the shift that Modi oversaw from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may face complex calculations abroad, but at home this shift and the resulting support among his Hindu and anti-Islam supporters will likely help him garner more votes and win the upcoming elections.

source: Arabic Post