It is high time India ends its silence on the human cost of the Gaza war and takes a principled stand without diluting its relations with Israel.
A largely friendless Tel Aviv today needs New Delhi more than the other way around.
India's failure now may cost it diplomatically in the long run. After all, seeing the mass anger within Israel, Netanyahu is unlikely to last in power for long, points out M R Narayan Swamy.
India's self-claimed leadership of the Global South will be under scrutiny when the lingering issue of Palestine takes the centrestage at the United Nations this month amid New Delhi's deafening silence on Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.
Decades after India and much of the world recognised the State of Palestine in 1988, some long-time Western allies of Israel will now take the same step in what is bound to be a significant diplomatic setback to the political leadership in Tel Aviv.
Although all that remains of an originally conceived Palestinian State now is a ruined Gaza Strip and a tottering West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reacted with fury after France, Canada, Australia, the UK as well as Belgium announced their decision to recognise Palestine.
Netanyahu's anger is understandable.
These predominantly European countries had for long desisted from recognising Palestine but decided enough was enough in the wake of Israel's brutal onslaught on Gaza which has claimed more than 64,000 lives -- most of them innocent civilians -- and shows no signs of ending.
It is noteworthy that Australia and the European countries have taken the plunge despite having had good relations with Tel Aviv and knowing well that their move is bound to upset US President Donald Trump as well.
This is where India, once a vocal champion of Palestinian rights, comes in.
It seems a long way back when India established ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1974, allowed a PLO office to come up in New Delhi the next year, and joined the world at large in recognising Palestine soon after the PLO officially declared a State in November 1988.
PLO founder leader Yasser Arafat was a frequent visitor to India.
India's pro-Israel tilt did not begin after Narendra Modi became prime minister in 2014.
The process started a long time ago, culminating in Congress Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao's decision to establish diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv in 1992.
Since then, there have been a slow and steady deepening of multi-faceted ties with Israel.
But India continued to express its support for a two-State solution to the Palestinian crisis -- a long-standing UN view -- even as the secular Arafat passed away and more militant Palestinians took an Islamic hue.
India-Israel engagement deepened dramatically after Modi took office over a decade ago.
He became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel officially in 2017.
This is when bilateral relations were upgraded to a 'strategic partnership'.
If Modi spent three days in Israel, he paid a three-hour visit to Ramallah in the West Bank in 2018. The difference could not have been more telling.
Although the Indian leader met Mehmoud Abbas, head of the Palestinian Authority, the rump successor to the PLO, there was no more reference to a 'united' Palestinian State which could include Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Since Hamas unleashed a brutal and bloody assault on Israel in October 2023, triggering a political and diplomatic tsunami in the region, New Delhi has come out vociferously in support of Tel Aviv.
True, India still airs the usual platitudes about the need for a ceasefire in the ongoing war, release of Israeli hostages and unhindered humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza.
But it is more than clear that New Delhi's heart lies with Israel, not the Palestinians.
And for a country which calls itself the world's largest democracy, street protests in support of the Gazans - not Hamas -- are almost absent compared to the rest of the democratic world.
Although the Gaza war has turned out to be bloodier than the Russia-Ukraine conflict, there is hardly any meaningful discussion in Parliament either.
This Indian silence, in sharp contrast to the upheaval the war on Gaza has caused around much of the world, could end up costing New Delhi dear at a time when it needs more and more allies as it battles a narcissist now presiding over the White House.
Even for the sake of minimum diplomatic decency, India has stopped denouncing the mounting civilian casualties -- most of the dead are children and woman -- though it is well known that the Hamas attack on Israel did not have the approval of ordinary Gazans who are now suffering immensely.
If the war was not enough, Israel has willfully impeded supplies of food, medicines and other essentials in Gaza to force its people into submission after failing to militarily crush the Hamas and free the hostages despite a war that will complete two years in October 2025.
Indeed, the famine conditions now foisted on Gaza has what forced Australia and the European countries to accord diplomatic recognition to Palestine.
Mind you, none of these countries have even an iota of sympathy for Hamas.
A July international conference co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia denounced both Hamas and Israel and called for an independent and de-militarised Palestinian State coexisting peacefully with Israel.
It was the first time the entire Arab League condemned the 2023 brutalities on Israel by Hamas.
When it comes to Russia, India has taken a principled stand that its historic ties with Moscow cannot be compromised for the sake of pleasing the West, however much the latter may provide Delhi a large share of the global market.
But in the turbulent Middle East, India has virtually put all its diplomatic eggs in the Israeli basket at a time when even the United Arab Emirates, one of the three countries to normalise ties with Israel during Trump's first presidency, is warning Tel Aviv not to overrun the West Bank.
The UAE and other Gulf countries, Qatar being the exemption, have no love for the Iran-backed Hamas.
More important, Netanyahu's decision to keep changing his goalposts and obstinately continue the war on Gaza for political expediency has caused unprecedented divisions within Israel between its people and a government that depends on rightwing and brazenly anti-Palestinian groups to survive.
It is high time India ends its silence on the human cost of the Gaza war and takes a principled stand without diluting its relations with Israel.
A largely friendless Tel Aviv today needs New Delhi more than the other way around.
India's failure now may cost it diplomatically in the long run.
After all, seeing the mass anger within Israel, Netanyahu is unlikely to last in power for long.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
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