NEW DELHI — As the Middle East conflict continues, the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi, has notably shifted India’s approach, offering open support for Israel — a dramatic break from decades of cautious diplomacy. 

Since taking office in 2014, Mr. Modi, from the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has publicly aligned with Israel, frequently called Prime Minister Netanyahu his “friend,” expressed condolences for the October 7 attacks, and continues to supply weaponry to the Netanyahu government. 

What is the primary driver of Mr. Modi’s support? Mutual fear of terrorism. 

“Terrorism is, of course, a very important element that joins the two countries together,” a former ambassador, Ashok Sajjanhar, now resident of the Institute of Global Studies, tells The New York Sun. “India has made its point of view very clear.” The attacks last October “need to be responded to in a strong way. And the issue of hostages seems to be falling to the background. India always brings up that issue also first and foremost.”

Indeed, both nations have endured significant challenges from Islamist terrorism, typically backed by hostile foreign powers — Pakistan in India’s case and Iran in Israel’s. Consequently, both countries have adopted strong counterterrorism measures and prioritized national security for similar reasons. 

“India has developed closer ties with Israel over several decades, based on economic, technological, and defense ties,” a senior advisor for South Asia at the United States Institute of Peace, Daniel Markey, tells the Sun. “For Modi and India’s other Hindu nationalists, Israel’s victimization by radical, violent Islamists is akin to what India has also suffered, so there is a natural ideological convergence and political benefit to ties with Israel.”

A Diplomatic Shift

India’s relationship with Israel, however, has long been complex and relegated to the diplomatic shadows. It recognized Israel in 1950 but maintained a pro-Arab stance for decades, even becoming the first non-Arab country to deem the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people in 1974, followed by the recognition of the State of Palestine in 1988. 

It was only in 1992, with the Oslo peace process underway, that India established formal diplomatic relations with Israel — yet a strong post-colonial affiliation to the Palestinian cause persisted at New Delhi. 

While Mr. Modi’s predecessors forged quiet defense and technology partnerships with Israel while publicly championing the Palestinian cause, Mr. Modi’s election in 2014 propelled the Indo-Israeli relationship into a new phase of rapid, open development. Mr. Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Israel in 2017, a gesture reciprocated by Mr. Netanyahu in a visit to Delhi in 2018.

On October 26, 2023, in the wake of Hamas’s attack and Israel’s subsequent military response at Gaza, India abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for an “immediate, durable, and sustained humanitarian truce.” External Affairs Minister Jaishankar further stated that India, having experienced significant terrorism itself, sympathized with Israel. He contended that the resolution, which did not directly condemn the Hamas attack that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 Israelis, was aligned with Israel’s plight. 

There is “a large measure of support and respect for Israel — what it has been able to do, what it has been able to achieve, and I think that there is a great deal of similarity between the evolutionary graphs of India and Israel,” Mr. Sajjanhar said. “There is respect on what it has been able to do; fight for its independence, also grow economically, and grow technologically.”

India-Israel Defense Ties

While India’s exporting of arms to Israel has come under scrutiny in recent times, given the ongoing war, it isn’t new. Since 2017, India has established itself as a strategic partner and co-producer of Israeli weaponry. In recent years, the two nations have strengthened their military relations through joint exercises, training programs, and personnel exchanges. 

On the flip side, Israel has increasingly turned to India for military hardware, too. Between 1997 and 2000, 15 percent of Israeli arms exports were directed to India. By the mid-2000s, this figure had risen to 27 percent. Since Mr. Modi took office in 2014, approximately 42.1 percent of all Israeli arms exports have been delivered to India. New Delhi is now the largest buyer of Israeli-made arms, with annual spending exceeding $1 billion.

Even amid Israel’s extensive military response at Gaza, the flow of defense equipment to India has remained consistent. Analysts note that the military hardware used by Israel in its conflict does not overlap with what is supplied to India, and this ongoing supply aids India in diversifying its arms sources and reducing its dependence on Russian weaponry. Moreover, some experts have surmised that the Israel-Hamas conflict has provided opportunities for India’s defense exports, with Israeli companies possibly turning to Indian suppliers more frequently. 

“The government position is clear: we’re against terrorism, and if Israel needs to wipe out terrorism, it has to do what it needs to do,” a senior fellow at the Institute of Peace & Conflict Studies at New Delhi, Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, tells the Sun. “The only caveat is, as, and when required, there need to be humanitarian pauses — short, humanitarian pauses.” Yet, Mr. Iyer-Mitra adds, India “never said ceasefire.”

He also adds that Israel has asked for artillery shells and other weaponry, of which India has supplied. “We’re one of the world’s largest producers of manganese, and we’ve given it.” Manganese is used in the military to strengthen steel for vehicles, weapons, and armor, making them more durable and resistant to damage.

From Mr. Iyer-Mitra’s purview, “you won’t find antisemitism” across most of the country. India has a tiny Jewish population — estimated to be fewer than 5,000 in the world’s most populous nation, with 1.4 billion, and down from around 50,000 in the 1940s. Experts highlight that it wasn’t persecution that drove Jews out, but rather, the Zionist movement, which influenced many Jews worldwide to leave their countries and immigrate to Israel. The establishment of Israel also provided new economic opportunities for many Jews globally. Family ties with relatives living in Israel may have also encouraged emigration.

Muslims in India 

Nonetheless, Mr. Modi’s friendship with Israel remains a profoundly sore spot for India’s sizable Muslim population and is politically problematic. India is home to the world’s third-largest Muslim population — just behind Muslim-majority nations Indonesia and Pakistan — with an estimated 204 million Muslims as of 2019. This makes it the country with the largest Muslim population outside of Muslim-majority nations. Muslims constitute 14.2 percent of India’s population, making them the largest minority group in the country.

This “does alienate the Muslims to some extent who have helplessly tried to hide their sense of disaffection in the face of the state-propelled majoritarian ethos,” a fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, Ashok Behuria, tells the Sun. “This has led to consolidation of electoral preferences of the minorities away from Modi, which was visible in the last elections earlier this year, and partly accounted for Modi’s party failing to secure a majority on its own.”

Mr. Markey also notes that, historically, India’s position was more closely aligned with pro-Palestinian movements than with Israel because of the sympathies of Indian Muslims for their co-religionists and because of the post-colonial, non-aligned posture adopted by India’s founding politicians like Jawaharlal Nehru.

“India’s recent tilt toward Israel is thus broadly unpopular with a wide range of Indian groups, including many in the Muslim community,” he continues. 

Mr. Markey also noted that India’s ruling BJP does not include any Muslims as parliamentarians and “has adopted a number of other domestic policies that are widely criticized as anti-Muslim, so its Israel policies are not out of step with its broader political agenda.” 

Mr. Modi’s support for Israel is thus largely seen by many in the international community as yet another affront to the religious minority, increasingly subjugated by the Prime Minister’s Hindu nationalist agenda. A Human Rights Watch report earlier this year sharply rebuked Mr. Modi’s re-election campaign as fueled by “hate speech against Muslims and other minorities, inciting discrimination, hostility, and violence.” 

In 2019, criticism of Mr. Modi in the international community flared after his government revoked Article 370, which granted special autonomy to the Muslim-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir. The move was accompanied by a severe security crackdown, communication blackout, and mass detentions, which human rights organizations condemned as oppressive.

Nonetheless, others in the country view it differently. According to Mr. Iyer-Mitra, Mr. Modi has purportedly banned a number of practices in these communities, from marrying multiple wives to being able to divorce a wife on the spot simply by declaring so three times to prohibiting child marriage, which he says is often “misconstrued” by public opinion. 

“Muslim women need to have the same rights as Hindu women; the civic rules need to be the same,” he continued. “And all the madrassas have been given science and math syllabi, so there needs to be a minimum of criteria. You can’t just do religious studies.” 

Future of India-Israel Ties 

While Mr. Modi was re-elected to the top job for a third term in June, his party lost its majority in the lower house of India’s parliament, rendering it reliant on its National Democratic Alliance partners for decision-making for the first time in Mr. Modi’s reign. This could cause bumps in the road for the Israel alliance, as the Prime Minister may now have to make engagement with all Middle Eastern actors as a top priority.

Sources within the government, however, insist that, despite the growth of India’s defense sector, peace while protecting strategic interests is the name of the game. 

“Like the Arab Gulf states, especially the UAE, that have entered into the Abraham Accords with Israel, India is banking on a new vision of the Middle East that would enable greater transregional trade and investment from which India’s economy would benefit,” Mr. Markey said.

“In that new vision, old animosities, including between Israelis and Palestinians, would be superseded by a focus on economic growth and development. Despite India’s concerns about the violence, suffering, and destruction at Gaza, this vision continues to define New Delhi’s approach to the war, one that puts it at odds with much of the rest of the world, especially the countries of the Global South.”

Despite its explicit support of Israel, the Modi administration has not entirely abandoned the Palestinian cause in recent years. Mr. Modi’s policy is “to counter and condemn terrorism in any form as India has been the victim of terrorism for decades, and Israel is a major defense partner of India,” a senior analyst, Indu Saxena, American Political Science Association, tells the Sun, describing Mr. Modi’s approach as “practical and pragmatic, leaning towards independent foreign policy while prioritizing India’s interests.”

However, Ms. Saxena also stresses that India continues to “support the rights of Palestinians and two State solutions to the Mideast problem.”

In 2018, Mr. Modi became the first Indian prime minister to visit Ramallah in the West Bank. Since then, India has increased its contributions to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees. Thus, similar to his recent courting of both Russia and Ukraine and offering to be a go-between for the adversaries, New Delhi has positioned itself as a potential mediator in the Middle East. 

According to Mr. Sajjanhar, India hasn’t offered to play a “peacemaker” role in the conflict, but it could play a “useful” part in future talks. “We do not have any agency at all with Hamas, with whom the principal fight seems to be taking place and who are the proxies of Iran. But with the Palestinian Authority we have good relations. What we can really do is provide counsel back backstage — back channels and provide counsel as to what needs to be done.” Yet a “mediation effort, I don’t see it coming in the foreseeable future, because I think the positions of the parties are far removed.”