View source for Israel- India relations

=YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS=  
==1960: Nehru’s plane was intercepted by Israeli jets over Gaza==
[https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/pm-nehru-plane-intercepted-israeli-jets-gaza-military-digest-9004354/  Man Aman Singh Chhina, Oct 30, 2023: ''The Indian Express'']

'' On May 19, 1960, there was an international incident when Israeli air force aircraft intercepted a UN aircraft carrying the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was visiting the UNEF in Gaza. ''


India has played an important role in the Arab-Israel peacemaking efforts of the United Nations. Gaza, the site of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, had a strong contingent of the Indian Army peacekeeping force under the aegis of United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) from the 1950s till mid-1960s.

On May 19, 1960, there was an international incident when Israeli air force aircraft intercepted a UN aircraft carrying the Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who was visiting the UNEF in Gaza.

The UNEF commander at the time was Lt Gen Prem Singh Gyani, incidentally, the first Indian officer to be commissioned in the Regiment of Artillery. He also was the first Indian officer to command an Artillery field regiment. He remained the Commander of UNEF in Gaza from December 1959 to January 1964 before moving to another UN assignment in Yemen.

Nehru was visiting Gaza on his way back from the Commonwealth PMs’ Conference. In order to land in Gaza it was necessary for the UN aircraft to overfly Israeli territory for a short while. This was a standard practice for UN aircraft which flew into Gaza and the Israelis were in the know of this. No formal intimation was given in advance of any such routine flight. Since the impending visit of Nehru to the Indian military contingent was published in various newspapers in Arab countries and Israel, the Israeli authorities were aware of it.

The archival documents of the Ministry of External Affairs show that at the time of the flight two Mystere jet fighters of the Israeli Air Force intercepted the UN aircraft carrying the Indian PM. The Israel fighters flew, what one UN observer called, “dangerously close” to the Prime Minister’s plane and then withdrew. They are also reported to have flown twice near the Gaza airfield after the Prime Minister had landed.
The records state that as it was a United Nations plane that was involved in the incident and as the Prime Minister’s visit was arranged by the UN authoritles, the Government of India considered that it was up to the United Nations to look into the matter and refrained from expressing any opinion or taking any action.

The day after the incident, United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold wrote to Jawaharlal Nehru explaining that the overflight of Israeli territory was technically necessary to enable the plane to land on the Gaza airstrip and that these conditions were well-know to the Israeli authorities. Hammarskjold deeply regretted the incident while pointing out that the United Nations personnel shared no blame for it.

Lt Gen Gyani had also written a report on the incident blaming the Israelis, in a rebuttal to which Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion made scathing comments on Lt Gen Gyani. The Israelis also claimed that four MIG aircraft were seen flying with the UN aircraft on the radar screens of Israeli military and due to this the Israeli aircraft had been tasked to intercept the aircraft. The Israeli PM also told the UN Secretary General that the Israeli Air Force had no knowledge of the occupants of the UN aircraft.
The UN Secretary General rejected the criticism of Lt Gen Gyani by the Israeli PM and instead wrote to Nehru mentioning the same and expressing appreciation of the spirit in which the Prime Minister had reacted to the incident.

The archives mention that according to Lt Gen Gyani’s report there was no UAR (as Egypt was called then) air force escort for the UNEF plane carrying the Prime Minister to Gaza and the four MIGs sighted on Israali radar were separately going to Al Arish airport.

“The Israeli excuses are quite evidently manufactured to try and put the blame on the United Nations. Since the UN had not formally informed the Israelis of the overflight and since the presence in the neighbourhood of UAR jets has given the Israelis a pretext for what they quite clearly knew was an unnecessary attempt at interception, there is little to be gained by pursuing this case,” the records state.

==2023==
===India's right wing’s awe of Israel===
[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/why-hindu-nationalists-have-a-history-of-deep-admiration-for-israel/articleshow/104472693.cms  Abhishek Dey, Oct 20, 2023: ''The Times of India'']

Palestinian armed group Hamas crossed into Israel on October 7 and launched aerial and ground attacks, which eventually triggered the ongoing Israel-Hamas war that has claimed more than 4,000 lives on both sides so far.Hours after videos of the attack surfaced on the internet, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed solidarity with Israel. He posted on X: “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.”By then, hashtags with phrases such as 'India is with Israel' were already trending on social media platforms.On October 11, Modi said that India strongly and unequivocally condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, even as he expressed support for Israel.But, on October 12, spokesperson for the Union ministry of external affairs Arindam Bagchi said: “Our position on Palestine has been long-standing and consistent. India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards a sovereign independent and viable state of Palestine, living within secure and recognised borders, side by side and at peace with Israel. That position remains the same.”

However, that does not seem to have dampened the gush of support for Israel.Social-media platforms are full of photos and videos showing men and women offering prayers in support of Israel in the ghats of Varanasi, people getting Israel tattoos on their bodies and cricket fans waving placards expressing support for Israel in the stadium while watching the recently held India vs Pakistan World Cup match. Several Hindu organisations have so far offered to participate in the ongoing war, fighting for Israel.When did it start and how?The Hindu nationalists’ deep admiration for Israel predates 2014, when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government came to power with Narendra Modi as prime minister.If Modi became the first Indian PM to ever visit Israel in 2017, BJP’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the first Indian PM to host an Israeli Prime Minister in 2003. Ariel Sharon was the first Israeli prime minister to visit India.

The connection is much deeper and has links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (R S S), which is the ideological fountainhead of the BJP, which has been supportive of the Israel model of nation state for decades.In 2015, R S S chief Mohan Bhagwat was all praise for Israel in his speech while addressing a gathering of Sangh volunteers in Madhya Pradesh, expressing dissatisfaction over how India has failed in following the Israel model of tit-for-tat action against hostile neighbours. In 2014, he had said at an event that India should learn from and follow the Israel model to serve the cause of nationalism.Watch: Mohan Bhagwat says India can learn from Israel.

Even the R S S’s admiration for Israel predates Bhagwat. In 1992, fourth R S S chief Madhukar Dattatreya Deoras, popular as Balasaheb Deoras, is believed to have played a role in convincing the then Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao to establish formal diplomatic relations with Israel.In his 1965 lecture Why mighty nations of antiquity perished , Bharatiya Jana Sangh leader and R S S ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya said, “Nations do not come into existence by mere cohabitation. There was never a time in the lives of the citizens of these decadent nations [referring to ancient Greek, ancient Egypt, Babylonian and Syrian civilisations], when they stopped living in a group. On the other hand Israeli Jews lived for centuries with other peoples scattered far and wide, yet they did not get annihilated in the societies in which they lived because of cohabitation. It is clear therefore that the source of national feeling is not in staying on a particular piece of land, but [it] is in something else.”An old connectionIn 1947, Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar was very upset when the Indian delegate in the UN General Assembly argued for a binational Arab-Jewish state in Palestine and voted against the proposal to partition Palestine into a larger Jewish state and a smaller Arab state, writes Sumantra Bose, professor of international and comparative politics, London School of Economics and Political Science, in The Conversation.In his book We or Our Nationhood Defined published in 1939, nine years before Israel was officially declared a nation, M S Golwalkar, the second chief of R S S, highlighted how the Jews “had maintained their race, religion, culture and language, and all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their nationality”.Golwalkar was also against the global support behind Palestine over the years. He described Jews as victims of Islamist forces which forced many of them into leaving their homeland (referring to Israel) and settling in other countries, including India. Unlike Muslims and Christians, Golwalkar described Jews as a community which could peacefully coexist with Hindus.

MS Golwalkar, the second chief of R S S, described Jews as victims of Islamist forces

“R S S has a very similar conception of India as a Promised Land [for] the Hindus as the Zionist do for Jews,” Sanjay Srivastava, British Academy Global Professor at Department of Anthropology and Sociology in SOAS University of London, tells TOI+.“The idea of Arabs as second-class citizens within Israel is also one that matches R S S ideas towards religious minorities. The idea of 'emasculation' and 'remasculinisation' is shared by both the R S S and Zionists. The Judeo-Christian antipathy towards Islam is one shared by the R S S,” he says. “The R S S also has a similar historical project to the Zionists: that there has been no mutual dependence or cultural overlap between Hindus (Jews) and Muslims (Arabs). Though Hindus have never suffered the kind of persecution faced by Jews, Israel provides a ready-made model of victimhood for the R S S.”

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