India strongly rebukes Israel

NEW DELHI: Breaking ranks with its new-found friends the US and Israel, India has sided openly with Palestine and came out with a strongly worded statement against Israel’s military action in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Dubbing Israel’s large scale operations as “disproportionate retaliation for the abduction of an Israeli soldier,” foreign office spokesman Navtej Sarna said India was deeply concerned that the Israeli armed forces have continued to use excessive force which has hurt innocent civilians. “India condemns the wholly unjustified arrest and continuing incarceration of ministers of the Palestinian National Authority and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. There can be no justification, whatsoever, for taking such action against the duly elected representatives of the Palestinian people. We call upon Israel to release them immediately,” Sarna said.

“This is really the right thing to do, as questions were being asked about India’s silence on the situation there. Public sentiment here is largely against Israeli action, which has severely damaged public infrastructure and killed a large number of civilians in Lebanon the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” said Hamid Ansari, former Indian diplomat and chairman of the Minorities Commission.

Ever since India decided in 1991 to abandon ideology and make pragmatism the corner stone of its foreign policy, New Delhi has pointedly refrained from taking a public stand against Israel. Earlier as an active member of the Non-Aligned Movement, New Delhi had consistently voted against Israel in the UN and other international forums. But in 1992, when the Congress government of Narasinha Rao, decided to upgrade diplomatic ties with Israel, the relationship, though not publicly flaunted took off to a flurry of co-operation in several sectors, but mainly in defence supplies.

The BJP-led, NDA government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee further worked on ties with Israel and the relationship really took off. The first visit by an Israeli Prime Minister, in decades was in 2003, when Ariel Sharon came calling. Though this relationship is multifaceted, it is particularly driven by the menace of terrorism. The terror attacks of September 11, 2001, made the two nations realise the importance of cooperating on a larger scale on counter terrorism. Israel’s is also said to have played some part in convincing US lawmakers to support the India-US nuclear deal.

While castigating Israel for targeting civilian infrastructure, including Beirut airport, the statement has also condemned the abduction by “Lebanese militants” of two Israeli soldiers.