New chapter in India-Israel relations: Jaishankar to cement post-Netanyahu ties

While the stopover to Dubai is part of the constant engagement with a close ally, foreign minister S Jaishankar’s trip to Israel is part of cementing ties with Tel Aviv post Netanyahu era.

Published on: Oct 16, 2021, 10:59:24 IST

By Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times, New Delhi

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With an eye towards cementing diplomatic and political ties in post-Benjamin Netanyahu era, external affairs minister S Jaishankar is visiting Israel for three days via another strategic ally, the United Arab Emirates. EAM Jaishankar is reaching Dubai on Sunday and will leave for October 19-21 three-day Israel trip. The security relationship with both UAE and Israel are handled by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

As PM Modi has restricted travel due to Covid pandemic and domestic commitments, it has been left to Jaishankar and Doval to connect with close allies on a constant basis.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has restricted travel due to Covid pandemic and domestic commitments, it has been left to Jaishankar and Doval to connect with close allies on a constant basis. The focus of Indian diplomacy at present is also to directly connect with countries, which have been missed by the previous regimes like Mexico, Greece, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan apart from small nation states.

While EAM Jaishankar is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, alternate PM and foreign minister Yair Lapid in Israel, the basic purpose of the trip is to engage the new coalition government and provide a fresh impetus to bilateral ties with Tel Aviv. “Israel and UAE are one of India’s closest allies like Japan and Singapore apart from big partners like US and Russia. With the new government now firmly ensconced in Israel, it is time that both close partners exchanged notes on global issues like Afghanistan, Middle East, Indo-Pacific and terrorism,” said a former foreign secretary. India has very close security relationship with Israel that ranges from top-of-the-line drones, loitering ammunition, radars, state-of-the-art missiles and border sensors.

It is understood that EAM Jaishankar will be halting in Dubai for a day to meet the leadership over regional environment, including situation in Afghanistan and central Asia. The UAE is home to nearly four million Indian diaspora and has forged diplomatic ties with Israel under the Abraham Accord signed on August 13, 2020. This was the first normalisation of relations between an Arab country and Israel since that of Jordan in 1994. India wholeheartedly supported the normalisation of the ties between UAE and Israel.

Afghanistan and on-going incidents of terror attacks on minorities will be a major point of discussion with EAM Jaishankar also sharing the perspective of Central Asian Republics, whom he visited last week. It is understood that Afghanistan is headed for a food crisis with drought expected in the region including Iran and Central Asia in the coming months.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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