Israel and India have joined forces in the fight terrorism and it is hoped that Israeli expertise in countering terrorism will help in tackling terrorism within India. It seems to have slipped everyone’s attention that Israel has failed to protect its citizens from terrorism. Israeli casualties feature regularly in headlines across the world. Militarism is a part of the Israeli society, leading to cycles of retribution that the State has plunged its people into. What, then, is the expertise India wants to borrow from Israel? Killing terrorists more efficiently seems to be the government’s preferred solution to terrorism, for which we do not need help from Israel.  The Punjab experience provides a blue print for a ‘successful’ counter terrorism drive.

What have been India’s gains from Sharon’s visit? India’s defence relationship with Israel has gone into a high gear. The US has made approving noises about how they welcome “their friends making friends with each other”. India has thrown off the shackles of its constraining Middle East policy. This has been projected as a maturating and sophistication of India’s foreign policy appreciating the increasingly realist nature of international politics. However, analysts holding this view cannot explain how India stands to gain from this proposed Indo-Israeli cooperation against terrorism. The nature of the terrorist threat to India and Israel are fundamentally different. While Israel is fighting against the Palestinians who were displaced to carve out its own existence; India is a secular state fighting to maintain its territorial integrity in the face of people’s alienation coupled with cross border terrorism in Kashmir. Outside Kashmir, terrorism in India is linked both with organized crime and politicization of religion.

Therefore, does India need to make common cause in the fight against terrorism with Israel that visits revenge on civilians? Ariel Sharon’s personal history as a brutal murderer of Palestinian refugees had been censured in Israel, but has made no impact on the Indian government. Hence, a parallel is being drawn between the BJP government’s atrocities on the Muslim minority in Gujarat and Israel’s brutal treatment of its religious minorities. It is arguable that Ariel Sharon is the elected leader of Israel and if the Arabs can do business with him, why not India?  The fact is that the Palestinians are forced to negotiate with Sharon as he is the Prime Minister of a state with which they have a dispute and they have no choice. But India does. It is unfortunate that India chose to honor Sharon as a hero in the war against terrorism disregarding the justified rage of the Arab community against his personal policy of murdering civilians.

Again, it could be argued that the days of taking a moral stand in international relations are over. Each nation looks after its own interests in the present unipolar world. Does this logic also dictate that foreign policy and domestic politics are unrelated, independent processes? India’s image as a democratic secular nation has taken a severe beating after the Gujarat riots. The subsequent denial of justice to the riot victims has intensified international criticism questioned India’s commitment to secularism and the rule of law. The spectacle of effusively welcoming a hardliner like Sharon does harm to India’s image and lowers the faith of the minorities in India’s secular institutions. Both these concerns can also be cynically disregarded as the US approves of India and Israel joining hands against global terrorism.

Let us also examine the assumption that India, Israel and the US are three embattled democracies must join forces in the war against terrorism. All three states have enacted tough legislations that abridge citizen’s rights. Following September 11, the US enacted the Patriot Law that severely curtails civil liberties of the American people who must give up personal freedom to protect freedom as interpreted by the Bush administration. Sharon’s government has barred Palestinians from occupied territories becoming citizens or holding resident permits if they marry Israeli citizens. Israel has also proposed to construct a wall around the West Bank to deter suicide bombers which will place fresh obstacles to the movement of Palestinians to and from the West Bank. India has enacted the controversial POTA which is being used in UP and Tamil Nadu to settle political scores.

The present dispensations in the US, India and Israel are united in their military approach to terrorism that only partially addresses the problem. In the process, the state is becoming more powerful at the cost of human rights and individual freedom.