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India, Israel and the US |
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Written by Mike Marqusee
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Saturday, 24 June 2006 |
by Mike Marqusee, Znet Magazine, June 18, 2006
Presumably because I’m Jewish and write about India, I received an
invitation to a ‘Jewish-Indian Reception’ held earlier this year at
Columbia University in New York.
“Did you know that Jews have
lived in India for over 2000 years without any signs of Anti-Semitism?”
the invitation began. “Did you know that annual bi-lateral trade
between India and Israel reached $2.7 billion this past year?
Interested in learning more about the historical, cultural, and
political connections and similarities between Jewish and Indian
Americans? Join us for a night of great speakers ...”
These
speakers included the Indian Consul-General, the Israeli Deputy-Consul
General and Congressman Gary Ackerman. The event was organised by a
pro-Israel student group called LionPAC, with support from the South
Asian Law Students Association, among others. It offers a microcosm of
the burgeoning India-Israel-US axis, a phenomenon supporters of the
Palestinian cause need to be more aware of.
Let’s start with
Gary Ackerman, the ranking Democrat on the House International
Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. A loud voice
for Israel on Capitol Hill, Ackerman’s career “highlights”, according
to his website, include “authoring legislation that required President
Bush to impose sanctions against the Palestinian Authority”. He
championed the Israeli military offensive of spring 2002, and denounced
the ICJ finding on the wall as “shameful”.
Ackerman is also a
Congressional point-man for the “India lobby”. A former chairman of the
Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, he unequivocally
backs India on Kashmir, lays all the blame for the conflict there on
Pakistan and pushes for increased US-India arms trade and military
collaboration.
In 2003, Ackerman helped organise the first-ever
joint Capitol Hill forum between AIPAC and AJC, on the one side, and
the newly formed US Indian Political Action Committee, on the other.
Ackerman stressed the two countries’ common concerns: Israel, he said,
was “surrounded by 120 million Muslims” while “ India has 120 million
Muslims [within]”. Last year, he was the leading Democratic sponsor of
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s address to a joint session of
Congress.
Then there’s LionPAC, the main pro-Israel group at
Columbia. A couple of years ago LionPAC members played a key role in
the documentary film ‘Conduct Unbecoming’, in which it was alleged that
Jews and supporters of Israel at Columbia faced systematic intimidation
and bias, and which slandered a number of Columbia professors as
anti-semites. The ensuing uproar led the university to appoint a
committee of investigation, which, in due course, dismissed the film’s
allegations and reprimanded the methods used by the film-makers.
LionPAC is clearly in need of campus allies and the reception was an
attempt to seek friends among just about the only people of colour at
Columbia for whom Israel is not anathema – career-minded students of
Indian origin.
According to the Columbia Spectator, “Around 200
people, mostly undergraduate and graduate students,” attended the
reception. The speakers “highlighted... the similarities between Jewish
and Indian values and culture, and the shared efforts by the US, India,
and Israel to combat terrorism.”
Note how “values”, “cultures”,
states and geo-politics are interwoven here. The existence of coherent
“Indian” or “Jewish” value systems or cultures is casually assumed, and
in each case casually attached to a state. These two entities are then
somehow said to have “similarities” and the whole package is tied up
with the help of the USA and the “war on terror”.
Back in the
days of the freedom struggle, Gandhi and the Indian National Congress
opposed the creation of a ‘Jewish National Home’ in Palestine. Nehru
insightfully analysed the relationship between Zionism, Arab
Nationalism and British imperialism. Newly-independent India voted
against the UN Palestine partition plan in 1947 and the admission of
Israel to the UN in 1949. As a leading force in the Non-Aligned
Movement, India backed anti-colonial movements in the middle-east and
enjoyed close links with Nasser’s Egypt.
Nonetheless, a
clandestine relationship with Israel developed, thanks in part to
Mossad, which acted as an unofficial – and deniable – diplomatic
courier. During the 1971 war with Pakistan, Israel supplied India with
mortars and ammunition. In the following years, intelligence
collaboration was established, with an exchange of information about
Pakistan, which at that time was building alliances with Arab regimes
in the Middle East. In the late 1980s, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi,
keen on improving relations with the US, began the process of upgrading
ties with Israel. As the Indian press put it at the time, “The road to
Washington passes through Tel Aviv.”
Since full diplomatic
relations were established in 1992, military and commercial links have
grown exponentially. The process escalated under the right-wing BJP-led
government of 1998-2004. The BJP is the political wing of the Sangh
Parivar, the family of organisations dedicated to the ideology of
Hindutva (roughly, ‘Hinduness’): an authoritarian, Hindu supremacist,
virulently anti-Muslim movement. Its founders were admirers of Hitler
and Mussolini, but it also has a long history of support for Israel and
Zionism.
In many respects, Hindutva and Zionism are natural
bedfellows. Both depict the entities they claim to represent as
simultaneously national and religious. Both claim to be the sole
authentic spokespersons for these entities (Hindu and Jewish). Both
share an ambivalent (to say the least) historic relationship with
British colonialism. Both appeal to an affluent diaspora. And, most
importantly at the moment, both share a designated enemy (‘Muslim
terrorism’).
During the Kargil War of 1999 (in which India and
Pakistani troops clashed in Kashmir), Israel supplied India, at 24
hours notice, with high altitude surveillance vehicles and laser-guided
systems. In the wake of 9/11, the alliance was deepened, with Hindutva
and Zionist world-views dovetailing snugly with the US war on terror.
In May 2003, India’s then National Security Adviser Brajesh Misra
spelled out the strategy in an address to the American Jewish Congress,
in which he pleaded for a “Tel Aviv-New Delhi-Washington” axis. A few
months later, Ariel Sharon arrived in India as an hounoured guest.
When
a Congress-led coalition replaced the BJP after the 2004 elections, its
left supporters urged it to abandon the previous government’s foreign
policy, notably the embrace of Israel and the USA. They have been
ignored. The government has signed deals with the US for military
purchases, joint military exercises and most recently, in the course of
Bush’s state visit, nuclear collaboration. In February, India abandoned
Iran at the IAEA, voting with the US to refer the country – usually
considered one of India’s major strategic allies - to the Security
Council.
At the same time, the link with Israel has been
consolidated. In the course of 2005, India’s Ministers of Science and
Technology, Commerce and Industry, and Agriculture and Food all visited
Israel, holding high-level meetings with political and business
leaders. In February 2006, Israel’s National Security Council Chairman
Giora Eiland was welcomed in Delhi.
Israel is now the second
largest supplier of arms to India (after Russia). It provides India
with missile radar, border monitoring equipment, night vision devices,
the new Phalcon reconnaissance aircraft, among other items. India, in
turn, is the biggest purchaser of high-tech Israeli weapons and
accounts for almost half of Israel’s arms exports. In addition, several
thousand Indian soldiers have received “anti-insurgency training” in
Israel.
In a speech at Tel Aviv University in March, the Indian
Ambassador described India and Israel as “heirs to great and ancient
civilizations” which “emerged from foreign domination as independent
nations around the middle of the last century” and whose “historical
interaction... is vividly embodied in the presence of Judaism in India
for over 1600 years.”
While the ambassador was speaking in Tel
Aviv, the Jewish-Indian reception was being held in New York, knitting
together the same alliance and using the same themes. The Indian
presence in the USA is highly diverse (many are Muslims), but an
affluent, suburban constituency within it identifies with the Indian
right and more broadly with Indian elite aspirations for economic and
military status. Many see American Jews as the “model minority” and
seek to emulate their political clout. A number have openly declared
their intention of constructing a lobby similar to the Israel lobby.
The attraction has been reciprocal. The American Jewish Committee is
soon to open an office in New Delhi.
It’s ironic that Indian
Jews should find themselves used as a lynch-pin in this marriage of
convenience. Of course, India’s population is so diverse, its diaspora
so far flung, that it can claim some kind of relationship with almost
anyone anywhere. India’s small Jewish communities were themselves
highly diverse – in language, ritual, origin - but today they number
merely 6000 (out of a population of one billion). During the 50s and
60s, most Indian Jews went to Israel, many to the US. The motives were
mainly economic. The niche they had occupied collapsed after
independence.
Although there’s no history of anti-semitism in
India, it’s striking that one of the country’s best-selling books is
Mein Kampf, openly available at bookshops, stationers and street
stalls. One young man pursuing a degree in business administration
explained that the book was popular because it was “an excellent
management text”. Ironically, the aspirant bourgeoisie buying Mein
Kampf is precisely that section of Indian society most keen on the
alliance with Israel. The mentality is summed up by a catchphrase
currently favoured by India’s foreign policy-makers: “Non-alignment is
for losers.”
Manmohan Singh described India’s deal with the US
and its vote against Iran as acts of “enlightened self-interest”. The
same excuse is applied to the link with Israel. The reality is that
India’s betrayal of the Palestinians, however profitable for a few, is
not remotely in the interest of the vast Indian majority. It certainly
diminishes India’s status and influence in the developing world. What
price favor in Washington?
Reprinted from
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10445 |
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Friday, 22 August 2008