The sinister nexus between India and Israel

KARACHI:

In Israel, Narendra Modi was crowned with the Knesset Medal, the first foreign leader to receive the highest parliamentary honor. The award is much more than a diplomatic showpiece: It recognizes the Indian leader for his unwavering allegiance to Benjamin Netanyahu, a stance that, by Modi’s own standards, is not an anomaly.

What is striking, however, is the timing. Modi once again vowed, in the eyes of the world, to support Israel, but he actually endorsed the scale of violence that U.N. experts and human rights organizations have described as genocide. In doing so, the far-right Hindu leader has positioned himself squarely at odds with much of the global South – the same bloc he claims to court for alliances, where public contempt for the Israeli attack on the Palestinians runs deep.

While Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court, has little to lose in reputation, Modi is still not persona non grata – even though his actions in occupied Kashmir and his efforts to suppress genuine human rights concerns in the Valley have been flagged as the early stages of possible genocide, not by Pakistan, but by Dr. Gregory Stanton, the world’s leading genocide expert, whose Ten Stages of Genocide model remains the world’s benchmark for such atrocities.

In supporting the Israeli leader amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Modi has laid bare not only a sinister desire to justify what is quietly unfolding in occupied Kashmir under his watch, but also the striking similarities that in many ways make him seem like an ideological twin of Bibi Netanyahu. According to leading advocacy groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, he and his Israeli counterpart have been identified as leaders actively repressing populations, denying basic human rights and occupying territory against the will of the people living there.

In short, for years, Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu have followed a familiar strategy, to varying degrees, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that in Kashmir, Modi is doing to Kashmiris what Netanyahu openly did to the people of Gaza. Together, these leaders are effectively the directors of two of the largest open-air prisons in the world – one in Gaza, the other in Kashmir. One facet of this India-Israel bond first emerged in the wake of October 7, 2023. While the Israeli army was razing Gaza, mutilating civilians and massacring young and old, India’s right-wing base, made up of Modi’s most devoted supporters, was busy crafting anti-Palestinian disinformation, amplifying anything that portrayed Palestinians as villains. Marc Owen Jones, associate professor of media analysis at Northwestern University in Qatar, laid out much of this in an Al Jazeera analysis published the same year.

BOOM, one of India’s leading fact-checking organizations, went further by identifying several verified Indian X-users at the heart of the campaign. These “disinfluencers” – influencers who regularly spread misinformation, according to the platform, “primarily targeted Palestine in a negative way or supported Israel.” Here, as in other areas, New Delhi’s nefarious designs intersect perfectly with Tel Aviv’s expertise in influence operations. Israel has long demonstrated its capacity to carry out such campaigns; more recently, its disinformation efforts helped spark protests in Iran. The credibility of this claim was confirmed last year when Haaretz, the Tel Aviv-based newspaper, reported that during Israeli airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin prison, an online network distributed fake videos – campaigns later revealed by TheMarker and Haaretz to have been indirectly funded by Israel.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that India is tempted to follow a similar strategy in its neighborhood. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has made Pakistan – his country’s only nuclear-armed rival – a perennial thorn. Embracing Israeli-style influence campaigns in Pakistan’s information space would only serve its insatiable desire to sow chaos, discord and unrest across the country. More broadly in the region, Modi and Netanyahu share another common ambition. In a subtle – and not so subtle – way, New Delhi has already signaled its support for plans for regime change in Iran long advanced by Netanyahu’s far-right government.

This profound pivot toward Israel is no surprise: it took years to establish this connection. What is striking is that while Modi openly pledges allegiance to Netanyahu – who, since the start of the brutal war in Gaza, has launched military strikes in six countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran and even Qatar – the region’s leaders continue to welcome him with open arms, some even rolling out the red carpet for him, offering him strategic partnerships and bestowing upon him their highest national honors. This only raises questions that cannot be ignored: What, if any, are the Middle East’s priorities in the face of the genocide that continues to unfold in Gaza, even after the creation of the so-called peace council? If Modi is willing to abandon India’s long-standing support for Palestine’s right to statehood, should the Middle East follow suit? Should the region reward India for supporting Israel’s continued encroachment into Palestinian territory? That said, Narendra Modi’s “unwavering support” for Israel cannot be dismissed as routine diplomatic talk or mere sympathy without raising suspicions about the many sinister projects the two sides may be pursuing together – in addition to the decades of atrocities they have carried out in plain sight in Gaza and Kashmir.