The sinister nexus between India and Israel

KARACHI:

In Israel, Narendra Modi has been crowned with the Knesset Medal, the first foreign leader to receive the highest parliamentary honour. The award is much more than a diplomatic feat: it rewards the Indian leader for his unwavering loyalty to Benjamin Netanyahu, a stance that, by Modi’s own standards, is not an anomaly.

However, what makes it surprising is the timing. Modi has once again sworn, in full view of the world, to support Israel, but in practice he has endorsed the scale of violence that UN experts and human rights organizations have described as tantamount to genocide. In doing so, the far-right Hindu leader has placed himself squarely at odds with much of the Global South, the same bloc he claims to be courting alliances, where public contempt for Israel’s 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 pointed to as the early stages of a possible genocide, not by Pakistan, but by Dr. Gregory Stanton, the world’s leading expert on genocide, whose model of the ten stages of genocide remains the global criterion for such atrocities.

By supporting the Israeli leader in the context of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, Modi has laid bare not only a sinister desire to justify what is quietly unfolding in occupied Kashmir during his rule, but also the striking similarities that, in many ways, present him as an ideological twin of Bibi Netanyahu. Both he and his Israeli counterpart, according to leading advocacy groups from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch, have been identified as leaders who actively repress populations, deny basic human rights, and occupy territories against the will of the people who live there.

In short, for years, Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu have followed a familiar playbook, to varying degrees, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that in Kashmir, Modi is doing to Kashmiris what Netanyahu has openly done to the people of Gaza. Together, these leaders are effectively the guardians of two of the world’s largest open-air prisons: one in Gaza and the other in Kashmir. One facet of this India-Israel nexus first emerged after October 7, 2023. As the Israel Defense Forces rampaged through Gaza, maiming civilians and massacring the young and old, India’s right-wing base, made up of Modi’s most devoted followers, was busy crafting anti-Palestinian disinformation, amplifying anything that painted the Palestinians as the villains. Marc Owen Jones, an 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 a step further and identified several verified Indian users of X at the center of the campaign. These “disinfluencers,” influencers who routinely spread disinformation, according to the platform, “mostly targeted Palestine negatively or supported Israel.” Here, as in other areas, New Delhi’s nefarious designs clearly intersect with Tel Aviv’s experience in influence operations. Israel has long demonstrated its capacity for this type of campaign; more recently, his 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 Israel’s airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin prison, an online network circulated deepfake videos; campaigns that TheMarker and Haaretz later revealed had been indirectly financed by Israel.

It is no exaggeration to suggest that India is tempted to follow a similar playbook in its neighbourhood. Since coming to power in 2014, Modi has called Pakistan, his country’s only nuclear-armed rival, a perennial thorn. Adopting Israeli-style influence campaigns in Pakistan’s news space would only serve their insatiable desire to sow chaos, discord and unrest across the country. More broadly, in the region, Modi and Netanyahu share another common ambition. Subtly (and not so subtly), New Delhi has already signaled its support for regime change plans in Iran long pushed by Netanyahu’s far-right government.

This profound turn toward Israel is not a surprise: the connection has taken years to establish. What is striking is that while Modi openly pledges loyalty 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 – regional leaders continue to welcome him with open arms, some even rolling out the red carpet, offering him strategic partnerships and granting him their highest national honors. It only raises questions that cannot be ignored: what, if any, are the Middle East’s own priorities when it comes to a genocide that continues to unfold in Gaza, even after the creation of the so-called peace junta? If Modi is willing to abandon India’s long-stated support for Palestine’s right to statehood, should the Middle East do the same? Should the region reward India for reinforcing Israel’s ongoing invasion of Palestinian territory? All that said, Narendra Modi’s “unwavering support” for Israel cannot be dismissed as routine diplomatic verbiage or mere sympathy without raising suspicions about the many sinister projects the two sides could pursue together, in addition to the decades of atrocities they have carried out in plain sight in Gaza and Kashmir.